Speed Racer is a synthetic fantasy about a grumpy American family who are mad keen about racing cars. I can’t begin to describe how creepy this futuristic movie is. The famous actors look more plastic than the sets and the plot is a video game. The hero is a teenage boy called Speed (Emile Hirsch) who has a supernatural knack of winning nail-biting races that look as important as Clacton Pier’s finest £1 video sensation. This is cartoon heaven for Murray Walker and hell for anyone normal.

The Wachowski brothers’ live-action remake of the 1967 Japanese cartoon is an inexplicable piece of nostalgia. After the grown-up thrills of The Matrix trilogy, why this? I remember watching the dubbed manga version of Speed Racer as a toddler, then I grew up. The cash the Wachowskis have poured into this candy-coated thriller defies belief. The LSD scenery is as kitsch as Jeff Koons. The kinky racing cars are febrile bits of computer graphics. The fairytale story is nonsense.This is PG family entertainment.

Dad is Fred Flintstone (John Goodman). Someone spiked Susan Sarandon’s milk (Mom). It is never clear whether Christina Ricci is Speed’s sister or girlfriend. And the youngest member of the family is a monkey. The greasy devil is Roger Allam, a corporate monster who wants to brainwash Speed and rule the world. Allam is the camp and seedy oasis in this sentimental oil slick.

The technical marvels of the film are full of ingenious retro touches. There are delicious sideway scrolls that shift from Speed’s cockpit crises to slivers of the Racer family’s struggle with watered-down Tarantino thugs. But these small miracles are an awful waste.

PG, 135mins

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