The summer of 2008 was a weird one. Kate stepped off a curb the wrong way, and all that was left of her ankle complex was smithereens. They had to construct something in her leg that looked less like prosthetic bone and more like a bookshelf, and it took her a long time to walk again.

Since she was confined to a wheelchair following surgery, we went to a lot of movies. One of them was Speed Racer, the Wachowski’s follow-up to The Matrix Trilogy. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was a Bad Movie. It was Hard to Follow and Cheesy. Plus there was an obnoxious little boy and a chimpanzee.

The problem was, I didn’t hate it like I was supposed to. I loved it. In 2026, it might be my favorite movie (maybe tied with Prey). It is, in my opinion, a masterpiece. On one level, it’s a devoted adaption of a legendary anime. On another, the cast is not phoning it in at all, like an Oscar winner would in an MCU movie. Emile Hirsh is a great Speed, polite and determined, Christina Ricci shows us with hard sass as Speed’s girlfriend, Trixie, and John Goodman and Susan Sarandon go right for the heart. It’s cheesy, it’s predictable, and it’s sincere. It’s a masterpiece of directing, art, action, sound-mixing, style, and hope.

I can’t remember all the movies we saw that year, but I remember the big two, and there wasn’t an ounce of sincerity between them. The first one taught you that universal surveillance was fine, as long as the person doing it is a The Big Billionaire Hero. If you’re a hero, you’re going to turn to evil anyway, unless you’re the guy who drives around in a tank and blows up other people’s cars for no reason. The second blockbuster taught that you can sell weapons that blow up brown children as long as you’re charming and smarmy and say, “Oops! My bad!”

While I enjoyed watching The Dark Knight and Iron Man, they were ultimately about rich people being better than us. Meanwhile, we have a colorful, optimistic movie where a working-class kid with talent, who is honest and polite, can overcome capitalism. America, being the cynical country we are, made the cynical movies hits while Speed Racer was labeled as terrible.

I loved the cartoon growing up. I had no idea how groundbreaking it was at the time, just that I needed to wear a red ascot. Speed Racer is the direct cause of a car crash in Hopatcong, New Jersey in 1981, in which an automobile on the top of the hill rolled into someone’s garage, which was caused by the emergency brake being released, and the five-year-old who did it refuses to accept responsibility.

I tried to watch it when it aired on MTV (RIP) in the mid-nineties. It wasn’t horrible, I want to be clear about that. I just couldn’t connect with it as well because of the animation standing on its shoulders, and the shoulders above that. I’d like to watch it now, when I would more appreciate the artistry of it.

I bring this up because, I came across an ad for a perfectly legal, you-can’t-prove-anything Lego kit for Speed’s iconic car, the Mach 5. (His name is Speed. Deal with it.) This weekend, I committed to building it.

Step 1: The Unboxing:

Step 2: You’re Starting to Get the Feel for It.

Step 3: The Skeleton

Step 4: I wish I had decals.