One of the best movies this summer...Yes it was.

Saw the Speed Racer movie last night, and I LOVED IT!

This review by journalist Brandon Thomas says it all...

"By the way, did anyone make it out to the theaters to catch Speed Racer? Trick question that. The preliminary figures say that no one did, and having seen the offending product, I really have to wonder why. The Summer of Movies continues…

Yeah, I don’t give a damn what anyone says…Speed Racer is pretty fantastic. I was a little nervous going in of course, as I’ve been following the reviews (at least the tone of them) all week and they’re sufficiently horrible across the board. After seeing the final results of bringing the “classic” cartoon to multi-colored life, I think most of the commentary about the movie fails to properly consider who the movie was even made for. Let alone how ridiculous and absurd the source material was. Perhaps I was projecting, but it seemed that the point was creating a live-action version of the famous anime, which the Wachowskis obviously delivered on all levels.

There is simply no other movie that has a visual style quite like this one. We’ve seen green screen stuff, composite work, etc., but this amount of CGI would make even George Lucas a little anxious. But it’s absolutely perfect for this though, as the racing scenes are shot and choreographed like fight sequences with the cars jumping, kicking, and punching their way around the candy-colored tracks. The color palette and the editing style is highly schizophrenic and unorthodox, with flashbacks cut right into the main narrative, among other unique flourishes, but again, it works brilliantly in a movie where the characters have names like Snake Oiler and Inspector Detector. It’s insane and it’s fast and ninety percent of it was taken directly from the cartoon, which was always a bit stupid, let’s face it. Instead of “redefining” Speed Racer for a new generation, the filmmakers give it to you straight---this is a Japanese cartoon from the sixties perfectly and strangely translated to a larger screen, aimed at kids and families, with themes of sacrifice, togetherness, honesty, and other kind notions hammered into your skull.

It runs maybe ten minutes too long, but with the Harry Potter flicks routinely clocking in at two and a half hours, I can’t see why that’s a cardinal sin here. I always joke with my friends about how “old” I feel running headfirst towards the big three-oh, but skimming some of these reviews from the stuffy so-called experts lets me know I’m not that far along, because it seems that the colors and the motion and the speeds (in a movie called Speed Racer) caused their maturing brains to leak out of their ears. I’ll try to enjoy something like this until I reach that point, and I think you should too."

Now MY 2 cents:
I don't understand all the people bitching about it being so "bright and colorful" or, even better "That's not real racing, it's nothing like NASCAR"

Well guess what? DUH!!!!
First of all, Speed Racer was one of the original Animes brought to the U.S. and even though the world of the cartoon was never gone into in depth, I think they did it justice by showing how the Speed Racer world WOULD HAVE been a Racing dominated one. Just like that GPX anime that escapes my memory right now...

Secondly, no, it's not NASCAR, and thank the gods for that. If i had to sit there and watch a car drive in a monotonous circle for hours i'd slit my wrists with the closest beer bottle cap i could find. Someone even went as far to say that the movie "set the racing world back years from being accepted." Last I checked you could thank all the toothless, RV parking in WalMart, trucker cap wearing, Pabst Blue Ribbon drinkin, mullet sportin folks out there that clog up the aisles in the electronic sections every time a race is on for that.

Third, I really take offense to people calling the movie "gay" and "made by homos who know nothing about racing" just cause of the color and fantasy aspect of it all. Just cause Speed and Trixie didn't get it on in the MACH 5 while drinking a beer and shooting the bad guy doesn't make it a GAY movie. Ignorant a-hole....

I think the movie did what it set out to do and i'm glad I spent my $10 on doing so. It was about family, the strength of family and what keeps that family together...with some bad ass gimmick car racing for good measure.

That was my 2 cents worth.