A scene from Speed Racer. (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Though it may not always be true that speed kills, it can sure leave you woozy. The potentially hazardous effects of excessively kinetic imagery were proven in an incident in Japan on December 16, 1997, when a very special episode of Pokemon had an adverse effect on more than 600 viewers. The cause was later determined to be an eight-second-long strobe effect, as a background colour in one sequence shifted between red and blue. The affected viewers – most of whom were children with no previous history of epilepsy – suffered such reactions as convulsions, vomiting and irritated eyes. When North American networks began running Pokemon, they pruned the episodes of anything that might be equally over-stimulating.

If eight seconds’ worth of light strobes could have that sort of impact on sensitive eyes and tummies, 135 minutes’ worth of Speed Racer could very well make your head explode. The first movie written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski since The Matrix trilogy, this live-action adaptation of the 1960s Japanese anime series is so visually bombastic and hyper-accelerated in its pacing that it may leave you feeling like your synapses have been rewired. And like those unfortunate Pokemon victims, you may not find the experience entirely pleasant.

Emile Hirsch, so memorable as the ill-fated traveller in Sean Penn’s Into the Wild, is the title character, the scion of a racing family headed by his parents, Pops (John Goodman) and the even more prosaically named Mom (Susan Sarandon). Speed Racer’s family unit is filled out by his girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci), mechanic pal Sparky (Kick Gurry), pesky little brother Spritle (Paulie Litt) and a chimpanzee named Chim-Chim. (The animal that played Chim-Chim was the subject of the strangest rumours surrounding Speed Racer, when PETA alleged that simian performers were abused on set.)

Missing is Speed’s older brother Rex, who died in a mysterious accident while competing in a notorious cross-country rally. As Speed becomes a serious contender in the World Racing League, he faces the same dangers as his brother. Speed soon incurs the wrath of Royalton (Roger Allam), a wealthy industrialist and racing team owner who shows him the true face of the sport he loves. “It has nothing to do with cars or drivers,” Royalton says in a voice full of spite. “All that matters is power and the unassailable might of money.”

To complain about Speed Racer’s wooden performances, overburdened storyline and utilitarian dialogue seems churlish. These, too, are hallmarks of anime (though even ardent fans wish it weren’t the case). The Wachowskis display great fidelity and ingenuity in their efforts to adapt not only the characters and concept of Tatsuo Yoshida’s original show (known as Mach GoGoGo in Japan), but the visual esthetic of anime.

Dispensing with any vestige of naturalism, Speed Racer makes a virtue out of artifice, with an exaggerated colour palette, stark contrasts between light and dark and an utter lack of depth. While the actors in the second Star Wars trilogy rarely seemed integrated into their CG environments, the performers here are proudly two-dimensional (in every sense of the term). The average frame of Speed Racer is as flat, bright and dazzling as a Roy Liechtenstein painting. (A more apt reference might be the work of Takashi Murakami, the Warholian pop artist whose work is currently on display at the Brooklyn Museum.)

Emile Hirsch stars as the fearless Speed Racer. (Warner Bros. Pictures)

In many ways, the Wachowskis have taken the opposite strategy to that of Beowulf, the last Hollywood blockbuster so driven and distinguished by digital effects. Rather than populate the frame with digitized characters that struggle to appear human, the Wachowskis turn the people into cartoons.

The murky plot strands about races being fixed to affect the stock prices of the competing companies illustrate the Wachowskis’ penchant for paranoia and contempt for corporate crime. It also points to their inability to put together a story that makes any damn sense; next to this, the first Matrix movie is a model of coherence. Since they devote most of their resources to the race and action sequences, the film’s narrative faults don’t matter much. Intricately designed and imaginatively choreographed, the scenes of Speed doing what he does best are exhilarating — right up until the point at which they become tediously demanding. Given anything less than your complete attention, the stream of images becomes an incomprehensible blur.

That’s par for the course for anime. Speed Racer also owes a lot to Japanese filmmakers like Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man), Ryuhei Kitamura (Versus) and Sogoe Ishii (Electric Dragon 80,000 V), who have integrated anime qualities into live-action features. The Wachowskis acknowledge their debt by including many Japanese characters in the (unusually) international cast — though like so many Hollywood features, it fosters some questionable stereotypes. A French accent indicates a nefarious nature, just as surely as an American one suggests good-hearted decency.

The violent, Matrix-like encounters with ninjas (or “nonjas” as Pops dubs a particularly inept one) and machine gun-toting heavies fit poorly with Speed Racer’s ambitions as kid-friendly summer fare. The attempts at comic relief (like the antics of Spritle and his hairy pal) are just as noxious. Whenever in doubt, the Wachowskis cut to a reaction shot of Chim-Chim, or have a bad guy shout, “Get that monkey!” And the movie is skittish when it comes to romance; it becomes a running joke that Speed and Trixie’s big kiss will always be interrupted.

But who has time to search for subtexts when you’re riding a runaway bullet train? Speed Racer ’s adrenalin rush can be intoxicating, but the feeling it provokes is more like exhaustion than anything resembling pleasure. Whether this condition requires a visit to the hospital is up to you.

Speed Racer opens across Canada on May 9.

Jason Anderson is a Toronto-based writer.