Review : Speed Racer (no spoilers)

Thanks to Fly FM’s Night Flight, I won four free tickets to watch Speed Racer at GSC, One Utama just now. So I brought along Aree, Pam and Jazzy (but Jazzy couldn’t make it and the bf is sick). The movie started at 9pm but we went in a bit late coz we had dinner at Zuup first (their New England Clam Chowder is to die for).

Synopsis from Yahoo! Movies : To Speed Racer, nothing says “family values” like barreling down a racetrack at face-flattening speeds. So when mega-mogul Royalton offers the young driver a corporate sponsorship, Speed turns him down. An enraged Royalton tells Speed he’ll never win a race again, and he’ll send ninjas after Speed to insure it. It’s up to Speed, his best girl Trixie in her pink helicopter, and the enigmatic and brilliant Racer X to ensure Speed’s victory in “The Crucible”: the same perilous cross-country free-for-all that killed his brother. Will Speed follow in his big bro’s tire tracks?

At first, I didn’t really have high expectations for this movie because I read a review somewhere that it wasn’t so good and I never did like racing cars stories. Plus, comic/cartoon series based movies sometimes are a flop.

However, Speed Racer blew me away. Directed by Larry Wachowski and Andy Wachowski, the same people who brought The Matrix, it was a fast paced flashy movie combining well known and loved characters with a good story and fantastic effects. Not to mention a good lineup of actors and actresses namely, Emile Hirsch, Susan Sarandon, John Goodman, Christina Ricci, Matthew Fox, Kick Gurry.

Edit : Oh yea, i forgot to mention that it’s Rain’s Hollywood debut as well. Rain (whose real name is Jung Ji Hoon) is a South Korean singer/actor. Rain’s role is a Japanese driver who teamed up with Speed Racer and Racer X to race in the Crucible – like an underground race thats very dangerous and full of cheating contestants. KInda weird how they never mentioned him in the synopsis tho.

I loved how they combined comic book/cartoon style drawings with real life. Its really like reading a comic book with the characters having flashbacks and when the hero looks at the heroin, the background becomes blurry with colourful hearts. LOL! The CGI of the racetracks and scenes were also fantastic. Not too outrageous that it looks so fake (like most Malaysian movies attempts at CGI) but very creative.

All in all, great movie, good storyline and plot (I think aree felt like crying at some point) and superb cast – like the very yummylicious Matthew Fox and cute, adorable rain. :X

Rating : (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) 5 stars

p/s: Jules of FlyFm asked if it was the movie with the talking dog. Well there isn’t any talking dog but there is a cute monkey.