SPEED RACER

Written and Directed by The Wachowski Brothers
Starring Emile Hirsch, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox and Christina Ricci


Mom: When I go to the races, I go to watch you make art. It’s beautiful and inspiring and everything that art should be.

A young Speed, as in Racer, sits at the back of his elementary school classroom, his foot practically tapping straight through the linoleum floor. It’s not just that he can’t sit still or focus on anything; it’s worse than that. He may be there in that room but this is in a purely physical sense of the word. Speed is beyond the snail pace of every day life and the majority of the people that shuffle their feet to and from here and there while draped in blandness. Speed knows he’s going to burn past everyone around him and he knows exactly how he’s going to do it. Why then does he have to sit here and wait to figure it all out when he already has? It’s as though the world is holding him back. Fire that starter gun already and get this race underway!


Speed isn’t the only one itching to get out of his seat. As soon as the kaleidoscope of candy coating colors graces the screen, the mysterious and revolutionary directing team known as the Wachowski Brothers (separately they are Andy and Larry), busts their remake of the popular 1960’s Japanese anime, SPEED RACER, out of the gate and into the race. As the opening race erupts into an explosion of every bright color imaginable, it feels as though the Wachowski’s are floating above it all and magically weaving all the elements together – from the extreme close-up’s of wheels spinning to the character profiles wiping across the screen in transition – to create a new live action animation hybrid. The enthusiastic race crowd cheers with fervor as the now grown Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) cruises past the competition and asserts himself as a genuine talent. Speed is seemingly unstoppable. Only, when the dust settles and the feeling of being immersed in a video game you’ve never played before comes to a halt, you realize the Wachowski’s have gone on ahead without you.


SPEED RACER most certainly solidifies the Wachowki’s, the people who gave the world THE MATRIX – and nothing else since – as two of the most innovative filmmakers working today. Not only do they see things in a way that most of us only see in our dreams and forget once our eyes are open but they know how to put all the pieces together to make their visions a reality. The danger with being ahead of your time is that most everyone else is not. You run the risk then of creating something that may be genius in its own right but is rendered entirely meaningless if no one cares to bask in its glow. While the Wachowski’s strive to get every detail just right, a task that would have been near impossible if it weren’t for the talented cast, they slip off track without realizing. There seems to be more focus on orchestrating the elements that should amount to the appropriate level of fun instead of simple fun being had.


I don’t think the Wachowki’s are the problem though. They truly outdid themselves visually with SPEED RACER. In a time when so many animated films attempt to look as realistic as possible, they decided to go against the traffic and make reality look entirely animated. I think the problem is the content. Recreating a cheaply animated series from another country and another era may be impressive from a visual standpoint but the content itself can be just as hollow as it once was if the translation never moves past the point of literal. Without anything of true substantial value to sink your teeth into, you’re left with an abundance of sugar. While SPEED RACER is certainly sweet to start, your teeth may be slightly rotten by the time you cross the finish line.

THE INVASION

Written by Dave Kajganich
Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel


Yorish: A veneer of civility hides our own self-interest. That is the nature of our world, yes?

When you live in a world where violence is the answer to so many conflicts and misunderstandings, manifesting itself as war or hate crimes or road rage, it is easy to see aggression as an instinctual human behaviour. We don’t like to acknowledge it as such but we certainly can’t pretend it isn’t there. In response, we humans do what we can to keep these impulses under control. Some of us meditate; some of us medicate. We strive to be better people and better people don’t give in to their anger. In Oliver Hirschbiegel’s THE INVASION (a remake of the 1956 classic, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS), a unique opportunity is given to humanity. You are first infected with an alien genetic code. Then, when you fall into REM sleep, your genetic code is reprogrammed. You wake up feeling refreshed and like yourself, with all your memories and knowledge in tact. There is just one tiny difference. There is no more hate. Only humanity rejects this opportunity despite all their previous efforts to accomplish exactly this. While this conundrum might make THE INVASION insightful, it certainly doesn’t make it necessary. After all, the original already made that point over fifty years ago.


I suppose the rational was to bring attention to all that we have in place today to help numb our senses. THE INVASION is determined to assert itself as a timely film while distancing itself from its B-movie roots. In the original, the alien epidemic makes its way to neighboring towns with farmers making their deliveries. Flash forward to 2007 and the disease is traveling the globe through contaminated e-bay purchases. Granted, times are more complicated than they used to be. Nicole Kidman’s Carol Bennell text messages her son, Oliver (Jackson Bond), to remind him to take his anti-anxiety medication before bed while he stays with his father for the first time after his parents’ divorce. Between all that, the portable video games and seemingly endless hours of television watching, there are plenty of ways to numb the senses. Perhaps Hirschbiegel wanted to modernize BODY SNATCHERS into a contemporary thriller to shake people up, to show that we all need a good smack in the face to wake ourselves from our trances. After all, if Carol Bennell is fighting her hardest to hold on to the spirit inside of her, why have we allowed our modern world, read aliens, to dull our potential? To make that point though, THE INVASION would have to actually be thrilling.


Aside from a few unexpected scares, THE INVASION is pretty low on chills. In fact, it often feels as though the film is having its own crisis of identity, bouncing back between a polished, intellectual suspense piece and an explosive, effects-heavy action flick. This might have something to do with the number of hands involved in the production. Hirshbiegel’s original cut was said to be tepid and drawn out. The producers, who had already sunk a lot of money into the film, called in bigger boys to tweak it here and there into something with a bit more pulse. The Wachowski Brothers (THE MATRIX) were brought in for rewrites and James McTeigue (V FOR VENDETTA) was hired to shoot new footage. Without seeing Hirschbiegel’s original product, it’s impossible to say for certain whether they helped or hurt the final version but THE INVASION’s visual aesthetic is probably the strongest thing it has going. Slick picture and sharp edits that play with time and space add a much-needed edge to a story that has been dulled by an air of self-importance. The final cut is well paced and smooth but the film’s salvation was clearly more important than creating meaning in humanity saving itself.


It’s funny when you think about. THE INVASION warns us of what might lie ahead if we continue to allow our modern conveniences to run and control our lives. If we would just think less about everything, than it wouldn’t bother us so much but the sacrifice is human development and progress. Yet, in order to actually enjoy THE INVASION, one has to do exactly that – stop fighting, shut off and allow the reprogramming to happen.

V FOR VENDETTA

Written by Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski
Directed by James McTeigue

“I wish I wasn’t afraid all the time but … I am.” A young lady speaks these words to a man in a mask who has imprisoned her in his home. This time in captivity is the most free she has ever felt. London waits outside these walls, as does her job, her friends and what she calls home. The insides of these walls are lined with art; the room is filled with history, music, colour, life. The mask the man is wearing is a Guy Fawkes mask, in honour of the man who once plotted to blow up the parliament building in London as part of a Catholic plot to overthrow the British government. The man behind the mask, known simply as V, plans to finish what Fawkes started centuries before and blow up parliament in the name of the British people so that they can reclaim the freedoms of life they gave up to their government out of fear years before. While the government and media, naturally controlled by the government, proclaim V a terrorist, V sees himself more as an artist. For V, the artist is one who uses lies to tell the truth while politicians use lies to cover the truth up. The men behind this brave film clearly feel the same as they make a terrorist into a sympathetic protagonist and draw undeniable lines between the ruling British government of V’s world and the current political relationship of the United States government and it’s people. As writers, the Wachowski brothers choose to highlight fear as the motivating factor in people’s lives but go so far as to implicate the government as the major perpetuator of that fear. This is not a fresh accusation but the Wachowski’s go boldly further to accuse the government, fictional or otherwise, of not only maintaining a stronghold on it’s people through fear but originating that fear to begin with, subsequently forcing the people to abandon the original motivating factor in their lives, love.

The frightened young lady being held captive by V is Evey (Natalie Portman). Director James McTeigue, longtime protégé of the Wachowski’s, instantly links Evey and V together in the opening sequence of the film by juxtaposing the two characters getting ready for their evening. They are both fixing themselves in the mirror, putting on boots. They both watch the same television news program and both shut it off at the same obnoxious point in the commentator’s monologue. They are both putting on their armour to protect themselves in the night, her from harm, him from human connection, and they both have similar views and ideals. The major difference, she’s going out to visit a colleague and he’s going out to blow up a building. As Evey, Portman is composed and confident. Throughout the course of the film, her character learns to open eyes that have been closed in fear since she was a small child when she witnessed her parents’ abduction by a government task force. With her eyes wide open, she can finally stare fear down and see there is a grander design that she is but a small yet vital part of. Hugo Weaving plays the role of V although it may be more appropriate to say the role of V is voiced by Weaving, as we never see him without his mask. Weaving’s delivery is both eloquent and polite making for a poetic and charming terrorist. Together, V and Evey are a delightful couple. McTeigue puts them in very simple and close situations, like sharing a breakfast V prepares for her or cozying up on the couch to watch V’s favorite film, “The Count of Monte Christo”, which Evey enjoys but finds sad as the hero chooses duty over love.


Evey’s quest is in all of us and we all must overcome our fear, as must she. Placing the viewer on par with a terrorist and his apprentice is what makes V FOR VENDETTA so poignant and effective. At a critical moment in Evey’s journey, which can also be ours, she must give herself over to faith and allow herself to be the person she wants to be. Her future self must choose to leave her present self behind her for the present self is too heavily controlled by her past to do what needs to be done to effectuate change. Explosions will ensue and life will be forever changed. It is the change that we cannot fear for we have sacrificed so much of ourselves to that fear. V FOR VENDETTA is dark and bleak. The citizens need a deep extremism, shown here in a stylized pairing of bombs and fireworks set to Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture”, to wake them from their complacency. This is where my fears come into play. I fear that we are far too comfortable, far too afraid, and far too apathetic to respond to the call to overthrow those who impede our growth as individuals and as a species. I fear we believe change will come but that it will just happen without any work on our part at all.

V FOR VENDETTA is playful and cheeky. It is exciting and insightful. It can be very wordy but I like wordy. Ultimately, its very root is fearless and that bravery will energize and invigorate the viewer.