This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Based on the short-lived Japanese animated TV-Series by Tatsuo Yoshida from 1967, the Wachowski siblings took on to an live-action adaptation to be produced in 2007 at Studio Babelsberg after their mixed reviewed finale of "The Matrix Revolutions" (2003). "Speed Racer" (2008) stays away from on locations car stunt work, instead utilizing Green-Screen crafted sound stages with digital and high-speed camera work to bring their interpretation of the Japanese original to the scree. Giving a suitable budget of approximately 120 Millions U.S. Dollars under supervision of long-term collaborating producer Joel Silver, the Wachowskis present a clear vision on a previous published material by staying true to all initially involved characters and car designs.To international audiences and the majority of anticipating fans of the original series, the release to event movie season 2008 starting in May 2008 had been a disappointment. Competing with movies as "Iron Man" (2008) or "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (2008), "Speed Racer" could not convince its PG-family target group to be a technically well-executed Retro-Science-Fiction movie. The story-line had been simplified down to the core of having main character, portrayed by a match-cast actor Emile Hirsch, find recognition in an high compatible industrial racing world market, always faithfully supported by his all too sweet family members.This drained sweetness, tasting like an lollipop on ecstasy, may be the cause for a missed opportunity to move away from the artificiality of a digital extension image system throughout the picture, missing one or two sequences in an on-location environment, where the audience would have found release from an close-to epileptic over-kill in color corrections and editorial pacing by a running time of over 120 minutes. It is understandable that producing "Speed Racer" had been an initial risk management for producers Joel Silver and Grant Hill, leaving the Wachowski Director-Duo full creative freedom to realize their directorial vision, which clearly had been due to long-enduring love with the Original Japanese TV series.Nevertheless an adaptation of a source material needs further visual twists to stand apart from the Original, sharing an individual filtered vision of the source material, which makes the spectator feel that he has not been cheated on a box office ticket. A glimpse of this approach had been flashed by with the character of Racer X, played by actor Matthew Fox, in the last ten minutes of "Speed Racer" with an haunted revelation of the character of Speed's vanished brother still being alive in a brilliantly edited flashback. Unfortunately, this mind-blowing story twist comes at a point in the picture, where the audience so-to-speak had already been finished with their subconsciously evaluation of a movie event, which missed its chance to create attracting word-of-mouth with leaving specter's at the movie houses.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (for Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

This movie has it's flaws. I loved Speed Racer when I was little and our entire family saw it in theaters. I was still a kid and I loved it. It still does hold up well even though it has hiccups. Some of the editing and acting is flat, the backgrounds get uncomfortably bright, and the transitions are awkward. But, I have not seen any movie like it. I enjoy the racing scenes, and the action is pretty nice. Spritle and Chim-Chim are entertaining comic reliefs. The movie is light hearten. But, the camera work is not the best. The effects are hit and miss. It is going for it's own style, and it does work most of the time. One thing is for sure, this is my favorite trip movie.

It may have died a commercial death, but "Speed Racer" is a thoroughly entertaining movie, and it was a highlight in a very rocky Summer movie season. This movie does a bang-up job with the racing scenes, which are invigorating, but it also keeps things moving during the quieter scenes (thanks mostly to its inventive visual style and family-centric story). I don't normally get into the rapid-fire insert shots of clutch-and-shift (I'm looking at you Fast and Furious movies), but it fits in with the rhythm of the scenes. Or it may be because this is a live-action cartoon. But either way, the action in this movie works.This is a great family movie with a winning cast (damn can Christina Ricci pull off that anime wig), candy-colored palette and supercharged driving. The races are nail-biting and have you cheering in all the right places. The good guys win, the bad guys get theirs and it's a lot of fun.8/10

Sit down, suspend your disbelief, and watch this visually insane and surprisingly affecting film. In the spirit of the classic anime, it's full of fun characters like Snake Oiler and Inspector Detector, cool cars, ridiculous racing, and a warm family core. At the very least, you have to appreciate this as an exercise in fearless film-making. The visual vocabulary of the cuts and pans and wipes, the way the characters move in and out of frame, is incredibly unique and original. And it's, shockingly, mostly successful. This got lost among a flood of blaring Technicolor green-screen films like Shark Girl and Lava Boy and the Spy-Kids films. Also there was, and still is, a social backlash against the Wachowski's because of the Matrix films. In terms of the film-making risks I mentioned above, this was unfairly dismissed. This is for fun, it's a family film, (In the best ways), and it doesn't take itself too seriously. If you're too cool for it, you're only cheating yourself. There will be more fresh, ice-cold milk at the finish line for the rest of us.