I asked myself “are they really doing that?” no less than six times throughout Speed Racer, most of those within the first twenty minutes. (After that I found my groove.) Don’t get me wrong: It was a happy question, asked a little disbelievingly. You may think you’re ready for the sheer kinetic craziness of the movie’s style after seeing the trailer, but brother, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Some plot stuff before we get to the fun parts. Speed Racer (played by Emile Hirsch, and yes, both of those are his name) is an up-and-coming talent in the World Racing League. Speed, like his now-deceased brother before him, refuses to run under the banner of any sponsors; he just races for the Racers… and his gal Trixie (Christina Ricci), of course.

Corporate bigwig Royalton (Roger Allam) wants Speed in his stable of racers. Speed declines, and Royalton gives him a lesson in the “real” racing: the backroom deals worked up by guys like him, rigging races to control company stock. (In Speed Racer’s world, the WRL is the most popular sport in the world and can do this sort of thing.) Speed’s resolve hardens, and with the help of the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox), he sets out to win it all, and defy Royalton’s stable of cheating racers.

Okay, done. The real story here is the complete visual package the Wachowskis have created, essentially inventing an entire world for the Racer characters to inhabit. Once you get past the stylized costuming and broad acting style of the actors, absolutely nothing in the world they inhabit closely resembles anything in our own; they live in a world stuck halfway between ours and that of Looney Tunes. The riot of colors is what the phrase “eye candy” was created for. Speed is everything; the laws of physics and practicality need not apply.

What I’m talking about is a kid’s world, because ultimately this is a kid’s movie—but don’t let that turn you off. Your first real clue should be the shot of Speed as a boy, in school, filling his mind with fantasies of racing—and then that world comes alive around him, manifested as a living version of a kid’s picture. I suddenly remembered what it was like to be young again.

The racing itself is something else. The cars drift, slide, reverse in full speed, and use metal “feet” to send themselves flipping into the air. Their drivers race at incredible speeds along Hot Wheels-style curved and looped courses and talk into headsets at normal volume, as apparently no wind is rushing by their open cockpits. Cars that explode send their drivers harmlessly bouncing away in large gelatinous spheres. No death, no injury, no real consequence… except the shame of losing.

Good stuff. Not altogether flawless, however; some of that computer-generated racing is a little too weightless to carry much, er, weight, and there’s just no reason for an action movie aimed mostly at kids to tip the scales at over 2 hours long. The financial backroom dealing was murkier than necessary. The humor is so broad broad it’s flat. I wasn’t bothered by the fairly frequent exchanges of sincere dialogue about the strength of family, but I can’t speak for the kids in the theater.

But this is nonetheless a strong summer movie with sly statements about artistry lurking under its glossy, rainbow-bright exterior. Corporate overlords swearing they’re the real power behind the throne? Insisting that artists (Speed’s mom’s word) are merely tools to generate profits? Then Speed doing his own thing and fighting the odds to break through this cynicism and win the day for pure, unsullied, racing-for-the-sake-of-it? Hmm. Now what does that sound like to you?

If I may stroke a pet theory, it sounds like the sort of thing I thought Sin City opened the door on before 300 blew that door off its hinges. Namely: the ability of the artist to have it his way—exactly his way—and still generate tremendous buzz and enough profits to keep the overlords happy. They pointed the way toward creating “living painting” experiences that cannot be found in any other medium.

Whatever your thoughts on those two previous movies, they represent exactly those things. The Wachowskis have made exactly the movie they want to make, and it is a hell of a lot of fun. Good on them.