Review by Brian Tallerico 

It either takes nerves of steel or a brain of pudding to make a family film that's 129 minutes long, but no one ever said the Wachowski Brothers played by the rules (or even by common sense). Forget the fact that Speed Racer is a kid’s movie. There should be a law against making anything more than FIVE times the length of its source material (the original Speed Racer cartoons ran about 22 minutes with commercials). From now on, Exhibit A in the people's case against bloated family movies will be Speed Racer, a near-disaster of a film that will be barely saved from this year's bottom ten lists by a few visually arresting races and fights in the final few reels. If the audience of kids that I saw the film with is any indication, most of the little ones won't make it to the cool stuff in Speed Racer, having squirmed their way to the door right around the time the film's getting interesting (you could literally hear them get restless at minute 100, as if they all had the same internal clock… probably the most fascinating thing about the screening). Hardcore visual effects fans will excuse the horrible screenplay, overly complex plotting, epileptic pacing, and nonsensical characters by saying "it looks cool and it IS just based on a cartoon." That's a hard-to-argue-with conversation killer, but consider this - almost the entire first 80 minutes of the movie are completely unnecessary. Yes, the Wachowski Brothers have the nerve to put in a movie's worth of set-up before we get to a race that matters, but it's all for nothing. Go see something better (and shorter) this weekend and come in for the final hour of Speed Racer. You won't miss a beat.

The bloated set-up of Speed Racer goes something like this - Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) once had an older brother named Rex Racer (Scott Porter), who was one of the best racecar drivers in the Wachowskis' futuristic, candy-colored world that looks like it came from the mind of Willy Wonka and Frank Miller's love child. Drivers don't just move in circles like they do on NASCAR. Oh no, these futuristic cars can jump, spin, drift, and some of them are even equipped with deadly weapons. Rex Racer left the comfort of Racer Motors - headed by Pops Racer (John Goodman) and Mom Racer (Susan Sarandon) - to make his own way in this competitive racing world and ended up a statistic on the side of a cliff-face (or did he?). You see, the world of racing isn't pure any more. Corporations and cartels are fixing races, using illegal weapons and other nefarious means to get to victory lane. But Speed is a pure racer and, after turning down the nefarious advances of the head of Royalton Racing (V For Vendetta’s Roger Allam), he teams with the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox) to bring equality back to the sport. Meanwhile, Speed's annoying kid brother and his chimp tag along for alleged comic relief, and Christina Ricci just hangs out in the background, finding herself wasted in yet another film.

Speed Racer is shockingly full of dialogue that will make adults squirm in their seats, not to mention the kids who just want to see something go fast while they still have their popcorn and candy rush. Scene after scene tries to set up intrigue with the evil-doers who are trying to rig the sport to their advantage or Speed remembering his older brother and how his betrayal of the family hurt everyone. Instead of setting up the relatively simple themes of family and honor over betrayal and cheating, the Wachowskis pound them into their audience's heads to the point where it becomes impossible to care about anything that's happening on the track. With its visual flourishes and two extended race scenes that are, admittedly, breathtaking to behold, there's a great 80-minute movie buried under the dead weight of dialogue and forgettable characters, but the extra hour is just too much for this summer vehicle to take. Speed Racer is a movie made for Blu-Ray, when you'll be able to marvel at the pretty pictures (and, it should be noted, the movie is a visual stunner), but skip everything in between. It's damn-near remarkable, but the Wachowski Brothers found a way to make a movie about things that go fast feel like one of the longest theatrical experiences of the year.

Rating: ONE BONE

Release Date: May 9th, 2008

Rating: PG

Starring: Emile Hirsch, Matthew Fox, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Scott Porter, Paulie Litt, Roger Allam, and Christina Ricci

Directors: The Wachowski Brothers