'Speed Racer' revs up

By Mina Hochberg | amNY movie critic

3:54 PM EDT, May 8, 2008

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2.5 stars "Speed Racer" is a maelstrom of poptastic color and action that sometimes exhilarates but more often discombobulates. Just as musicals rarely take breaks from song and dance to idle in plain conversation, "Speed Racer" offers few reprieves from its constantly kinetic display, whether it's race cars zooming and colliding down the speedway or urgently talking heads floating across the screen.

Speed Racer, played by Emile Hirsch, is a restless, toe-tapping "demon on wheels" (as the original "Speed Racer" theme song goes) who comes from a family of race-car fanatics. As Speed rises in the pro racing ranks, a slick sponsor named Royalton (Roger Allam) tries to knock the up-and-comer out of the picture so that Royalton drivers can dominate the sport and raise the stock of his company. Speed joins forces with the mysterious masked Racer X ( Matthew Fox) to try and teach the corporate fiend a lesson.

If there's one thing "Speed Racer" succeeds in, it's ambition. The visual gymnastics are flabbergasting in their fidelity to the cartoonish antics of the original '60s anime series. It's a mish-mash of montage and collage that adamantly keeps to the color scheme of Starburst candies. But despite all the action, you'll often find yourself wondering why you're not having the kind of fun that such energetic visual presentations are supposed to induce. Part of the problem is that the film is too hyperactive to keep track of what's happening. This wouldn't be such an obstacle, though, if it weren't for the bigger problem of tone. Everything from the humor to the color palette panders to an under-12 age set, costing the film an edginess that it crucially needs. The most egregious touch of kiddie humor is Speed's younger brother, Spritle, and his sidekick monkey, Chim Chim. Granted, the boy and his ape were the comic relief in the original anime series, but in "Speed Racer," they're more like the annoying equivalent of Jar Jar Binks.

Not that the film lacks entertainment value. As Speed becomes more embroiled in an actual plot, the racing scenes become more elegantly choreographed and engrossing, like the cross-continental race that pits Speed against a sleazy lot of racers as he careens down desert dunes and treacherous hairpin roads. In the end, though, the film suffers from cute overload and spends too much time trying to wow you with visuals than wow you with a story that can fill out the two-plus hours.

Speed Racer. Written and directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski. Starring Emile Hirsch, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Christina Ricci, Roger Allam, Matthew Fox