When you think about it, it’s been a really long time since we’ve had a straight-up street racing flick hit the screen (or so I think). The last one I can think of was The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and that was back in 2006 so it seems we’re well overdue for some high octane street racing with sexy, expensive cars with a ton of horsepower and Scott Waugh’s (Act of Valor) video game adaptation Need for Speed aims to fill that void.
In the film, Aaron Paul stars as Toby Marshall, a blue-collar mechanic who earns money on the side racing muscle cars in an illegal street racing circuit while attempting to keep his family-owned garage from going under. Due to his financial situation, he, along with his mechanic buddies, takes on a job from the arrogant ex-NASCAR driver Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper) to finish building a very special Shelby Mustang and manages to be the one that helps sell the car to car broker Julia Maddon (Imogen Poots). When Dino makes Toby a race offer he can’t refuse, the two guys and Toby’s friend participate in an illegal street race that ends horribly and with Toby in jail, framed for a crime he didn’t commit.
Fast forward two years and Toby is out for revenge. He recruits Julia so that he can drive the powerful Shelby in a highly valuable and illegal underground street race called the De Leon. Toby must race across the country from NY to California in order to get accepted and participate in the legendary race.
As unfortunately expected, Need for Speed is very formulaic, highly predictable and exactly the movie you’d expect it to be. In terms of the story, everything turns out the way you’d imagine it would. The revenge tale you could see coming miles before it happens as well as knowing that his insanely good driving skills would SPOILER somehow get him to California without getting caught be the police. END SPOILER. Yet somehow, despite how generic this story may be, the film manages to clock in at 130 minutes, that’s insanely long for street racing movie that has a plot as complex as a children’s book.
Furthermore, the dialogue in the script was pretty mushy and the addition of romance didn’t help the situation. There were a lot of attempts at jokes, only half of which hit their mark, but thankfully there was one scene that did make me laugh out loud for more than two seconds and that’s compliments of Rami Malek, an employee willing to do anything to make sure he’s never re-hired.
There’s only one reason anybody is going to see this film and it’s for the racing sequences, and there are a few good ones. From a slick muscle car race to essentially open the film to three Koenigsegg’s racing on a highway, the racing sequences only get better and the cars more exotic. Waugh uses some cool angles, especially during the crashes, to mimic the varied camera angles we see used in the video games. When it comes to emulating the game, I have to give props to him for finding a way to connect the feature to its source material. This couldn’t be truer for when cops get involved, the use of helicopters, rolling blocks and announcing other traps to stop the racers was exactly how the game plays out which was fun to see.
Sitting in the theater listening to and feeling the rumble of the Shelby speed away from the cops is enough to put a smile on any man or car loving woman’s face. While I am partial to Mustangs and was glad that was the primary car, the film also features millions of dollars of pure automotive porn. I’m talking about three Koenigsegg Agera Rs, a Saleen S7, a Lamborghini Sesto Elemento, a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, a Spano GTA, and a McLaren P1, just to name a few. When you watch some of these crash though it’s not like crashing them in the video game where they get a fresh coat of paint when the race is finished, no my friends, you die a little on the inside as millions of dollars get totaled. This is both the best and the worst part about watching the film.
Will Need for Speed be a hit that turns into a moneymaking franchise for a desperate DreamWorks? It’s possible because the Fast and Furious franchise has drastically evolved from its roots and is no longer about racing. Do I think it’s a franchise that will last? Probably not. If they keep the story as generic, bland and long as this film was then I don’t see a promising future. Need for Speed will certainly give you your fill of awesome stunt driving and high speed races but outside of that gasoline powered candy, there isn’t much else this film offers.
Rating: Sick racing and orgasmic cars do enough to distract you from this incredibly long and generic street racing film (5/10)
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