I've never seen a car movie that I'd consider mediocre. They only fit a few categories, and those categories are either pure amazement at how great they are or pure amazement at how bad a movie could be. Let's talk about the bad ones.
(In advance of the Jalopnik Film Festival we're doing a week of posts focused on cars and films. Remember, you can still buy tickets here.)
I can't stand Driven. Sylvester Stallone wanted to make an F1 movie, but he couldn't get enough details. So instead he made one based on CART. Awesome, they need the exposure, this should be amazing.
Problem is, it's not amazing. It's one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Maybe it's because I'm a pretty intense IndyCar fan, but everything about the movie makes me mad. Picking up quarters with a tire? Winning a race on a broken suspension? Insane crashes into a lake? Cars that obviously aren't CART cars running on track? Too much shifting? They drive IndyCars on the streets of Chicago?
Give me a break. Oh, and the acting is wooden and awful and Stallone doesn't appear to know a thing about what is going on.
What say you? What's the worst car movie of all time.