SLOW MOTION SPEED RACER

I DON'T know. You wait four months and a week for a warm weekend in the New Year and the Wachowski Bros (The Matrix trilogy) only go and release a film that's 135 minutes long.

The talented but over-the-top directors could have been halfway through making another movie by now if they'd kept it to a more sensible 90 minutes.

The hotter the weather, the longer - and slower - Speed Racer will seem.

It will play best to eight to ten-year-old boys. Had the film been kept short, children would have had time to see the film and to enjoy this weekend's sunshine, too.

I can't face seeing it ever again, so my youngsters will only get to see it if my wife volunteers to take 'em.

Since she still hasn't seen 27 Dresses or Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky (both of which women everywhere should love), our children will have to form an orderly queue.

And hope it lasts for quite a while at the IMAX which is the best place in town to see it.