'Speed Racer' needs an overhaul

Ouch! Looks like the Mother's Day weekend box office take was not kind to "Speed Racer" -- it will be lucky to rake in $20 million, when industry estimates had it pegged for a $40 million drive-through.

And that reminds me -- I promised in Saturday's Guesspert column that I would review the film once I took my 7-year-old boy to see it.

My son was thoroughly enthralled; I felt like I was in the Midas waiting room for two hours staring at my watch until my muffler to be fixed.

The racing special effects were incredible. Complete thumb's up to the special effects team. I'm a huge fan of almost every actor in the supporting cast (I'll get to them in a minute). But here are my two main problems with "Speed Racer":

1. The actual character of Speed Racer is one of the lamest excuses for a summer blockbuster hero I've ever seen. I do not say this as a slam against the actor Emile Hirsch. I hope he goes on to many other fine projects in a long career. I see the point of people who can't stand Hayden Christensen's performances as Anakin Skywalker in two of the "Star Wars" prequels, but that it absolutely not the case here.

I don't think there's any actor in Hollywood who could have pulled off this role. Because there is no role there. OK, the kid loves being a race car driver. The kid loves his family. And that's it. Who cares?

I can understand the reason to attempt to make a big screen version of the "Speed Racer" cartoon. The theme song rocks; everyone loves cool-looking race cars. But what's the point of the Speed Racer character? There is none. A good step toward making a successful movie would be to give him a personality. It's fine to start with a blank slate, but you can't end with one.

2. What completely kills the momentum is that starting about 15 minutes into the movie is a 20-or-so-minute stretch of mind-numbing exposition. Roger Allam plays the corporate suit who wants to woo Speed to his team. And it's just blah-blah-blah-blah-blah about this history of their fake speed racing empire.  Maybe if you're a fan of college football recruiting or auto racing recruiting, then you might find this compelling. But there were kids in the audience of my showing who I could hear yawning. And that's not good for a summer popcorn kiddie action flick when you can hear the kids yawning during your running time.

So for the rest of the movie's 2 hour, 10 minute, running time, that one stretch killed any good will about any ensuing exposition scenes. Any time the cars were put away and the characters started asking each other questions, I thought to myself, "Sheesh, they're not going to go on like this for another 20 minutes, are they? Cuz if they are, I'm going to go next door and watch some 'Iron Man' until they're done.

Here's what I did like:

[] I'm a huge Matthew Fox fan from "Lost." I'm a huge Cyclops fan from "The X-Men." So when Foxy shows up in sunglasses and a leather superhero outfit with a big X on it, I thought, "This dude is cool." I say he carries himself more like Boba Fett than Jango Fett did.

[] Christina Ricci is cute as a button, as always.

[] John Goodman and Susan Sarandon were cool beans as Mr. and Mrs. Racer. I admire that John Goodman incorporated a lot of the "disgruntled ticks" that the animated Pops had in the TV show. (Funny coincidence: Last year, I said of the stinkeroo "Death Sentence" that was filmed in Columbia that John Goodman was the best thing in the movie.)

[] The kid brother and the monkey made a fine pair. The movie could have had twice as much Chim Chim and I wouldn't have complained. And I loved that the closing credits included a lot of footage of Chim Chim behind the wheel.

[] Even though the movie as a whole is a clunker, I salute the fact that it wasn't cynical in its depiction of the Racer family. That's how badly this movie was put together -- there's genuine heart in the family bonding moments, and the movie still doesn't work.

[] The racing scenes were well-done, but quite interchangeable. There are some moments that set each race apart, but for the most part they blend together. There are two fist-fight/martial art/Matrix-like cartoony brawls (one in a hotel room, the other during a break in a land race) that are worth the price of admission. They're the scenes that had my boy bouncing off his chair the most, at any rate.

So here are my suggestions for a better "Speed Racer" movie:

1. Eliminate a half-hour from the running time. Less blabber, more speed racing.

2. Eliminate the Speed Racer character altogether. Maybe just have Speed bookend the movie with, "You'll never believe what happened one time to all my best friends and family." Then have an entire movie with Racer X, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, the funny kid brother, and lotsa-lotsa-lotsa-lotsa-lotsa-lotsa-lotsa-lotsa- Chim Chim.

Supposedly there are people who have edited their own copy of "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace" where they remove all traces of Jar Jar Binks. You could vastly improve "Speed Racer" by giving Speed the boot (and again, this is NOT a knock against the talents of Emile Hirsch).

The ONLY part of the movie where I got a charge out of anything Speed did was at the end of one of their races, where he slams the brakes and jumps out of the car for the benefit of a revolving camera pan, a la the credits of the animated "Speed Racer" show. If you watch the following music video, you'll see what I mean at the end. (I like the movie's theme song remixes so much I would have posted a video of one of the tracks anyway.)