God I love this film.

From the opening sequence, the Wachowski's take us on a visually impressive journey filled with emotion, childish comedy and a (perhaps needlessly) complex plot about racing, underdogs and sticking it to the man!

I'm not ashamed to say that this time, I actually teared up a few times. The family parts of this are great (although Spritle CAN get a bit on your nerves), with Susan Sarandon and John Goodman both knocking it out of the racing track with their performances. Going further, Emile Hirsch is a blast in the main role as Speed Racer, with Roger Allam delivering a terrific hammy bad-guy performance as Royalton.

Needless to say, this is a pretty childish movie. But it's also a powerful coming-of-age-story, where Speed faces the dark "real world of racing" and deals with his family's past. It's a story about a family of underdogs, fighting "the big man". It's about (insane) racing-courses; wild stunts that bring a childish sense of glee and a big grin to my face. But it's also about sports, being a classic "fighting the fixed games"-movie as well.

Speed Racer carries forth a lot of themes and tropes from other sports-movies but it brings real emotion, a story of a family sticking together no matter what and glorious visuals to the table. That way, we can forget it for being a tad overlong, can't we?