'Speed Racer': This ride is purely for the kids

Small children and anyone who feels nostalgia for early Japanese anime will probably enjoy "Speed Racer," a big-screen version of the '60s TV series and Hollywood's latest effort to insert a cast of human actors in an otherwise totally computer-generated world.

But anyone who expects auteur-directors Andy and Larry Wachowski to elevate this material into something a bit more intellectually daring than its source -- or half as astute and engaging as their "Matrix" trilogy -- is likely to be sorely disappointed.

This one is a kiddie show all the way, with characters as broad and one-dimensional as a billboard, a vision of good and evil as simple as a bumper sticker and a tiresome chimpanzee mugging through every other scene like something from a bad Tarzan movie.

The title is not a job description but a character: Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch), the racing-crazy son of a race-car designer (John Goodman) and worshipful younger brother of a maverick racing champ (Scott Porter) who is killed in a racing pile-up.

When Speed reaches manhood and shows promise of becoming a legend in his own right, the World Racing League's most corrupt corporate sponsor (Roger Allam) tries to recruit him to the dark side of the sport, which he claims is and always has been fixed.

But our hero will have none of this, and joins forces with other good guys to bring the evil billionaire down and restore the integrity of racing by winning two grueling competitions -- a transcontinental marathon and a movie-climaxing Grand Prix.

In telling this story, the Wachowskis have gone all out to re-create on a grand scale the visual style, the mentality and the trivia of the old anime series. It's a catalog of references. As a tribute, it couldn't be more respectful or loving.

Moreover, for a movie so obsessed with technology, the performances are surprisingly strong. Hirsch underplays Speed with just the right touch. Allam makes a wonderfully bellicose villain. Christina Ricci, Goodman and Matthew Fox all shine in supporting parts.

On the other hand, at 2 hours, 9 minutes, it's way too long for anything so mindless. And its script is enormously talky, often referring to a back story so complicated and full of faceless names that the mind just shuts off from it all.

Throughout, it's also very hard to feel much empathy or fear for humans in a "Road Runner" world where the laws of gravity do not apply. The endless racing scenes have little visceral punch. As a summer thrill machine, "Speed Racer" is far from supercharged.