I was as dazzled by the visuals in Speed Racer‘s initial promotional materials, teasers, and trailers as anyone. But as is always the case with such things, there’s the nagging suspicion that the film will be nothing more than such, and that the film won’t live up to the razzle-dazzle. And the fact that the Wachowski Brothers were behind Speed Racer‘s camera only made that suspicion worse. I don’t think the Matrix films were shallow by any means, but arguably, the brothers had definitely placed everything but sheer visual spectacle on the backburner by the trilogy’s end.

And when you’ve got the folks behind such films working on a children’s movie that is a remake of a Japanese anime series that, classic status notwithstanding, is more often the butt of jokes than anything else, well, let’s just say that I totally understand folks’ hesitation.

But the thing is, they’d be absolutely wrong.

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