cardboard archetypes with Saturday Morning dialogue." Speed Racer "sets out to honor and refresh a youthful enthusiasm from the past and winds up smothering the fun in self-conscious grandiosity", declared The New York Times A. O. Scott. Glenn Kenny of Premiere criticized the film's time-shifting narrative and multiple storylines, saying it "yields heretofore undreamed of levels of narrative incoherence". Kenny praised the film's look, saying the "cheez-whizziness" that others had criticised was "precisely the point". He remarked the movie inspires even more thinking than The Matrix because of its "blatantly anti-capitalist storylines". Similarly, The New Yorkers Anthony Lane said the film could still end up "bleached of fun" due to the theme mooted in The Matrix that all of us are being controlled. In Speed Racer, Lane argues, this comes in the form of villain Royalton, who "vows to crush [Speed] with 'the unassailable might of money.'" He concluded some people may call it entertaining, but he "felt [it] like Pop fascism". Jim Emerson, editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote that Speed Racer "is a manufactured widget, a packaged commodity that capitalizes on an anthropomorphized cartoon of Capitalist Evil in order to sell itself and its ancillary products". It was said to be "the most tiresome piece of CGI ()" of the "past couple of years" at the time of film's release by Philip French, a The Guardian critic. IGN's Todd Gilchrist gave a positive review, stating that Speed Racer "is not merely the best film that it could be, it's pretty much exactly what it should be: full of exciting, brilliantly-conceived races, primary-color characterizations and an irresistible sense of fun". He called Speed Racer "a masterpiece of its kind", praising "the special effects extravaganza" and "the moment when the Wachowskis went from wunderkind directors to true auteurs". Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune described Speed Racer as "buoyant pop entertainment and noted the Wachowskis respected "the themes of honor, dishonor, family loyalty and Visigoth-inspired barbarism behind the wheel" of the original work. The cast is praised as being "earnest" and "gently playful". However, he stated that "it sags in its midsection" with unnecessary dialogue. Although it was said to be among the worst films of the year by Rebecca Murray of About.com, she included Speed Racer on her list of "Top 10 Action Movies of 2008", stating "the action sequences are definitely eye-catching." Time magazine included Speed Racer on