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Saw this earlier tonight (last night if you prefer). I'm going to try and review it. Some spoilers below.
So first of all, some good things. The acting was good for what kind of film this was. And it didn't seem like the film-makers tried to make it all too serious when the movie was obviously set in such a fantastic world. There are families who look like their from the 1950's and race tracks that go upside down over water and they don't even bother explaining how the future has become how it is.
I didn't watch the cartoon so I have nothing to compare the storyline and the characters to. The story is basically about how Speed got his start in racing by learning from his older brother and how he discovers that racing is really nothing but a fixed sport fueled by money hungry corporations. Of course he rises above all with the help of Racer X and wins the good fight.
The film was rated PG which kind of pissed me off because in some minutes it was totally a PG family film and some minutes it was a PG-13 action flick. There was one particular sequence where Speed is being told how racing is all fixed so that stocks go up and how his failing to sign with a team will bring ruin on his family... intercut with the mischevious antics of his stupid little brother and monkey raiding a candy stash. You went from serious dialogue to child's fun in seconds and then back again.
Too much time was spent on lame characters, mainly the little brother and monkey and Trixie seemed like a background character.
The graphics were good, very wild and bright and colorful. If you're prone to seizures you might want to go see something else. To change scenes, people's heads would spin across frame (usually race announcers) which could annoy some.
The humor was aimed for kids mostly, even though there were some parts that I laughed at that weren't meant to be funny.
(( Ninjas attack Speed and Racer X in the middle of the night with poison and throwing stars and after the big fight Trixie comes in and says in a very ditzy manner, "Was that a ninja!?"))
Overall I wouldn't rate the film with numbers. I'll just say I liked it and nothing else. Wasn't amazing by any means but it didn't suck either. I can understand if not a lot of people end up liking how this turned out.
Oh, and the film is over 2 hours long. Movie startered at 10:45 and I was out a little after 1. And you can tell that there could have been at least 30 minutes cut from it that could have made it more enjoyable.