Everyone panned the Matrix sequels and groaned at Speed Racer, but it’s not that bad. At the very least, there’s value in seeing the eye-popping art direction, even if the flimsy story doesn’t grip you. With V for Vendetta, the Animatrix, and the collective experience of John Goodman, Christina Ricci and Susan Sarandon behind their latest project, surely the Wachowski brothers have managed to redeem themselves a little bit.

Speed Racer is a live-action remake of a 1960s anime classic. The story’s for kids and is very straightforward: Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) races cars. Trixie (Christina Ricci) is his girlfriend. Speed Racer is a true innocent - all he wants to do is race, and his nobility of spirit is constantly tested by rival racers. Speed Racer loves his family: Mom Racer (Susan Sarandon), Pops Racer (John Goodman), little brother Spritle (Paulie Litt) and Spritle’s pet chimp, Chim-Chim. The movie adaptation does add a little bit of depth; Speed Racer is courted by megacorp Royalton Industries, but wonders if leaving his family’s own racing team would be beneficial in the long run. Speed is haunted by the poor decisions his older brother Rex Racer (Scott Porter) made, which ultimately cost Rex his life on the track. Speed discovers the ugly corporate underbelly of racing and overcomes obstacles in both the physical and moral world.

Characters aren’t always straightforward at first, but the ideology of the movie is so cut-and-print that adult moviegoers will see the entire plot unfold before them in about fifteen minutes (or less, if you read this review beforehand). With a campy adaptation of a cash-cow children’s anime series, I’m not sure how anyone can expect a story of Shakespearean proportions. Those expectations are as unrealistic as the main character’s name.

Rating:

Staring: Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci

Written and Directed by: Andy and Larry Wachowski

The most stunning aspect of Speed Racer is the art. Every frame of the movie looks like it could be a movie poster. Every detail is meticulously placed. Speed Racer’s distinctive style may even be ahead of its time; I can see this movie inspiring animation movies for years to come.

The visuals are reminiscent of circa-1985 racing games: Not the realistic ones, but the garish neon games that had you race across tracks that were better suited to roller-coasters. There are even a few effects that are borrowed from modern racing games, like Speed’s car following the “ghost car” of his deceased brother Rex, comparing not only their times but how they both ran the course, as racers can do in simulation games like Gran Turismo or Forza Motor Sport. There are light streamers from the taillights of cars. In one tunnel, zebras are printed in alternating black and white strips, made to look like flip book animation when the drivers speed past. All of the colors are straight out of a gumball machine. The stationary scenes look layered, like the cel-shaded animation that inspired the movie. The transition between CGI and live-action is so frequent, so seamless that we can rely only on our viewer knowledge to tell us which is which.

But this visual feast is so sumptuous that it’s almost too much. The eye-candy certainly overpowers everything else in the movie, which isn’t hard to do with the story, but is a shame for the great actors and their characters. Some of the visual techniques are overused and repetitive. I’d like to take the editor out to a nice dinner, back them up against the wall in an alley, and beat them soundly with a sock full of creamed corn for the overuse of intercutting with transitional effects. I will die a happy woman if I never see another movie where two scenes are linked by panning across them with the profile of a talking head filling the visual space between the two.

When not inciting these violent thoughts (which admittedly, is not hard to do with this reviewer), Speed Racer promised and delivered entertainment and even a few laughs. The combination of chimp and child looks like it would be a recipe for comedic cliché and disaster, but they were actually pretty cute. Spritle’s one-liners were clever, and his delivery is so earnest that even when the comedic device is a little overused, we can’t help but like the mischievous duo. There are other great child actors in the film - young Speed (Nicholas Elia) and young Trixie (Ariel Winter) have a few schoolyard romance scenes that are so adorable they nearly brought me to tears.

As an adult Trixie, Christina Ricci is simply charming. It’s great to see John Goodman again, perfectly cast as a heart-of-gold yet grumbly dad. Susan Sarandon is pivotal to the film’s moral center as Mom and mediator. Racer X is masked and so familiar you’ll be asking yourself “Is that Jack from LOST?” the whole movie - yes, it’s Matthew Fox in his second movie role since LOST (his first was 2008’s Vantage Point).

See this movie for the visuals and the love of Speed Racer first, and be surprised by the fun and great cast. There’s plenty to enjoy for kids, and even adults can appreciate the sunny attitude of the film. The story may be two-dimensional, but it is completely within the spirit of the original.