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'Speed Racer' pulls into the winner's circle

"Blasphemy!" That was my original thought when I first saw the previews for "Speed Racer." It was in an e-surance commercial, and quite frankly, I was appalled. The bubblegum music, the crazy effects ... it just seemed like some bad rip-off of my childhood come to life. I had written this movie off into the "major suck" column, but then I had a glimmer of hope ... Matthew Fox as Racer X. For some reason, a brief segment that I had seen with him changed my mind, and I opted to see it.And I must say, I'm kinda happy I did.Like I said, I remember the cartoon from my childhood. I can recall episodes with such greats as The Monster Car and the Car Acrobatic Team (the sound effect still resides in my head somewhere). Not that it really deserves it, but I take my Speed Racer and other childhood shows kinda seriously. Modern-day adaptations often produce things like puggles ... they're either cute or just plain ugly. There doesn't seem to be a happy medium."Speed Racer" starts from the beginning, with Speed as a kid and dreaming of being a race car driver. His older brother Rex (who left home many years ago), still lives at home and is a successful driver and record holder at certain tracks. You get to see how Speed and Trixie met, what caused Rex racer to leave (home many years ago -- sorry, I can never get that narrator's voice out of my head), and how embedded the Racers are to the sport.Speed ends up in a race, and sets a spectacular display of driving. He is approached by the Royalton Corporation, who wants to hire him as a driver for their race team. During this whole exchange, Speed learns that racing is corrupt and linked to the financial decisions of corporations. By opting not to join in the charade, he finds himself being targeted by other racers. This is when he gets approached by Inspector Detector and Racer X, with a way to help clean up the racing world.And this is all done very well. I must admit, I was kinda taken aback by how well thought out this plot was, and how they told the backstory without being bogged down with it. It was, dare I say, clever. Innovative. There was a lot of ground to cover, and they did so without it dragging too much.The cast is pretty impressive. The guy playing Speed ... well, I wasn't terribly impressed with him, but Matthew Fox as Racer X was about as close to perfect as you can get. John Goodman also did a great job as Pops (though he didn't seem to have any crazy outbursts), and Christina Ricci did a good job as Trixie. Spritle and Chim Chim are also there, but they are pretty much the only thing that the kids in the audience relate to ... most of the story was flying over their heads. I could tell because the noise level went up appreciably while they were talking story points, and dropped off immediately when Spritle and Chim Chim were up to their antics.If you're an effects person, this is a visual feast. Lots of crazy stuff going on. Too much to even try and describe, but a trip to IMAX wouldn't be out of the question. The effects come pretty close to how things worked in the cartoon -- lots of spins, jumps, cars blowing up and other assorted craziness. The entire movie is done in very vibrant colors to give the whole cartoon/comic book look and feel, and it can be really stunning and flashy at points. I'm sure in HD, the effects alone would be worth the cost of the DVD.My big criticism of this flick is that it is LONG. Almost 2.5 hours long. And it has a good end point after one of the big races, but they continue on past that to rush an ending. Really, it should have been made into 2 1.5 hour movies. It would have been much easier to deal with that way.Secondly, I HATED that they didn't actually race the Mach 5 on the normal race courses. He races it in a "backwater" race (which is really the main race of the flick, and the closest you come to the cartoon's races), but otherwise, there's a different Formula One style car that he drives. That was disappointing.Lastly, every time Royalton speaks, he sounds like the Emperor from the Star Wars saga to me. (Oh, and speaking of Star Wars, there was a preview for an animated Star Wars flick coming out -- I guess the time between "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith." Seemed interesting, and yet painful.)But other than that, it's a fun, quirky little film. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but most Speed Racer fans won't be ready to set the theater on fire after watching it, either. Purists won't be happy with it, but purists are never happy with anything.So, if you're intent on seeing this, my only recommendation would be to go to a late show, where there will be less children in the crowd. It's not really a kids' film, even though it has that look. This is more of a flick for parents trying to share a part of their childhood with their kids. Expect some changes to make things more interesting for them, but nothing too drastic.4 Mach 5s out of 5

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