Review in a Hurry: Go, Speed Racer, go! Go find a story more worthy of your mind-blowing visuals! Emile Hirsch takes a wild ride as the titular hero from the kitschy '60s cartoon, but if you don't have ADD before entering this Racer, you will by the finish line. Look—shiny object!
The Bigger Picture: The glum and glummer Wachowski brothers, who bummed us out with dark, cold Matrix sequels, try to rev up the fun with this high-octane take on the retro-cool anime series. As expected, they deliver enough cotton-candy-colored cinematic pyrotechnics to send you into sugar shock or strobe-induced seizures. Yay! But Speed Racer—reminiscent of Disney's futuristic failure, Tron—sputters in its attempt to rally the family crowd.
Next to the inventive, psycho-trippy imagery—dude, it's like plugging your brain stem into a videogame—Racer's plot points seem like so many spare parts.
Born to zoom-zoom, Speed (Hirsch, his brow firmly furrowed) is driven to fulfill the legacy left by his legendary older bro, who died in a racing crash. Though offered a lucrative contract, Speed refuses to sell out to automotive magnate Royalton (Roger Allam), who fixes races to boost corporate profits. To save the integrity of the sport and the reputation of his family, led by Mom (Susan Sarandon) and Pops (John Goodman), Speed teams up with former rivals and puts Mach 5 pedal to the metal.
The Wachowskis capture the look and feel of an ultra-adrenalized, live-action cartoon with layers of saturated visuals and melodramatic dialog, but their racing sequences get frenetic and incoherent—fortunately, announcers explain it all for you! Plus, their slick style never meshes with the kiddie-pandering stuff, including the annoying antics of pudgy younger brother Spritle (Paulie Litt) and his pet chimpanzee.
Clocking in at 135 minutes, road-weary Racer takes too many laps before the main event. By the time the climactic Grand Prix rolls around, all that overdrive has kicked into overload. Game over, already.
The 180—a Second Opinion: Has Christina Ricci ever looked cuter? As Racer's best gal, Trixie—with heart-shaped face, sassy black bob and bubblegum-pink fashions—Ricci is chic and spunky and completely underutilized.