Speed Racer (2008) review

The cheaply-done, poorly-synced Japanese cartoon from the late sixties gets re-invented as a bloated comic book computer movie that violates all rules of physics, logic, space and time (all objects are virtually transparent and plot exposition is literally just a fade away). I suppose praise is in order for the visual design and all the bright colors and shiny sets: no matter how plastic the performers look or act, there's always something colorful worth staring at, which reduces the movie to the equivalent of eye candy, not unlike some of the more elaborate video art adorning the walls of galleries around the world. But with all the glamour and attention to surface details comes the core issue: this picture is a mechanical, soulless affair, hollower than the original because it was made with even less loving care and yet arguing - with great, aggravating irony - that what makes the character of Speed Racer (generic white male Emile Hirsch) so "marvelous" is how he makes "racing an art-form" … while the filmmakers and digital rendering people and the mouse-clickers take an art-form and turn it into a video game demonstration sans controllers.