Seriously, though, if you manage to make it through the entire movie -- in addition to deserving some sort of award for patience and tolerance -- you will probably be more than a little confused about what's what. This is especially true for children, I would imagine, a demographic the movie should appeal to.

There are at least a handful of different movies within Speed Racer, which might account for the fact that it's more than two hours long (it doesn't need to be).

It's trying to be an action movie -- and not just any action movie, since it's from the Wachowski Brothers. It has slo-mo fighting just like The Matrix, with a slight difference: The race cars do the slo-mo fighting. I only wish I were kidding.

It's trying to be a high-tech, effects-driven movie, a la The Matrix trilogy. It does succeed at this on some level, since most of what you see are effects -- acid-tripping, nausea-inducing effects, but still: effects. But if it doesn't engage in any way, it's a little difficult to care much about the effects that are driving the story. Sure, the road race and the Grand Prix have their cool-looking moments, but it's hard to care all that much about the outcome, other than that you know you're supposed to want Speed (Emile Hirsch) to win. Which leads me to...

It's trying to be a feel-good drama about a struggling family and the obstacles (corporations!) they are attempting to overcome in order to protect what is good in racing. It's a little odd that the movie spends any time talking about stocks, and even more odd that it sets up two villains who are trying to destroy racing. Having two major bad guys (a corporate honcho and a crime boss), plus all of their henchmen, only serves to make the plot more confusing, not to make us root more for the poor, down-trodden race car family that we're supposed to love.

It's also aiming to be a family film, with the cartoonish ("ish" might be stretching it, since nearly everything other than the actors is animated) bright colors. They also throw in two gimmicks in one, in the hopes of eliciting belly laughs from the young (or immature) set: a goofy brother and his chimp (he even throws poop in a fight, which is so funny. Except that it's not).

Finally, it's aspiring to be somewhat of a romance. Unfortunately, it doesn't focus on the relationship between Speed and Trixie (Christina Ricci) enough to make you root for the relationship or even understand why they're a couple. It feels very tacked on to the movie, but becomes a "very special moment" at certain points of the movie. Again with the confusion.

Another problem with Speed Racer -- and this one's a doozy -- is the terrible acting. It feels as if no one in the movie is even trying to inhabit a character or convince viewers of anything. The whole cast is just giving these straight, boring line reads. And why? Possibly because they acted the entire thing in front of a green screen, and were as confused by the multiple plots as viewers will be?

I'm sure there's something in this movie that will appeal to some segment of the population (the dead brother backstory is sort of touching), but if it takes this much digging to find a morsel of mediocre in two hours of horrendous dreck, is it really worth it?