AS they said in Top Gun " I have the need for speed". Well do we really have a need for a Need For Speed film?, Not really to be honest. It's a bit on the rubbish side, the car chases are pretty awesome but it's a 2hr film and the plot is a bit naff. Anyone expecting Aaron Paul to shout "Bitch" a lot will be disappointed. Anyway find out my thoughts on the film after the Jump...
Is it possible for a
multi-million dollar car race movie to rival the already huge and
bankable Fast & Furious franchise? Clearly someone at
Dreamworks clearly thought so. Need For Speed is based on the epic
car racing series of games from EA studios of the same name. The
premise of the games varies from game to game, sometimes it's
straight up street racing and sometimes there's a semblance of plot
added to one, but the game fundamentals always come down to the same
thing, drive really really fucking fast. There's no denying that the
Need For Speed movie does indeed have people driving really really
fast but the biggest issue the film has is that it's a bit too boring
and heavily borrows from the absolutely brilliant 1971 film Vanishing
point and I mean heavily. But lets delve into the so-called “plot”
of Need For Speed...
The film opens in
small up state New York town where Toby Marshall, a car mechanic and
street race from a family of car nuts gets into a race with his
ex-girlfriend's younger brother where they speed around the streets
in souped up 70s muscle cars which seem incredibly easy to get hold
of in the U.S. An old rival turned pro race turns up and offers
Marshell the chance to build a 2013 Ford Mustang, the car that Ford
and Carol Shelby were designing before Shelby's death. If he accepts
he'll make an easy 15% of a $3mil sale. With his garage about to
foreclose, Marshall takes the offer and seconds later we're in NY
city for the unveiling where we meet Imogen Poot's character, a
cliche'd rich English girl who know's everything about cars. The sale
will be done if the car can hit 230MPH, obviously he does hit it and
his rival, pretty pissed that he couldn't do it, challenges Toby to a
race. So along with his ex-girlfriend's younger brother they race.
They race multi-million dollar concept cars through insane traffic,
The rival gets pissed off (he does this quite a bit) that he's losing
and bumps the multi-million dollar car into the back of another
multi-million dollar car on a bridge sending it flying through the
air in a blaze of fire, killing Toby's ex-girlfriend's younger
brother. Toby goes to help as the rival, named Dino speeds off with a
cunty smirk on his face.
Toby gets arrested
and explains that there was a third car driven by Dino but it's now
missing and there was no-one else there to prove the other car was at
the scene. Toby goes to prison for 2 years, gets out and phones the
owner of the Mustang, asking if he can use the $2.7 million dollar
car to drive from NY to California for an underground race to find
Dino and prove his innocence. The rest of the movie involves daring
car chases, some pretty lame dialogue and a scene with a man taking
his clothes off in an office for no apparent reason.
Need For Speed
suffers from the same issues director Scott Waugh suffered on his
last film, Act Of Valor, the action scenes were incredible but the
plot was cliched and generic. It follows the plot of a cross country
journey that in a certain amount of hours that was the exact plot of
Vanishing point, add to that that the film has a guiding voice from a
radio/podcast host in the form of Michael Keaton, the same kind of
guiding voice Cleavon Little gave to Kawolski's epic race across the
U.S as Super Soul. It's the familiarity of other films that is, well
for me anyway, one the films biggest problem, also a subdued
performance from Aaron Paul as Toby Marshall, who plays silent for
most of the movie, a move completely opposite to that of Jesse
Pinkman from Breaking Bad, of course I can understand Paul wanting to
divert away from that performance because after all, this ain't
Breaking Bad and the villain ain't Walter White, it's Dominic Cooper.
But where as Pinkman had character, like his trademark hip hop style
and the constant use of the word bitch, Toby has nothing, there's
nothing there to differentiate his character from any other, it's
easy to compare the two and even easier to compare Toby to Paul
Walker's Brian O'Connor in the F&F movies, both are white young
guys, obsessed with cars and part of a “family” of other car
obsessed people.
The biggest plus for
Need For Speed is the actual car racing, some absolutely stunning
cars are on display, hurtling around at intense speeds and it's to
Waugh's credit that decided to do almost all of the races and chases
practically, giving NFS an old school chase flick feel and that 2013
Mustang is gorgeous. I guess it helps that Scott Waugh comes from a
stunt background which is probably why the action in Act Of Valor
felt so authentic although at times, they chases did look like Top
Gear VT's of these super expensive Super cars.
So is it worth
seeing? Not really, there's not a single character that stands out,
the plot is a mix of better films and everything just feels samey,
it's a very underwhelming film and you'd probably have a lot more fun
watching any of the six currently available Fast and Furious movies.
Can I see a sequel coming?, I don't know, how would they follow the
story unless they cast a completely different character. Not
impressed by this sorry folks....
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