RACING CERT
Last updated 11:38, Thursday, 08 May 2008
SPEED RACER (PG, 135 mins) Family/Action/Drama/Comedy/Romance. Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, Matthew Fox, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Scott Porter, Roger Allam, Paulie Litt, Rain. Directors: Andy & Larry WachowskiBased on the Japanese animated series, Speed Racer signals the return of Andy and Larry Wachowski, the publicity-shy brothers who pioneered ’bullet time’ in The Matrix trilogy.DOOMSDAY (18, 108 mins) Action/Horror. Rhona Mitra, Malcolm McDowell, Bob Hoskins, Sean Pertwee, Alexander Siddig, Adrian Lester, Darren Morfitt, Craig Conway. Director: Neil Marshall.If you were in Glasgow on April 3 this year, then we have some alarming news: you’re doomed! The Scottish city was the epicentre of an outbreak of the deadly Reaper virus, which ravages the body and leads to liquefaction of the internal organs.
There are souped-up thrills here too, set in a retro-futuristic world of high-speed motor sport on outrageous racetracks littered with gravity-defying banks and stomach churning turns.
The Wachowskis put the pedal to the metal from the opening frame, conjuring a comic book universe of retina-searing colour and neon that seamlessly melds live action with digital environs. Production designer Owen Paterson saturates the screen with every conceivable combination of rich, primary hues.
The Racer family home is a triumph of orange, turquoise and fuchsia, contrasting brilliantly with the hero’s white leather jumpsuit.
On large format IMAX screens especially, this is a non-stop assault on the senses. Older viewers may want to take their sunglasses.
In a cute nod to the film’s anime origins, the Wachowskis imagine fight sequences as frames of hand-drawn cartoons.
Technically at least, Speed Racer is a triumph, although frenetic editing reduces segments of some set pieces to a blur.
However, under the bonnet, the screenplay needs some fine-tuning to allow performances to stand out against all that spectacular, twinkling background detail.
Speed Racer (Hirsch) is a demon behind the wheel of his Mach 5, designed by his father Pops (Goodman); so good that Royalton Industries, run by the Machiavellian E.P. Arnold Royalton (Allam), offers Speed a lucrative sponsorship deal.
Speed Racer is a high-octane, turbo-charged blast for kids, with enough breathtaking action sequences to satisfy even the most demanding adrenaline junkie.
Unfortunately for experienced drivers, the Wachowskis forget to put sufficient genuine emotion in the tank and their film is several laps too long at 135 minutes.
Hirsch, Sarandon and co play their roles with absolute seriousness while Allam’s pantomime villain is almost as much fun as Speed’s trouble-seeking little brother Spritle (Litt) and his animal sidekick Chim-Chim.
This is very much a spectacle for the entire family.
An encounter with a ninja death squad is played for laughs and when Speed and Trixie pucker up, Spritle warns fellow youngsters that “the following image may be unsuitable for the inoculated or cootie-sensitive viewers”.
DAMON SMITH
The Labour government will respond swiftly and decisively – for once – by constructing a reinforced steel wall with sentry guns along Scotland’s border, separating an entire nation from the rest of the UK.
Sacrifice five million innocent people to safeguard the world.
The repercussions will be horrendous: families torn apart, military-authorised culling of the infected, and a global shortage of malt whisky and lovely, buttery shortbread.
So begins the nightmarish scenario of Doomsday, a post-apocalyptic action romp with echoes of 28 Days Later and, worryingly, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
Writer-director Neil Marshall’s appetite for on-screen carnage, whetted in his first two films Dog Soldiers and The Descent, is sated here with dismemberment and decapitation on a much grander scale, including one character being flambeed alive then eaten by a carnivorous rabble.
The film begins proper in London 2035. Prime Minister John Hatcher (Siddig) and his scheming aide Michael Canaris (O’Hara) summon Department of Domestic Security Chief Bill Nelson (Hoskins) to an urgent meeting.
The Reaper virus has been detected in the capital. Unless a counteragent can be found within 48 hours, London will be ground zero for a global pandemic.
Thankfully, satellite photographs reveal people alive and well on the streets of Glasgow. Apparently there are survivors of the virus.
Canaris entreats Nelson to assemble a crack team to cross the wall and find a cure, starting at the laboratory of scientist Dr Kane (McDowell).
Major Eden Sinclair (Mitra), an evacuee from Glasgow during the initial outbreak, leads the covert mission, joined by Sergeant Norton (Lester) and his troops, and doctors Talbot (Pertwee) and Stirling (Morfitt).
“What happens if I don’t find anything up there?” Eden asks Canaris.
“Then you needn’t bother coming back,” he barks.
Doomsday begins promisingly but skitters into the realm of the ridiculous once Eden and her team encounter the barbaric survivors led by Sol (Conway) and his punk-rocker heathens.
McDowell’s raspy voiceover, dictating Kane’s case notes, gives rise to more unintentional hilarity: “They’ve begun to feed off each other. It’s medieval out there!”
Mitra’s ballsy heroine, who lost an eye in childhood and now uses her hi-tech falsie as a camera to peer around corners, is emotionally untouched by her journey into the dead zone, and consequently so are we.
Supporting cast suffer inglorious fates at the hands of Sol or Kane’s disciples, until the climactic car chase that sets every screech of burning rubber to Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Two Tribes”.
DAMON SMITH
