Speed Racer (film)/YMMV

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• Better Than Canon: In the anime, Speed was a Boring Invincible Hero who ALWAYS WON...and yet, only because Racer X always let him. In the movie, Speed is still important (as in The Chosen One of Car Racing), but he's toned down a bit, and this time he's better at racing than Racer X, so his victories don't seem so cheap.
• Creator's Pet: The producers grossly overestimated how much the bulk of the audience would like Spritle.
• Critical Backlash: Critics hated it and it wasn't a very big hit, but those brave enough to sit down and watch the film regard it as one of the most fun movies to watch in a long time. The fact that it competed with Iron Man in theatres did not help.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome: Check the page.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: Reboot, played during the final race in which Speed restarts his car from being burned out during the race and comes from dead last to first place. The song combines and recreates old pieces of the original Speed Racer soundtrack with a more modern and high-tech feel, with a bit of chorus in the background, culminating in the perfect musical accompaniment for Speed's main Crowning Moment of Awesome.
  • It's Michael Giacchino. Of course it's Awesome.
• Misaimed Marketing / Trailers Always Lie: The advertising blundered just enough to make a difference. It appeared to be a purely badass action movie with eye-popping inventive visuals. It turned out to have a more childish tone, in keeping with the anime. The advertising also downplayed the presence of Spritle and played up the presence of Christina Ricci.
• Needs More Love: Seriously. Yes, this is not the BEST movie ever made, but goddamn if it ain't fun as hell. And many people who criticized the implausibility of many of the things in this movie fail to realize that that was the point. As an adaptation of a source material, this movie completely blows half the "adaptations" Hollywood churns right out of the water.
• The Scrappy: With the possible exception of the Casa Cristo fight scene (maybe there wasn't another way for them to get out of that mess), the movie would've been just fine without Spritle and the monkey.
• So Bad It's Good: Possibly Invoked. Either way, be it design or accident, it's a damn awesome movie if you're in the right mindset.
• Vindicated by History: Upon the film's release in 2008, it was both a critical and commercial bomb. However, as more and more people have discovered the film in bargain bins, many are now hailing it as one of the most faithful adaptations ever, extremely fun, and with groundbreaking visuals. Indeed, its visual style is even beginning to appear again in films that would by released several years later, such as Scott Pilgrim, Sucker Punch, and Tron: Legacy.
  • The film has also influenced a big-budget blockbuster franchise. It was after proving that bright, high-energy, almost cartoon-like action would work in live-action film that Genndy Tartakovsky was tapped to storyboard Iron Man 2 because his personal style is very much like that seen in Speed Racer.