Mach GoGoGo!

Could the critics harp on Speed Racer any harder? It makes me wonder if they've ever seen the cartoon; for if they had, perhaps they'd have noticed that Speed Racer captured its ancestry wonderfully.

"Go, Speed Racer, go! Go find a story more worthy of your mind-blowing visuals!" Matt Stevens - E! Online

"This adventurously awful film is awful in many ways at once." Kyle Smith - New York Post

"For a movie about velocity, the excitement factor is low and the races feel like a drag." Claudia Puig - USA Today

While I do take Kyle Smith's review with a grain of salt, (after all, he is only upset about having to write his shite reviews for the Post instead of the Times), these other people have no excuses. "...like being force-fed a Costco-size bag of your favorite candy. " Really Ty Burr of the Boston Globe? Really? The cartoon, Speed Racer, first debuted in the US in 1967 and people are still trying to figure out what Speed and Trixie were saying, they just talk so darn fast! Thankfully, Emile Hirsch and Matthew Fox didn't run around hammering off their lines at the rate of The Chipmunks on speed.

Ok, so that is one good aspect of the movie. Can I think of two? Uh, yeah I can! Say it with me now, "visuals". Oh yes. They were stunning. They made a live-action Speed Racer feel like it was animated which in turn made me feel its Anime and Japanese roots. The Mach 5 was like the most radical cartoon car I've seen come to life (behind Batman Begin's Batmobile [that's right Herbie, bugger off]) and I honestly didn't mind that they ended the movie with a Mach 6. I felt like Christina Ricci's performance might have accidentally wandered into the "Campy Department" but other than that, all performances were spotless. I admit, Mr. Royalton did have a tendency to prattle on about "corruption this" and hit-man that" but if long winded, awkward villainous speeches aren't what '60s cartoons represent, then I don't know much about '60s cartoons.

And also Ty Burr of the Boston Globe, there are worse things than being force-fed a Costco size bag of your favorite candy. If you don't believe me, go watch Dragon Wars.