Speed Racer Is a Slog

The Wachowski brothers’ Speed Racer is a flashy ride that would be great for kids—if it weren’t “like C-SPAN set in an arcade,” writes Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times. Endless, aimless dialog, she says, dominates the “juvenile and hermetic” pastiche about a Grand Prix driver avenging his brother's death in a futuristic world that looks like the inside of a pinball machine. 

The New York Times’ AO Scott agrees: “When it comes to storytelling, Speed Racer has nothing in common with its title.” Scott admits “there may be a perverse integrity” in the Wachowskis’ approach—focusing “relentlessly on visual style while dispensing almost entirely with credible emotion or intelligible narrative.” And Joe Neumaier offers New York Daily News readers a way to enjoy the film: “Trying to follow the plot is like reading toy instructions on Christmas morning: Skip it, and just look at the pretty lights.” (More film stories.)