There seem to be good reasons to welcome “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” to Broadway – sociologically speaking, I mean. Theater-going habits tend to develop early in life, and this adaptation of the movie about the flying car will draw hordes of impressionable youths to the stage. It’s pleasant to think that the show is cultivating the theater audience of 2020, even if its automotive fixation might also generate vast new demand for Teen Autoweek.

But what kind of audience will these youngsters be, and for what sort of theater? Adrian Noble’s production harks back to the era of Cameron Mackintosh, a bigger, louder, more mediocre Broadway. The show’s gifted cast is forever climbing into machines or out of machines. Complicated wires and pulleys hoist actors above the stage or over our heads. (Compared to this show’s exquisite rigging, the flying witches and monkeys of “Wicked” are kiddies on a swing set.)

As Caractacus Potts invents his inventions, and does battle with the vulgar Vulgarians, there is a great deal of light and motion to see; every now and then somebody sings. And though the observation flirts with the cheaply allegorical, I will tell you that in the quieter moments, the actors’ voices are often swallowed by the sound system of the Hilton Theatre. When Mackintosh sent actors into battle against sprawling stage toys, at least he made sure they were armed with power ballads; back then, you could expect losses on both sides. The skill of the performers, good intentions of the creators, and occasional delicacy of the material don’t make much headway against the vast apparatus here.

You will recognize this refrain, no doubt. It may sound as though I’m making the cliched critic’s complaint about high-tech, big-budget musicals: that they fetishize metal, plastic, and spectacle at the expense of such quaint humanist notions as community, storytelling, and the primacy of the imagination. You may also think I’m indulging in the related critic’s cliche that amazement and wonder are different sensations, and that an active sense of wonder is better every time.

Well I am making the cliched critic’s complaints, as it happens. The shiny, anxious literalism of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” proves a much less satisfying way to adapt a family movie musical than Julie Taymor’s hugely imaginative take on “The Lion King.” But I’m not only making the cliched critic’s complaints. Some shows can be monstrous and synthetic and still work. Consider “Wicked,” which embraced scale and machinery without entirely losing its soul.

Mr. Noble’s production of Jeremy Sams’s adaptation shines in fragments without holding together. The bouncy overture, by original composer-lyricist combination Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman, has an infectious energy; the audience claps along. But later the pace grows languid, the focus scattered, particularly in Gillian Lynne’s sometimes chaotic dances. One of Anthony Ward’s looming sets will glide onstage – the candy factory where Caractacus tries to sell an invention, say – and you can’t help but be impressed by the craftsmanship. Still, there are so many of these sets, at such terrible proportions, that it takes a concerted effort to focus on the thin wisps of humanity fluttering in front of them.

Caractacus, the widowed inventor father, is a role for a song-and-dance man; Raul Esparza is a great deal more. In “Taboo,” “Cabaret,” and “Comedians,” he has shown a dangerous, slippery charisma. There’s no room for such qualities in this confection. Like Philip Bosco, who plays Caractacus’s father, he can’t shed the complexities that allow him to excel in richer roles. Still, Mr. Esparza sings a lovely lullaby, and remains as promising an actor as any in New York. As his love interest Truly Scrumptious, Erin Dilly achieves the stern sweetness of Mary Poppins, though without the spark to hold our attention.

I’ve long thought that Marc Kudisch’s uncanny mix of a rich, powerful voice and a genuine silly streak demands the return of Gilbert and Sullivan to Broadway. For further evidence, see his delightful turn as the villainous Baron Bomburst. He plays the daffy Vulgarian dictator as a giggling blend of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dr. Strangelove. Jan Maxwell is splendidly blase as the Baroness, an inspired performance that recalls Lili Von Shtupp, Madeline Kahn’s frontier chanteuse in “Blazing Saddles.”

As long as Mr. Kudisch and Ms. Maxwell hold the stage, the show offers a respite from the big-budget chaos, and abounds with fun. True, they do have to contend with that meaningless samba number. It is one of several songs that make no particular sense here, at least not when so many of the lyrics prove incomprehensible. There’s “Me Ol’ Bamboo,” the lyrics of which run, as best I could decipher: “But you buhnuhbuhnuhwuhmuh bamboo.” Also there’s one about roses.

The real event here is the car. Press accounts have treated with respectful awe the technology involved, the stage magic, the immense price tag. At $1.4 million for the car alone, you can think of the show as the most expensive prop-comedy act in history. But Mr. Noble’s production never achieves the magical quality that would justify the car’s attention and expense. Lacking a sense of whimsy, it seems like blunt automotive worship, slightly appalling and vaguely ridiculous, in ways I will attempt to describe.

Soon after the car appears – top down, shiny lamps, red leather interior – it seems to motor past a scrolling landscape. The paying audience applauded, so charming was this effect, in spite of a similar sensation being available just outside the theater door for the more reasonable price of $2.50 upon entry and $0.40 for each additional fifth of a mile.

Just before intermission, the car lifts up, pivots, tilts – motions that cabbies will demand a lot more money to provide. At intermission I wondered what the car might do to top that display, to earn back its shocking investment. Two possibilities occurred to me, but break dancing and mixing us martinis seemed equally implausible. In fact, the car does nothing much new in the second act.

It got me wondering what I would have done with that $1.4 million, and this is the best I could devise. In the show’s spirit of urgent literalism, and in the interest of creating maximum audience pleasure, I would have distributed $20 bills to the audience, wrapped in a picture of the car. Spectacle’s great and all, but I’d be more enthusiastic about the car if Andrew Jackson were on board, if you know what I mean.

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