The last time brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski commanded from the directors’ chairs, they brought us The Matrix Revolutions, the final film in the sci-fi trilogy kicked off by one of the most inventive movies in recent memory. Unfortunately, the subsequent sequels failed to live up to the original’s promise, and the final installment was overwhelmingly bogged down by its own excess.

You’d think that in the five years since that film that they might have learned some valuable lessons; but sadly, their adaptation of the popular cartoon—excuse me, anime—series Speed Racer ends up lost in its own sensory-overload and indulgence.

Speed Racer was making engine noises before he could talk, dreaming of racing since he was a little boy. Growing up, he idolized his older brother Rex, who would take him to the track and let him drive. But Speed’s life was turned upside-down when Rex was accused of foul play—but the worst was yet to come, when Rex died in a devastating car accident.

Now a young man, Speed is the hottest racer in town, being courted by all the major racing companies. But when he rejects the offer of an obsessed tycoon, Speed is given a crash course in the history of the dirty sport, and his hopes of racing in the big Grand Prix are dashed when his qualifying race is cut short by foul play.

A second chance comes in the form of the mysterious Racer X, a masked driver who has dedicated his life to exposing the corrupt businessmen who have effectively ruined the sport. To restore the integrity and authenticity to the sport, Speed and X must team up to win the most dangerous of all races—not surprisingly, the same race in which Speed’s brother died.

There, that’s three paragraphs worth of plot that are really not important in Speed Racer. The “plot” simply exists as a device to showcase the bright, colorful, and fast computer effects created by the same team that developed the groundbreaking techniques showcased in The Matrix. Unfortunately, Speed Racer never gives the audience much opportunity to enjoy the visual effects. Instead, the sensory overload feels frenetic; the overall result of so much simultaneous sensory overload instantly left me virtually numb to the visual effects.

An additional problem caused by the plethora of computer effects is that the actors were forced to spend most of the movie acting in front of a neon green screen—or even an entirely green room—resulting in some tragically flat performances. Hot off his epic, Oscar-worthy performance in Into the Wild, Emile Hirsch doesn’t get to do much more than look intense, while his CGI Mach 5 goes whirring around racetracks that quite frankly look like they were developed for a Mario Kart game.

Another problem Speed Racer may face during this crowded summer season is an apparent lack of a target audience. Like last year’s Transformers, Speed Racer has a built-in fan base from the generation who vividly recall the cartoon’s popularity on television—and perhaps expected this film to aim for the generation that were children then—but this is no mere reminiscence film for now-adult Speed fans. It appears to me that the likely intended audience is children who have never even set eyes on a full episode of the original cartoon. There are childish jokes aplenty and significant screen time is devoted to Speed’s little brother Spritle and his chimp friend Chim Chim. Granted, this opinion comes from someone who never watched the original Speed Racer; I humbly admit I may be completely off base. Besides, there are definitely some brief flourishes by the Wachowski brothers that certainly hark back to the anime style that spawned the show.

I’ll be interested to see how this film fares at the boxoffice. I imagine it will suffer from a conspicuous lack of good word-of-mouth, and falter after a mediocre opening weekend. Of course, it’s not really fair that its competitors at the cinema are Iron Man, Prince Caspian and Indiana Jones. Then again, maybe the (presumably targeted) younger audience will make it a surprise hit. It’s difficult to tell from the advance screening since, well, there weren’t many kids there. That could be a bad sign.

Speed Racer is rated PG for “sequences of action, some violence and language.” There’s some serious action and violence, but it is all rather cartoony and shouldn’t be a problem for most parents. The language is very minimal and is even bleeped at one point. At any rate, Speed Racer is made for kids.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Jeff attended a promotional screening of Speed Racer.