I've just come down from the movie trip that is Speed Racer, which I saw two days ago, but think my brain has fully settled enough to comment on.Speed Racer is a 2 and a half hour kaleidoscope remixed in a CGI blender. The visuals are stunning, the art direction is impeccable (easily the most controlled color scheme since Dick Tracy), and the soundtrack is loud as hell. It also has a surprising amount of plotting, and takes pit stops to work on what possible back-story these characters could have. That part of it especially shouldn't work. I mean, one of the main characters is a monkey. But in the hands of the Wachowski brothers, it works wonders.
At its best, it's a familiar enough reworking of one of the greatest Japanese cartoons of all time. At its worst, it teeters into The Flintstones movie territory, or Super Mario Brothers.
