“Speed Racer” is a candy-coated acid trip, a string of surreal, hard-to-follow visuals wrapped up in a palette of bright, blinding colors with a storyline so sweet that your teeth may start to hurt. Anyone over the age of 16 will probably have a hard time making sense of “Speed Racer” and might wind up with cinematic diabetes and a bad seizure after watching. But “Speed Racer” is a kids’ movie through and through, and any sort of concern for adult viewers is lost among the car races (which are exciting, although a bit too much like Mario Kart), kung fu fights and monkey-related antics.

Written, directed and produced by “The Matrix” creators Andy and Larry Wachowski, “Speed Racer” is not your average summer movie vehicle, but the quality of the ride depends highly upon your age and, more importantly, love of the original cartoon.

Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) loves racing more than anything, save perhaps his family—but they all love racing, too, so it’s about equal. His dad, Pops Racer (John Goodman), founded the family’s racing company and built Speed’s ultra-slick set of wheels, the Mach 5. As Speed continues to break records and attract notice in the World Racing League, he still finds himself in the shadow of his older brother, Rex (Scott Porter), a legendary racer disgraced by scandal and seemingly killed in a fiery crash.

Much like any other sport, when the victories start to pile up, sponsorship opportunities follow close behind. After one stunning finish, the Racer family’s breakfast is interrupted by Royalton (Roger Allam), the mega-billionaire head of Royalton Industries. He wants to add Speed to his racing team and refuses to take no for an answer. As Speed navigates the corrupt world of big-time racing, he finds help from an unexpected source—a masked speedster known only as Racer X (Matthew Fox).

This tension between a rag-tag mom and pop racing company and a sinister mega-corporation is about the only thing that might make “Speed Racer” engaging for anyone looking beyond action on the race track. A long, bitter monologue by Royalton frames the history of racing in terms of corporate warfare, boardroom deals and stock buyouts. It’s an interesting idea, not to mention a slight jab at NASCAR, and one that could have given “Speed Racer” a little more depth. But, really, no one is watching “Speed Racer” for the corporate intrigue. What really matters are the car races, and it’s here that the Wachowskis succeed.

When Speed is behind the wheel of the Mach 5 and blasting past competitors, “Speed Racer” is pretty thrilling. Visually, it looks like a big, colorful video game, and it feels like one, too. Despite all the explosive crashes and gonzo vehicle weapons (a catapult that flings a bee hive? Really?), no one dies, and all racers are safely transported out of the flaming wrecks inside a giant ball made of bubbles. Though there’s no real danger to the characters and scant characterization to begin with, the races are still fun to watch.

Off the race track, though, things are dicey. The Wachowskis’ script is way too long and way too schmaltzy. Meanwhile, Speed’s little brother, Spritle (Paulie Litt) and his monkey pal Chim-Chim are acutely annoying whenever they’re on screen, proving that monkeys do not always make everything better. The Wachowski brothers even throw in some ninjas and kung fu, too, a call back to their “Matrix” days, but the slow-mo ninja beat-downs don’t match the racing action. Of course, kids love monkeys and ninjas, so what do I know?

The Wachowskis nailed the cartoonish visuals of the races, but that technique fails to translate elsewhere in the movie. There’s an over-reliance on close-ups of the characters’ faces, and good chunks of the movie consist of nothing but a giant head floating quickly over a garish background. A scene just before the film’s climactic race is literally nothing but a collage of giant floating heads, and it just looks silly.

Given the source material, it’s easy to lump “Speed Racer” in with “Iron Man,” “The Dark Knight” and all the other geek-centric movies coming out this summer. But that’s sort of missing the point. Though originally created for children, Iron Man, Batman and the rest have many more fans over the age of 25 than under the age of 10. “Speed Racer,” meanwhile, is unabashedly for kids. It’s simple and sugary sweet, and any hint of romance is prefaced with a warning about cooties. It’s a bumpy ride for adults, but for kids (and those with kid-like tendencies), “Speed Racer” beats the hell out of the average car trip.