10 Most Beautiful-Looking Bad Movies Ever Made

8. Speed Racer (2008)

The Wachowski siblings aren't the most consistent filmmakers in Hollywood, but you have to hand it to them: all of their films are visually stunning.

The worst of their movies, Speed Racer, went by relatively unnoticed and was a critically and commercial flop. Essentially, it was a super ambitious attempt to render a film as a anime cartoon. "What would that actually look like?" was presumably their guiding question going into the project, and the answer was, well, it would look awesome.

But Speed Racer wasn't what audiences wanted to see; the premise, the characters and the visuals just put everyone off, plain and simple. But to look at Speed Racer as anything other than an experiment - and a visual experiment at that - is to miss the point of the movie. The Wachowskis clearly set out to render a film with all the intelligence of a Saturday morning cartoon. The plot - a teenager called Speed Racer races a lot to avenge his brother's death - is the very definition of "thin," but totally on purpose.

The point of the film is to batter you into submission with crazy visual stylings, and on that front it entirely succeeds - and then some. The images literally pop out of the screen with all the audacity of a Roy Lichtenstein painting; they're bright and fluorescent in the best possible way - a visually perfect tribute to the source material, to the age of CG, and to the Wachowskis (as auteurs) themselves. The story sucks, but the picture is intoxicating.

Contributor

Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.