Speed Racer

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Summary:
The Racer family live up to their name, with Pops building the cars for his two sons Rex and Speed to race. After Rex dies in a horrible crash under mysterious circumstances, 8 years later Speed grows up to begin following the path of his older brother. It's up to the family to stick together as Speed gets himself into seemingly unbeatable odds against "The Corporations" and their selfish desires.

PHOTOSENSITIVE SEIZURE WARNING
A very small percentage of people may experience a seizure when exposed to certain visual images, including flashing lights or patterns that may appear in Speed Racer. Even people who have no history of seizures or epilepsy may have an undiagnosed condition that can cause these "photosensitive epileptic seizures" while watching Speed Racer. If you or any of your relatives have a history of seizures or epilepsy, consult a doctor before watching.

Review:
Color me (LOTS of colors!) surprised, but I REALLY liked this flick. I went into it thinking it was really going to suck balls. I tried have the mentality of a ten year old boy who also loves Pokemon. I imagined myself saying, "Ooooh, Speed Racer and the movie Pokemon at the same time?! AWESOME!" Also, Ricci dolled up and showing her awesome legs while flying that chopper in the previews helped.

One of the most positive aspects of Racer lies in the cast. Everyone did a great job (except for the boy Spritle and his monkey Chim Chim), and even though it all had a cheekiness to it, they played it pretty straight for the majority of the time. This helped ground me to the whole theme behind family bond. Sticking with the family. Goodman looked great, and he's always a solid base to any roll he plays; and not just physically. He was the only good thing in Coyote Ugly for cryin' out loud! That's not to take away from the rest of the Racer family. Hirsch and Sarandon also did a great job, just as much as - holy hell, lookit that! It's - Richard Roundtree for his small part. There are a handful of cameos that surprised me when they showed up. Not BIG names, but faces I've seen around and don't see often. Rain was also pretty good. Yu Nan as Togokhan's sister was pretty damned hot. I wish they would have spent more time showing her in that tight shiny leather suit during that big race. Oh well... damned PG rating!

I was turned off by the previews because of the god-awful LOOK of SR. On the one hand, I also realized it was an artistic decision used to provide a desired thematic tone. It has nothing to do with trying to be grounded in reality, and has everything to do with throwing itself back to Racer's roots and keeping that animated series' vibe. It took me a little getting used to, but soon I was all for it. It's got the primary colors of Dick Tracy with the family thematic elements of Spy Kids!
Sure, a lot of the guys looked pretty good, but dayamn some of the CHICKS were SOOOO HOT! They looked like "DJ Scene" girls, but not those ugly ones dolling themselves up and whoring themselves out to hide their true ugliness. No, these were the REAL hotties here! The kind that look awesome without makeup and shiny color streaks and filled with flourescence. Yum yum bubble gum! I'd take a bit outta that!

Everything is over the top, and most of the time I was willing to accept it. What I didn't accept was every second of Spritle and his stupid sidekick monkey, Chim Chim. I also fell out of the moment during a couple of "imaginary racing" moments with the younger characters living in a race through their crayon world. Add to that some momentary 100% pure anime-inspired *cha-ching!* moments in which there are cardboard cutout-type slow motion kung-fu kick positions zooming through light-streaked air. A few of these cheap bullet-time (yeah, I went there hah!) knock-off 4 second cuts were grating to my eyes and head.
But when it comes to the pure high speed racing events, SR made me feel like I was watching real SPEED. Each race got cooler than the last, and during Speed's first big race I was thinking back to the pod race in the movie-that-shall-not-be-named and laughed at how THIS time around the silly booby traps and animated environments worked. ILM provided lots and lots of gloss and plenty of over-zealous color streaks and spinning cars. And it was great. It made me giddy as a school boy!

Speed Racer worked as a PG rated family film. I kind of wish I first caught this as a young boy, because I would have been lost in this world for 2 hours and also enjoying "kiddy time" with Spritle - who at this age I just want to smack. There's plenty of emphasis on family bonding, but because of the stellar cast of top-notch actors my heart went out to them. I hoped it would all turn out OK. I knew it would. After all, it's a FAMILY FILM.

Those looking to get lost in a colorful world full of noise and speed need to look no further than Speed Racer. It's far from perfect, but it set out to do exactly what it intended. It really IS an ok movie for the family and not so painful to watch that the parents will want to DIE for their child's entertainment. I just wanted more lingering shots on the hot ladies. I also wished that roughly 8 minutes were cut out. That's about all the time spent with Spritle on his own, mixed with a minute's worth of ugly 5 second "spinny anime" moments.

GRADE: B

Reviewed: 5/9/08