Go, Speed, Go!
Speed Racer makes me happy.

The movie is really experimental in style, both static images and motion. It's very, very pretty, fast and exciting. But most importantly, they know where they came from (the 1960's Japanese cartoon that got dubbed into english in the 80s), and they pay homage to both 1960's japan and 1980's America. They include the Japanese theme song as well as the American theme song all over the movie, and references to 60's Japanese monster and martial arts movies, the 1980's American obsession with Japanese technology coupled with the fear of Japanese business, and bits of the source cartoon are everywhere throughout the movie.

The acting is quite good- John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, and Christina Ricci all know they're in a cartoon and camp it up appropiately They even look close enough to their cartoon counterparts (John Goodman could pass for Mario, too). Korean pop star Rain and the unknown who plays Speed are great tom-cruise-at-18 action movie heros. And Oooh- the cars. They built the Mach 5 and brought all the silly auto tech from the cartoon to life, and it's so very pretty. The action scenes in the races don't play fast and loose with physics as much as give you a new physics that they stay true to. It's a little jarring at first, watching the cars slide and skid on a big 3-D Hot Wheels-style track, but they're consistent and you learn the rules pretty quickly. Chim Chim is a real monkey and Spreidl is a real brat and Trixie is a real hottie.

My favorite throwaway line was from John Goodman, after beating up a ninja who was trying to stop Speed from entering a big race, "Ninja? more like a nonja. Terrible what passes for ninjas these days". (Why do Ninjas care? If you remember the cartoon, Speed was always, somehow, saving the world for peace by racing his car. It would not have been surprising to see Chairman Mao driving a souped up racer and then renouncing communism after being beaten by Speed)

If you were a fan of the cartoon back in the day, either the japanese version or the american dubbed one, or a fan of any of those computer games where you race a car/motorcycle/monster truck/space ship around a big 3-dimensional colored track while the competitors are trying to destroy you, you'll probably like the movie. Screw the critics, only the ones under 36 are in the target demographic for this movie and they all loved it.

Yes, I'm going to be humming the theme song for a week. Go Speed Racer, Go!