Growing up I used to watch the speed racer cartoon mostly for humor as it's campy yet lovable tone was always fun to watch. I have to say that this was captured perfectly in the new film. While many critics have panned this film, I found it to be a good all around family film. Everyone has seen or knows of speed racer's camp value, I think if you were to try and look at this film as it own entity it might fall flat on it's face. Yet taken in the context of the series it's a great continuation. The performance are all handled well, Emil Hersch is particularly good in the titular role. The only part to rag on is the role of Spritle but he was always annoying, and that's generally his character. Something almost must be said about the art direction. I've heard many people complain that the CGI looks bad, on the contrary it is given a cartoon look for a reason, which is simply that it wants to emulate a cartoon. I think that would be the best description of this movie is a live action cartoon, similar to The Mask but turned up to 11. All in all this is possibly the best thing the Wachowski Bros have done since the original matrix. I'm glad to see they are capable of handling different material other than philosophy thick scifi (not that there is anything wrong with that).
Review of Speed Racer
