SPEED RACER Makes Time Magazine’s 10 Best Films List

If I were Nikki Finke, I would have written “Toldja!” in the headline.

In Time Magazine’s list of the Top 10 films of 2008, critic Richard Corliss has included the much maligned Speed Racer in the number 9 position, right after Iron Man and before Werner Herzog’s documentary Encounters At The End Of The World.

When it was first released, Speed Racer was savaged by many critics (37% on Rotten Tomatoes) who had trouble connecting with the incredible alternate reality that the Wachowski Brothers had created for the film. Released in the immediate wake of Iron Man, Speed Racer didn’t really get a chance to find an audience and quickly flamed out at the box office. I think I was one of the few critics who wrote positively about the film.

Normally I don’t place much stock in year end “Best of” lists, which is why we generally don’t do them here. And it would be easy to say that I’m only writing about this because Corliss happens to agree with me when he states that Speed Racer is “avant-garde FX masterpiece.” Well, OK, maybe there is a little of that here.

I had a chance to watch it again this past weekend. It was a viewing that only reaffirmed my feeling that the film will eventually undergo a critical reevaluation at some point. But I also have to wonder if Corliss’s act of naming the film to his Top 10 list will be the kickstart of that reevaluation. Corliss states that much of what the Wachowski Brothers do visually in the film will invariably be ripped off by other filmmakers. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, than I can’t wait to see Speed Racer to start receiving the adulation it truly deserves.

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About Rich Drees 7263 Articles
A film fan since he first saw that Rebel Blockade Runner fleeing the massive Imperial Star Destroyer at the tender age of 8 and a veteran freelance journalist with twenty-five years experience writing about film and pop culture. He is a member of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle.
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Ranting Man
May 7, 2009 8:49 pm

Are you sure that you and I were watching the same film? I was paid to see it and would rather have gouged my own eyes out with a rusty teaspoon for two hours.

Okay so maybe that is a bit of an over-reaction but I cannot see how anyone would have liked it.

It seems strange that of all the other 9 that made the list, I agreed with the quality of each of them….but Speed Racer? I think I need a lie down!