No Need for Speed

No Need for Speed

May 14

I’ve done this before and you probably have, too. When someone professes to dislike a piece of entertainment that you happen to enjoy quite muchly, you come up for some excuse specific to the disliker that explains their dislike. For example, I’ve heard that I do not like The Phantom Menace not because it’s shitty, but because it’s “a kids’ movie.” Similarly, when a friend and I professed our general hatred for Into the Wild, we were told by various people that we did not enjoy it because 1) we’re too young! and 2) we’re girls and 3) we hate camping.

I’m having kind of a similar thing with Speed Racer. A lot of folks in the geekscape have come out heavily for this movie, rallying against the mean ol’ critics who didn’t get it.

Dudes, dudettes, fellow geekly brothers and sisters, I’m sorry, but Speed Racer was SO FUCKING BORING.

And here are a few rationales folks might offer for me not liking it.

1) The TPM defense, aka “It’s a kids’ movie!”

Yes, OK. You know what? All the kids in my theater were similarly disgruntled. They sat still for the races and that’s it. Compare that with something like Ratatouille, where the wee ones were simply too entranced to do anything but watch. I actually would have liked Speed Racer more if it had just decided to be a straight-up kids’ movie, the plotty scenes simply connective tissue between the wham-bang-awesome action. Instead, there’s a lot of talking and flashbacking and stuff that somehow makes for over two hours of uninteresting film.

2) It’s not for me! I am not the target audience, obviously.

You guys? I am SO the target audience! I was psyched for this movie. I love bright colors and whizzy kitsch and fun-for-the-sake-of-fun and girls in pink helicopters. Like, the Puffy AmiYumi theme song for Teen Titans? I love that! This movie should have been the visual equivalent of that. Instead, it’s a lazy mess. It didn’t feel, to me, like anyone was having fun. It wants to take off and be something, but it just sits there and coasts on visual prowess. I wasn’t joking when I Twittered about falling asleep. I actually did drop out and take a snore-y, drooly nap.

3) I didn’t get it! I didn’t understand what they were trying to do!

I did! I totally did! I just didn’t like it.

That, I guess, is sort of the heart and guts of what I’m trying to say, here: you can get something and still not like it. Or fall asleep to it. Speed Racer? I just don’t like you. Sorry.