Speed Racer vs. Christopher Hitchens
by Sonny Bunch | May 15, 2008
Peter Suderman was spot on when he said that the villain in Speed Racer, played by Roger Allam, is a dead ringer for Christopher Hitchens, both in appearance and accent. Check it out:
Which is which? No man can tell.
I’ll be writing about Speed Racer later in the week, and I don’t think I’m spoiling too much by saying that I think it’s a massive failure on every level. But I will say this: This film could do a great deal of good in the world by making acid obsolete. I’ve never done LSD (it holds no appeal for me), but this movie looks exactly what I imagine a bad trip to be like. The Wachowskis were throwing colors up on the screen I never knew existed. So, y’know, it’s got that going for it.
3 Comments - add your own
jdbo — May 15, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Looking to your review of Speed Racer… probably just to disagree with you vehemently.
The sensory overload may not work for everyone (epileptics in particular should avoid this), but those who can process the visuals will likely love the film. The simple storyline and stylized acting provides a pleasingly simple baseline allowing the directors to push the sound and visuals even further than they could otherwise. And no, I’ve never tried acid, but I do enjoy the Cartoon Network.
That said, the Allam-Hitchens resemblance is startling. Had I known what Hitchens looks like I’d have been very distracted while watching the film.
patrick — May 15, 2008 at 1:34 pm
he was also a villain in V for Vendetta
Sonny Bunch — May 15, 2008 at 2:03 pm
jdbo: I’ll say this about ‘SR’–it was a noble experiment. It just doesn’t hang together, at least not for me.
Patrick: Allam was pretty great as Prothero, one of the few things I really liked about ‘V for Vendetta.’