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Rating: When I was little, I was eager for the cartoon "Superauto Mac 5", one of the oldest Japanese series broadcast in Italy and the work of that relatively unknown genius, the late Yoshida Tatsuo; the deus ex machina, it's quite fitting to say here, of the small production house Tatsunoko: to name a few, Judo Boy, Kyashan, Hurricane Polymar, the Gatchaman, Tekkaman, Yattaman, and so on. He died young, more or less when me and the entire generation of Italians who idolized most of his characters were born, keeping their memory alive even thirty years after his ascent to the Empyrean of cartoonists.
All of Yoshida's heroes share common traits: they emphasize the idea of the traditional lone hero, so dear to Japanese tradition (and then to Kurosawa, leading to Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns with Clint), so invested in fulfilling his mission and asserting his ethical values that he's ready to sacrifice even his life (Kyashan, Tekkaman, partly the Gatchaman). Sometimes the tradition is revisited in an ironic key, softening the hero's spirit of sacrifice in the accidents of life itself and the fact that life is, after all, not so serious that it deserves the self-destruction of someone who wants to take it seriously at any cost, contrary to Mishima Yukio (masterful, in this sense, are Hurricane Polymar and Yattaman).
The Wachowsky brothers' film, already authors of the Matrix trilogy (the fourth episode will be dedicated to Materazzi's life), pays homage to Yoshida with this "Speed Racer" (saw it last night in an almost deserted cinema), directly inspired by the "Superauto Mac 5" series, where it tells the story of the driver Speed and his family (a father who is an artisanal vehicle constructor, a stay-at-home mother, a younger brother, a domesticated chimpanzee, a girlfriend, a mechanic), dealing with the ruthless and corrupt world of racing, and with a mysterious driver (Racer X) who, on the good side, strongly resembles the protagonist's deceased brother.
In my opinion, the homage is half successful: it is a technically extremely imaginative film, thanks to the massive use of computer graphics, even whirlwind and compulsive in the representation of races (I left the cinema feeling dizzy), and really interesting regarding the extreme use of colors and their possible combinations: the effect is like a Burton's Willy Wonka on hallucinogens, or an afternoon spent playing Super Mario Kart or something similar that is so trendy among teenagers (to whom the film definitely nods, not being able to rely solely on Yoshida's nostalgics).
By exploiting the inherent irony in some Tatsunoko cartoons (to be honest, not from the original series the film is based on), the Wachowskys turn the story into the surreal also concerning the characterization of characters (especially the really cartoonish villains), seasoning everything with abundant doses of comedy and demythologizing violence (self-ironic references to Matrix and fights seen in those films are not scarce). Splendid are the cameos and inserts of Speed's younger brother and the chimpanzee, to whom the film's end credits are dedicated. The good guys are perhaps painted in a predictable and uniform way, so the protagonist himself appears rather faded and one-dimensional, as do the parents and girlfriend (the actors' performances are good, though: Emile Hirsch, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, and Christina Ricci, among others).
However, the film shows evident flaws in the plot development (the first part is decidedly boring, the second lively but with a sense of déjà vu), the massive use of computer graphics risks removing even the slightest - necessary - authenticity from the story, also tiring the viewer's eyes. The product therefore seems to be a kind of exercise in style, perhaps blurring the intimate melancholy that shone through all of Yoshida's cartoons - even the comedic ones - similar to that which remains in the current over-thirty-somethings when, in search of their lost childhood, they believe they find it in a half-empty cinema.
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