Bukimi no Tani Genshō Gō Gō Gō (or, Why the Speed Racer Movie was So Bad)

One of the key scientific theories of the 21st century is certain to be Masahiro Mori’s Bukimi no Tani Genshō, a.k.a. “The Uncanny Valley” Theory. The supposition suggests that as robots or animated objects more closely and closely approach a human form, the more likely there are to cause revulsion in a human observer until a great degree of realism exists.

ESPN.com’s excellent Patrick Hruby applied the Uncanny Valley Theory to video games back in 2005 (How long ago was that? Check out the image from the Madden ’06 he’s reviewing) and, by inference via BuckBokai’s idol Gregg Easterbrook’s “The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse,” to standards of living. Wikipedia informs us that “the problem of the Uncanny Valley also applied to 3D computer animat[ed …] films Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, The Polar Express, and Beowulf.”

(Appearing at the very bottom of this page is a chart devised by the folks at Boing Boing Gadgets detailed what CGI has done to certain recent flicks, including The Matrix.)

And BuckBokai’s here to tell you that Speed Racer: The Movie also died an ignominious death in Uncanny Valley.

Due to the recent passing of Peter Fernandez, BuckBokai took the “opportunity” to look at the candy-coated nightmare by the Wachowskis again and whoo boy, a second glance doesn’t improve things but is quite insightful. If you can take it.

Incidentally, folks, let’s face it: The Wachowskis have been involved in the production of exactly two good films throughout their career – *and* they were kept away from directing responsibility on “V for Vendetta.” One famous rumor had it that the brothers only contracted to do “Speed Racer” so that Larry could afford to pay for his incipient sex-change operation; though this rumor was debunked on-set in 2007, IMDB has the non-Andy half of the sibling duo listed primarily as “Lana.”

Whatever. One just wishes Larry had in fact received the ostensibly desired penectomy so that this assault on the senses would at least be the answer to an interesting trivia question.

In any case, back to Speed Racer, perhaps the only true science-fiction sports movie since Space Jam and the last until December of this year if you count Tron: Legacy – will BuckBokai will, thank you very much.

The truth is that, while we accept psychics-defying moves by machinery in cartoons and comic books – that’s what imagination is for – having it reproduced with real-life characters looks great for about 0.68 seconds, but then one is instantly amazed at how tedious endless shots of 270º degree turns gets. Though the Wachowskis follow the rules of f/x in big-budget flicks to a T (and really there’s only one rule: Just keep upping the effects until the denouement), by the second reel nothing is amazing or new about any of the impossible flips and turns undertaken on four wheels or two.

In terms of sport, Speed Racer: The Movie suffers from a like problem with Cars. To wit: Do the kiddies actually give a Mickey Mouse’s ass from the business side of the sport? While precocious fans of NASCAR may understand what the pit crews are all about and actually *do* in the same way that some very young fans of American football can explain the importance of offensive linemen, do any of them really care about the transactions-and-acquistions, i.e. the business side of it?

This writer’s five-year-old thinks one visits a store to buy money; the racing bits of Cars kept her interested even two years ago, all that money-manipulating doublespeak is nothing but a turnoff to any non-Ferengi youth, to be sure.

Of course Speed Racer: The Movie is expressly not a kid’s movie, right? Even beyond all the talk-talk-talk of the family (more on this momentarily), the Wachshowskis manage to throw in a handful of four-letter words to pump up that rating a bit. What’s particularly egregious about this, then, is the utterly unnecessary inclusion of the stupid-ass monkey-and-cute-kid schtick: Why is this even included in the movie at all? Is it a formula? You know, like, three utterances of “shit” is counterbalanced with 32 minutes of screen time for a primate of under four feet in height?

In the parlance of our times, WTF gives with this bizarre contradiction?

Then there’s the inevitable Americanization process. Years before M. Night Shyamalan took degrees of heat (and concomitant box-office hit) for bleaching the cast of The Last Airbender, the Wachowskis turned the simple Japanese family drama aspects of Speed Racer into nauseatingly drippy over-simplistic American graffiti. John Goodman and Susan Sarandon, despite contributing A-list quality performances that belong in another, better, movie, cannot save this unforgivable pap. (And hey, if you don’t believe the red, white and blue nuclear family will be preserved by final credits, you just don’t watch movies.)

Clichéd filmmaking trying to be all things to all people whilst simultaneously sterilizing what was an endlessly fascinatingly open cartoon series through the overwhelming realism “demanded” by “modern” film audiences: Speed Racer deserved better than to be left to perish in the cold uncanny valley.

But it was.

Peter Fernandez is spinning in his grave with all the nauseating flips of Speed Racer and his big-screen compadres, BuckBokai tells ya…

To think the Wachowskis once had this mastered...

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