Short of giving the film away for free, I don’t know what else Warner Brothers can do to convince folks that Speed Racer is, as Lord Joel Silver puts it, “fresh and unique”. Perhaps a loop of Christina Ricci undoing her suspenders would do the trick. Kids dig a disrobing Ricci.
I’m apparently in the extreme minority in thinking that Speed Racer looks bonkers in a borderline brilliant way, but how can you not love that shot of Speed deploying hydraulics to bounce over a pursuing car, which then passes underneath Speed and seemingly through the lens of the camera (windshield, human driver and all)? I’m still a little concerned that we’re not seeing completely finished sequences (without which I’m not entirely sure how this mayhem is going to cut together), but the gonzo artistry on display is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It might add up to a lot of cacophony, but at least it won’t be half-assed political posturing like the mis-adapted V for Vendetta.
A five-minute preview might seem excessive, and, to be honest, there’s very little in this Yahoo! reel that we haven’t seen in one of the multitude of trailers currently available online. Really, it comes down to Ricci and the suspenders. Doesn’t it always?