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Average User Score: 8 (64 sources)

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BeastatBay

-1

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While this film had some good action moments it felt pretty slow and too long for its own good.If your a fan of the show then you will find that it stays true it and making the world seem all colrful and crazy is a good idea that seems similar to...
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While this film had some good action moments it felt pretty slow and too long for its own good.If your a fan of the show then you will find that it stays true it and making the world seem all colrful and crazy is a good idea that seems similar to how sin city tried to be.My problems are that its too slow and there are alot of moments where i just wanted too fall asleep.I also hated how the film was just too long standing at around 2 hours i thought that kids who see this will be bored most of the time.I really liked the racing and how it was so colorful though the speed of everything else is too slow.

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Posted jun 17, 2008 10:41 am pt

riddler062

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probably the worst film i've seen so far this summer and it was something i had good hopes for. The CGI and racing scenes of the movie were amazing but the horrible dialogue and plot that was above the heads of the target audience made for the...
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probably the worst film i've seen so far this summer and it was something i had good hopes for. The CGI and racing scenes of the movie were amazing but the horrible dialogue and plot that was above the heads of the target audience made for the failure of this movie.

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Posted jun 12, 2008 7:50 am pt

sheep233

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A big heaping bunch of total wierdness, if that's a word, and some nice cool action and special effects, it's enough to keep you hooked, but it really drags on for 2 hours and like 15 minutes I think. It's kind of long, very childish, has strange...
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A big heaping bunch of total wierdness, if that's a word, and some nice cool action and special effects, it's enough to keep you hooked, but it really drags on for 2 hours and like 15 minutes I think. It's kind of long, very childish, has strange special effects, and eye-soring color. But it still has at least a moral to it, other than some other things and has some very cool action. rating: good.

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Posted may 30, 2008 2:48 am pt

Rooney815

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Awesome movie that more people should give a chance. It really has heart and it looks stunning. Not to mention the races are breath taking

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Posted may 27, 2008 9:57 am pt

gix47

-1

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It stays (almost) true to the show..looks very pretty but without a doubt it was made for the kiddies,great film for the kids

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Posted may 25, 2008 9:20 am pt

KGBPACKFAN

-1

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I was skeptical going into Speed Racer but that is now aside. All in all Speed Racer is everything you expect: Fast, trippy, exhilirating, visually astonishing racing. The Wachowski's stay true to the Speed Racer we all know. Speed is well......
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I was skeptical going into Speed Racer but that is now aside. All in all Speed Racer is everything you expect: Fast, trippy, exhilirating, visually astonishing racing. The Wachowski's stay true to the Speed Racer we all know. Speed is well... interested in racing. His parents are caring, and his girlfriend loves him. They have a chimpanzee, the Mach 5 is there, everything you loved about Speed Racer is here. Heck, there is even a scene where Speed Racer fights some villians that would have appeared in a cheesy fight scene (John Goodman spinning someone over his head is just great.) So in all Speed Racer is what you're going to expect it to be and that is well.., a Speed Racer movie.

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Posted may 15, 2008 5:46 am pt

faToe

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Gentlemen, start your engines. The Mach 5 is back in action. "Speed Racer" was originally an anime series in Japan called "Mach GoGoGo" and gained popularity in America during the late 1960s. But thanks to a green screen and a...
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Gentlemen, start your engines. The Mach 5 is back in action. "Speed Racer" was originally an anime series in Japan called "Mach GoGoGo" and gained popularity in America during the late 1960s. But thanks to a green screen and a load of 21st century technology, it has turned into a film with gloriously vibrant action scenes.

In this PG-rated film, all character names remain the same: Speed Racer, Pops Racer, Mom Racer, Rex Racer, Spritle Racer, Speed's girlfriend, Trixie; and even their pet chimpanzee, Chim Chim. The storyline stayed true to the cartoon with only a few exceptions.

The story begins with Speed and his great passion for wanting to be a professional racecar driver, just like his older brother, Rex. Speed was always distracted in school and all he could think about was car racing.

After Rex dies in a crash at the Casa Cristo cross-country rally, Speed makes it his mission to be the best car racer in the world. With the family business and his girlfriend there to support him, he is fearless behind the wheel of his Mach 5, which was designed by his father.

The owner of Royalton Industries makes Speed a tempting offer after he takes notice of Speed's amazing driving skills. Speed turns down the offer, however, after realizing that Royalton is a cheater and will stop at nothing to fix the races in order to gain profit.

Royalton swears to Speed that he will never win another race again, but Speed is determined to prove him wrong. Speed teams up with his rival, Racer X, to race in the Casa Cristo Classic 5000, the same cross-country rally race that took his brother's life years ago.

Emile Hirsch truly immerses himself in the role of Speed. He does a fantastic job of taking a character that is more than 40 years old into the world of the future.

The film comes from the makers of "The Matrix" trilogy, Andy and Larry Wachowski, and they do everything in their power to utilize that classic bullet-time filming style for "Speed Racer." The colors in this movie are so luminous and beautiful; it's like seeing the first color scenes of "The Wizard of Oz" for the first time.

There is no denying there are some corny aspects to the film, though. Characters use phrases like "jeepers," "holy canoly" and "cool beans." But it's all in good fun; "Speed Racer" is a family film.

Susan Sarandon plays Speed's mom and really contributes a wholesome element to the film. Sarandon has major chemistry with John Goodman, who plays the role of Pops. She's everything you'd expect a mom to be and fully supports her family, not unlike her role in "Stepmom."

The film looks like it takes place in the year 3000, but characters have accents streaming from all over the world: America, England and Australia. It's hard to really tell where the movie actually takes place.

Trixie, played by Christina Ricci, is an enormously cute character, proving Ricci's acting versatility. She makes it look so easy to go from playing in a dark film like "Black Snake Moan" to capturing the hearts of the audience in "Speed Racer."

The idea of transforming the cartoon into a film had been in the air since 1992. However, production kept being postponed because the right combination of actors, writers and a director couldn't be found - until now.

"Speed Racer" is fun for everyone. A blockbuster in the making for 16 years, the film really is the result of hard work.

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Posted may 14, 2008 6:39 pm pt

narutomaster18

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i watched speed racer when i was little and when i saw this movie the cartoon was really brought out. speed racer and trixie are dating in the movie but in the show they are just friends. i love all the colors in the movie and the way the mach 5...
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i watched speed racer when i was little and when i saw this movie the cartoon was really brought out. speed racer and trixie are dating in the movie but in the show they are just friends. i love all the colors in the movie and the way the mach 5 looks. the movie has a great story line. definitely follows the cartoon, the monkey and spridel are hilarious. the end of the movie is smooth because it reveals the identity of racer x as speed racers older brother rex racer. he hides from his family because he and pops racer (dad) got in a fight before he left.

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Posted may 11, 2008 11:55 pm pt

VickyBostick

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every kid in the theater loved it. every adult looked relieved when it ended!

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Posted may 11, 2008 8:10 am pt

mfouad

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great movie for me

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Posted may 11, 2008 7:01 am pt

• [+] Premiere
  
  75
  This is not a film occurring in an alternate or imaginary reality; rather, it is a film of NO reality, that is, a picture that changes the rules of its universe strictly according to its creators' whims.

  by Glenn Kenny | Read Full Review »
• [+] Chicago Tribune
  
  75
  At its best, it's buoyant pop entertainment focused on three things: speed, racing and retina-splitting oceans of digitally captured color.

  by Michael Phillips | Read Full Review »
• [+] Philadelphia Inquirer
  
  75
  Speed Racer offers a crazy, turbo-charged mix of cartoon kitsch, gamer action, and a wild new way to think of - and look at - movies.

  by Steven Rea | Read Full Review »
• [+] Time
  
  70
  Speed Racer announces the arrival of the virtual movie. If you watch the film overwhelmed by the assault of seductive visual information and wonder what you're seeing, here's the happy answer: the future of movies.

  by Richard Corliss | Read Full Review »
• [+] Newsweek
  
  70
  Speed Racer creates a timeless, visually seductive world suspended somewhere between the pop '60s and the sci-fi future.

  by David Ansen | Read Full Review »
• [+] Portland Oregonian
  
  67
  Filled with energy and visual pizzazz and at least strives for something more than dumb entertainment.

  by Shawn Levy | Read Full Review »
• [+] Seattle Post-Intelligencer
  
  67
  This one is a kiddie show all the way, with characters as broad and one-dimensional as a billboard, a vision of good and evil as simple as a bumper sticker and a tiresome chimpanzee mugging through every other scene like something from a bad Tarzan movie.

  by William Arnold | Read Full Review »
• [+] The Hollywood Reporter
  
  60
  Unlike a Pixar cartoon that embraces as wide an audience as possible, Speed Racer proudly denies entry into its ultra-bright world to all but gamers, fanboys and anime enthusiasts. Story and character are tossed aside to focus obsessively on PG-rated action and milk-guzzling heroes.

  by Kirk Honeycutt | Read Full Review »
• [+] Empire
  
  60
  It'll split the ranks like a pizza cutter: you might admire it as a Warholian blur of pop art, gawp and gasp at its Hot Wheels-for-real dynamism, or get a headache.

  by Ian Nathan | Read Full Review »
• [+] New York Daily News
  
  60
  The cast is generally game for playing cardboard cutouts, with Goodman having the most fun.

  by Joe Neumaier | Read Full Review »
• [+] Rolling Stone
  
  50
  There is one high note. You can approach Speed Racer as the trippiest stonerfest since Stanley Kubrick took his space odyssey.

  by Peter Travers | Read Full Review »
• [+] TV Guide
  
  50
  It's hard to say whether the Wachowski brothers' live action take on the Japanese Speed Racer cartoons is more irritating because it looks like a Hot Wheels video game or because the brothers seem to think that there's a powerful family drama humming away beneath the flashing lights and spinning wheels.

  by Maitland McDonagh | Read Full Review »
• [+] San Francisco Chronicle
  
  50
  If this action extravaganza represents the future of movies, it's going to be a sad, dead and awful future.

  by Mick LaSalle | Read Full Review »
• [+] Film Threat
  
  50
  It isn't going to set the world on fire, but it's perfectly acceptable for what it is.

  by Pete Vonder Haar | Read Full Review »
• [+] The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  
  50
  There's something here for everyone to dislike - the whole clan can have fun making fun of this thing.

  by Rick Groen | Read Full Review »