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An over-the-top, sensory overload experience determined to replicate its frantic, television-anime origins, Speed Racer is wild enough to induce a headache or wow a viewer with one dazzling effect after another. Adapted for the big screen as a live-action feature, Speed Racer is written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, the sibling team behind the intensely satisfying The Matrix and its busier, less interesting sequels. Where the rich mythmaking of The Matrix was entirely accessible, however, Speed Racer's overwhelming and gratuitously complicated story exposition is an enormous challenge to follow, let alone embrace. After a while, one simply surrenders to the unbroken din of dialogue concerning corporate chicanery, corruption in the sport of racing, and a value conflict between racing as a family business versus multinational cash cow. At the same time, the film's hyper-real equivalent of the old Speed Racer cartoon's great whoosh of color, motion, and edgy production design--such as inventive uses of scene-changing wipes, bold framing, shifting perspectives--are more overbearing than fun.

Emile Hirsch plays Speed Racer, younger brother of a deceased racing legend, Rex, and son of car designer Pops (John Goodman). The latter invented Speed's Mach 5, and is singularly unimpressed by an offer from a giant conglomerate that would lock Speed into exclusive racing services. Speed opts instead for family loyalty, incurring the wrath of the conglomerate's unctuous head (Roger Allam). With family honor on the line and the affections of girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci) behind him, Speed hits the track in hopes of fulfilling his destiny as a master racer. The cast is largely enjoyable, including Susan Sarandon as Speed's mom, Matthew Fox as mysterious Racer X, and a pair of chimps as the irrepressible Chim-Chim. All well and good, but in a movie that lives or dies by the excitement level of races that look like computer-animated Hot Wheels action, Speed Racer is a dreary adventure. --Tom Keogh

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23 Reviews 5 star:  (12) 4 star:  (4) 3 star:  (4) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:  (3)           Average Customer Review (23 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: Now I know how a pinball feels, May 15, 2008 By  wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews    This review is from: Speed Racer [Theatrical Release] (Theatrical Release) It's pretty much the way you remember the cartoons: lots of action, racing, not much thinking things through, cars, bloodless violence, racing, annoying kid brother, cars, family values, racing, and a chaste girlfriend. The good guys are squeaky clean, the bad guys storm and sneer, and being nice wins out in the end - and the bad guys get theirs. (C'mon, that's not really a spoiler. You knew it had to happen that way.) If that were all this movie offered, I wouldn't bother. The effects keep it moving at a roller-coaster pace, though. Fast cars on (and often in the air over) surreal race tracks pound together like supersonic bumper-cars, seen through vertiginous angles of the CGI "camera." Everything gets amped up a notch by the movie's eye-popping use of color, flashing lights, and fast-moving montages. It's as if the Wachowskis were trying to grab your adrenal glands by reaching in through the optic nerve. As far as plot and all that go, this movie ranks a few steps below ordinary. As a fast paced effects-fest, though, there's nothing like it around. -- wiredweird