Review of: Speed Racer

OK, OK, This movie was probably supposed to be for 4 year old kids only. I get it, men my age aren't supposed to see this movie. I get it when all my friends say "this is such a "you" movie. Every critic gave this movie zero stars and said it was terrible. I get all of that. But you know what, that has never stopped me from seeing a movie. My feelings have always been that each person is different and each persons tastes are definitely different.

With all that being said, this movie was as close to terrible as you can get. My main gripe was the plot or lack thereof. If there was a plot, I'm not really sure i could tell what it was.

Let me digress for a second, before i go any further I should say that me and my wife were the only 2 people in the theater, literally! And this was on opening night no less! It seemed like a bad omen at the time, but I kind of shrugged it off. (i really wanted this movie to be good)

Back to the review, let me just say that Speed Racer was one of my favorite cartoons when I was younger and that was the main reason I was dying to see this movie on opening weekend. It totally lived down the hype. The acting seemed totally forced, the humor was bad at best, and the villains were more than predictable.

As for the actors themselves, John Goodman has been good at nothing in my eyes besides playing Roseanne's foil Dan Connor. Susan Sarandon was a waste as the mother, I can't even remember one line of hers, Christina Ricci who has been one of my favorite younger stars and I believe shined in last years Black Snake Moan totally mailed this one in and Emile Hirsch, fresh off a spectacular turn as Chris Mcandless in Into the Wild, was simply wrong for this part. There really was no need to have speed played by an actor who's talents are best suited for more dramatic roles.

All those poor performances pale in comparison to how disappointed I was in the Wachowski Brothers. Obviously the Matrix catapulted these 2 brothers to super stardom and the seeming ability to do anything they wanted on the big screen. I guess they thought they had the magic touch where they could take a one joke cartoon and put it on the big screen using all their magic. It just didn't work.

Without being totally negative I will say stylistically, this movie was unmatched. I've never seen a better use of the color spectrum before and that alone saves this movie from winning the Razzie next year for worst movie of 08.

Therefore:

SPEED RACER verdict - NOT GUILTY!!!