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Benjamin Wood
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Score: 3/5

Speed Racer is a movie that, despite having a slew of flaws that are generally fatal in the movie world, manages to be highly enjoyable, although never as great and important as it thinks it is.

Let's get the bad out of the way first, and trust me, there's plenty of it:

- Speed Racer's story is so basic and contrived that it's not only difficult to take seriously, it's also difficult to even muster the energy to pay attention to. In short, it's the story of phenom race car driver Speed Racer (Emil Hirsch), who is trying to follow in the footsteps of his equally talented brother Rex Racer (Scott Porter), who died in a mysterious car crash years ago. After winning a big race, Speed's parents, Pops (John Goodman) and Mom (Susan Sarandon), are approached with a deal from slimy race car owner Royalton (Roger Allam). If you've ever watched a sports movie, you basically know how the story is going to end up, and The Wachowski Brothers do nothing new with the formula. There's also a sports corruption subplot that centers around the enigmatic Racer X (Matthew Fox), but it follows the same cliched formula as the main plot

- The acting in Speed Racer doesn't fare any better, with most of the actors operating in one of two modes: Sleepwalking (Emil Hirsch, Matthew Fox) and gross overacting (John Goodman, Roger Allam, almost all of the other race car drivers). The only person who manages to overact without seeming distracting is Christina Ricci as Speed's girlfriend, Trixie, but perhaps it only seems palatable because of how bad the rest of the acting is in the movie.

- The movie is also directed with such an uneven pacing that it's distractingly face paced one minute and then "I can barely stay awake" slow moments later. The Wachowski Brothers have never been known as expert directors, but Speed Racer is easily their worst directorial effort yet (and only The Matrix Revolution's horrible plot keeps it being their worst overall movie).

And yet, despite all of those flaws, Speed Racer is a special effects tour-de-force, and manages to fit more colors into a 2 hour movie than would be found in a ten hour Crayola documentary. Although initially disorienting, the rapid-fire nature with which the special effects are presented makes the racing sequences in the movie intense and enjoyable.

Although bearing relatively few similarities to the anime it was based on, Speed Racer turns bad dialogue and a by-the-numbers plot and transforms them into not only an exciting movie for children, but one that can keep the parents and adult anime-nerds entertained as well. The kids will enjoy the bright colors and over-the-top silliness, while parents can enjoy laughing at the ridiculous plot and get a kick out of just how sophisticated special effects can be. The visual wizardry in Speed Racer makes the first Matrix movie look relatively tame, and for that alone I can recommend at least giving Speed Racer a chance. By all means see the vastly superior Iron Man first, but if you still have free time afterwards, turn your brain off for a couple hours and bask in the energy of Speed Racer.

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