When I examine the moral integrity of artwork, I must also give considerable effort into mirroring the views of that artwork with the method of its creator, particularly when considering art that questions or criticizes extant power structures. The Wachowskis deal often with themes of government control, social and philosophical identity, best described as in the spirit of anarchy. While on the surface a diatribe of consumerism and the power of money over fairness, the Wachowski's Speed Racer through its stylized action and marketing strategy achieves in essence the opposite desired effect.
First off, the movie's lofty goals to adapt an anime for a family market while lambasting garish commercialism is undercut by its myopic production design and editing. Hoping to place itself in a universal narrative space unencumbered by objective spatial placement, the film frequently relies on linear camera movement (either through parallax or whip-pans) to transitioning between character and space. Only achievable through egregious use of green screen and computer-generated special effects, it calls into the question where Warner Bros. and their enormous post-production team would fit in to the efficient Racer family business. Children learn best by example and all sense of moral direction--hell, even all sense of racing direction--is lost between one millisecond-long hallucinatory edit and the next. Many viewers also found the epileptic over-editing irksome, proving that bespectacled macro-budget blockbusters are not always a sure fire way to win layparents and their kids.
When it bombed over the summer, Warner Bros. were sure to recoup their loss through merchandising, which I find curiously hypocritical. Not unlike Arnold Royalton's nefarious plot ensure that he will always win in the end, number six with a bullet American mega-corporation is using bright, attention-grabbing knick-knackery to bring kids back to the theatre again and again, of course only attainable through astronomically wide integration. In the words of Royalton himself, Warner Bros. embraces what racing (at least in the filmmaking sector) is all about: "it has nothing to do with cars or drivers, all that matters is power and the unassailable might of money." Somewhere on the back burner, Warner Bros. knew that they would win; it had already been decided.
Though quite unique and extraordinary for its post-productive play with space and identity, Speed Racer begs the question of how redemptive a studio can be without tipping its own scales. Where industrious creativity abound, so also does hypocrisy in this magnanimous CGI movie that attempts to criticize the types of huge corporations that rig the game, ultimately swaying children with bioluminescent lures instead of genuine persuasion.
