(2008) Fast and furious, futuristic, physics-defying T-180s equipped with weapons (such as spearhooks) careen, sidewind, leap on jumpers, bashing one another like bumper cars, at 400 mph around amusement-park racetracks (raised roadways rising to rollercoaster heights), in live-action on digitally designed super-racecourses in the Wachowski brothers' family-fare film (with parental guidance for some strong language). The cars run on a sci-fi fuel source other than fossil fuels, with one comment claiming the fuel mixture was of "sunshine and farts."

With two years in the making, employing 250 full-time digital-designers taking 500 digital shots on 100 terabytes of film, Andy and Larry co-wrote, directed, and produced this high-energy, breakthrough-style-of-CGI vehicle with an engine powered by violence, based on Tatsuo Yoshida's animated series.

The Racers - Pops (John Goodman), Mom (Susan Sarandon), Speed (Emile Hirsch), young Spritle (Pailie Litt) with his pet chimp Chim Chim - are really into building fantastic racecars and racing. Especially Speed with his natural instincts and instruction from his older brother Rex (Scott Porter), before a fatal accident under mysterious circumstances, is totally obsessed with winning in his Mach 5 on Thunderhead, except for occasional romantic moments with his cute girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci), who likes to say "Cool beans."

After nearly breaking his brother's speed record of eight year earlier at Thunderhead - recalling Rex's last words not to believe what people would later say about him, such as being "one of the dirtiest racers in the world" - Speed becomes a desirable commodity for various sponsors in anticipation of his competing in the Grand Prix. One in particular, E.P. Royalton (Roger Allam) of Royalton Inc, pursues the Racer family with tantalizing offers of his corporation's state-of-the-art resources and services.

But when Speed declines, preferring to remain with his family's Racer Motors - sponsors, according to the Racers' worldview, for whom the sport is religion, are like the devil - Royalton informs the novice that racing isn't a sport but a business, such that all of the major car races and drivers are fixed and controlled by moneyed interests: "All that matters is power and the unassailable might of money." Royalton then threatens the youth: "You won't even finish the race."

Snake Oiler, driving for Royalton, uses every dirty trick at his disposal during the Fuji Helexicon. Following a disappointing defeat, the Racers in their home are visited by Inspector Detector (Benno Fürmann), a CIB security agent, and Racer X (Matthew Fox), a mysterious driver who wears a mask, seeking help from Speed to connect Cruncher Block and his thugs with Royalton by his becoming the third member of the Hydra-Cell team of drivers, including Taejo Togokahn (Rain), whose father's Japanese company will sponsor them, for the Casa Cristo 5,000-km cross-country rally.

While a win could earn Speed a dreamed-for entrance into the 91st Grand Prix, Pops is adamantly against his son's racing in what is regarded as a deathtrap, where Rex met his untimely end. Trixie provides an alibi; ninjas attack the Racers (but the clan has expertise in kung fu); Speed performs "car-fu" across the desert and up into the narrow, mountainous, twisting, icy roads leading to the Crucible. Yet even after crossing the finish line first, a double-crossing of business interests confounds Speed's victory.

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Copyright © 2010 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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