[Img_Inline width="290" height="340" Caption="" align="right"]http://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2013/12/NFS_1-Sht_v5_Lg-610x903.jpg[/Img_Inline]
Need For Speed
(Scott Waugh, 2014)
To make a movie about Need For Speed is to make a movie about PES or Winning Eleven. It's one of the highest selling videogame franchises out there, but all the studios are paying for is brand recognition and no story to go with it. The franchise has been around since 1994 and while some latter generation games do sport a narrative framing device, let's face it: you might as well stamp "Need For Speed" on any other car race movies made this side of The Fast and the Furious.
The movie is about Tobey Marshall, played by Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul, a young car mechanic slash auto racer living in his deceased dad's shadow, like so many other Tom Cruise characters before him. He lives in a garage outside New York with his racially diverse homies, who fittingly enough play racing games when not actually racing. Two of them seem to be fighting for the role of Wisecracking Sidekick: a wisecracking black guy and a wisecracking hispanic guy. I would learn their names if the actors where playing parts, not types.
Then there's Little Pete (Harrison Gilbertson), who reminds me of Leo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? mixed with Tommy Wiseau's younger brother Denny in The Room. Little Pete tags along Tobey with all the excitement of a little dog whose master is about to take out on a walk. He's this infuriatingly cheery Tiny Tim who is obviously destined to die very early on and get the plot going.
[Img_Inline width="330" height="170" Caption="" align="left"]http://www.apnatimepass.com/aaron-paul-in-need-for-speed-movie-1.jpg[/Img_Inline]
The final player is Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper). Dino's another piece of work. He's the bad guy, and we know this because he shows up in a black leather jacket AND a turtle neck, also black. Talk about dressing the part. He offers Tobey a deal: customize the fastest car ever, sell it to the highest bidder and keep a juicy cut of the sale. They do just that, but Dino's pissed he's never going to be a better racer than Tobey, so he bets his share on a small race. Little Pete jumps in for no better reason than getting himself killed, Tobey's framed unjustly for manslaughter and 2 years later he's out seeking revenge.
His idea of revenge is to take part in a clandestine race called De León ("Of the Lion"), a more or less mythical event held by the mysterious Monarch (Michael Keaton, bringing in his sleazy energetic schtick as usual). Tobey has two days to drive across the country, make it into the Monarch's guest list and win the race because... well, that's the first hiccup. I'm not sure why he's doing it. Sure, the prize money is alluring. But his motivation is allegedly revenge, and I'm not sure how winning that race would avenge Little Pete, considering everybody - including Dino - already knows Tobey is the better racer.
[Img_Inline width="330" height="190" Caption="" align="right"]http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/e73J71RZRn8/maxresdefault.jpg[/Img_Inline]
But you're not here for the plot are you? God help you if you are. No, you're here for the racing. Well, it's very nice racing. I'm not sure what else to say about it. We've come to a day and age where every freaking movie has a car chase. A racing movie has more, fair enough, but they all look more or less the same. I suppose there isn't that much CGI involved, surprising for a 3D movie, and most of the racing - bar car-flipping stunts - seem to have been made for real. Props for that. There's also a neat recurring first person POV shot of Tobey at the wheel, much like the racing games of old, including a (justified) pop-up speedometer. As far as I can tell that - and a more or less varied selection of racing courses - are all nods the movie has to make towards the game/s.
I laughed at the dumb characterizations, but they never got in the way of enjoying the movie. And when the plot threw in Julia (Imogen Poots) into the car with Tobey, because I guess you need a chick and a romantic subplot in every movie, I rolled my eyes, but I didn't mind either. I can laugh it off, or at the very least shrug it off. The movie certainly shrugs off a lot of its own stupidity. Like when Tobey deliberately challenges the entire police force to chase him around Detroit, because he "needs to attract the Monarch's attention". Or earlier when Tobey drag races around New York suburbia right after getting released, just because. Or when Tobey decides he can't waste 15 minutes recharging fuel at a station so he has his homies resupply him from a moving truck at high speeds in a rather dangerous stunt... but the next day decides to stop at a gas station, because I guess it would be boring to watch the whole stunt again? We also see Julia applying make-up in the bathroom, wasting valuable time.
[Img_Inline width="330" height="170" Caption="" align="left"]http://musicacinetv.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/need-for-speed1.jpg[/Img_Inline]
I could go on about all the stupid things Tobey does throughout the movie. But, again, you're here for the racing. And while it's very professionally put together, and everything and everyone looks good doing stuff that looks for the most part real... well, I never felt all that excited about it. I never particularly ached for Tobey's revenge, nor did I think Tobey was taking his own revenge that seriously. Most of the car chases aren't even relevant to the plot. You get your obligatory intro, and the ill-fated bet... and after that it's just Tobey kind of being a dick and showing off en route to De León, for silly reasons that are explained at the end of each sequence because the movie is intelligent enough to know what just happened is kinda stupid.
And so a lot of races and chases feel rather inconsequential. It's not a question of there being "too much racing in a racing movie" (how silly would that be), but how weightless most of the racing feels. I'm not feeling the stakes, the pressure, the rush of it all. Tobey and his merry gang of sidekicks don't change a thing between the prologue and the "two years after" subtitle, they're as whimsical and as carefree as ever and all the stuff they do comes across as impractical and "for the lolz". The very final race, the winner take all moment, is as well staged as any other. But if the movie doesn't care about its own stupid characters, why should you?
Need For Speed
(Scott Waugh, 2014)
To make a movie about Need For Speed is to make a movie about PES or Winning Eleven. It's one of the highest selling videogame franchises out there, but all the studios are paying for is brand recognition and no story to go with it. The franchise has been around since 1994 and while some latter generation games do sport a narrative framing device, let's face it: you might as well stamp "Need For Speed" on any other car race movies made this side of The Fast and the Furious.
The movie is about Tobey Marshall, played by Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul, a young car mechanic slash auto racer living in his deceased dad's shadow, like so many other Tom Cruise characters before him. He lives in a garage outside New York with his racially diverse homies, who fittingly enough play racing games when not actually racing. Two of them seem to be fighting for the role of Wisecracking Sidekick: a wisecracking black guy and a wisecracking hispanic guy. I would learn their names if the actors where playing parts, not types.
Then there's Little Pete (Harrison Gilbertson), who reminds me of Leo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? mixed with Tommy Wiseau's younger brother Denny in The Room. Little Pete tags along Tobey with all the excitement of a little dog whose master is about to take out on a walk. He's this infuriatingly cheery Tiny Tim who is obviously destined to die very early on and get the plot going.
[Img_Inline width="330" height="170" Caption="" align="left"]http://www.apnatimepass.com/aaron-paul-in-need-for-speed-movie-1.jpg[/Img_Inline]
The final player is Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper). Dino's another piece of work. He's the bad guy, and we know this because he shows up in a black leather jacket AND a turtle neck, also black. Talk about dressing the part. He offers Tobey a deal: customize the fastest car ever, sell it to the highest bidder and keep a juicy cut of the sale. They do just that, but Dino's pissed he's never going to be a better racer than Tobey, so he bets his share on a small race. Little Pete jumps in for no better reason than getting himself killed, Tobey's framed unjustly for manslaughter and 2 years later he's out seeking revenge.
His idea of revenge is to take part in a clandestine race called De León ("Of the Lion"), a more or less mythical event held by the mysterious Monarch (Michael Keaton, bringing in his sleazy energetic schtick as usual). Tobey has two days to drive across the country, make it into the Monarch's guest list and win the race because... well, that's the first hiccup. I'm not sure why he's doing it. Sure, the prize money is alluring. But his motivation is allegedly revenge, and I'm not sure how winning that race would avenge Little Pete, considering everybody - including Dino - already knows Tobey is the better racer.
[Img_Inline width="330" height="190" Caption="" align="right"]http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/e73J71RZRn8/maxresdefault.jpg[/Img_Inline]
But you're not here for the plot are you? God help you if you are. No, you're here for the racing. Well, it's very nice racing. I'm not sure what else to say about it. We've come to a day and age where every freaking movie has a car chase. A racing movie has more, fair enough, but they all look more or less the same. I suppose there isn't that much CGI involved, surprising for a 3D movie, and most of the racing - bar car-flipping stunts - seem to have been made for real. Props for that. There's also a neat recurring first person POV shot of Tobey at the wheel, much like the racing games of old, including a (justified) pop-up speedometer. As far as I can tell that - and a more or less varied selection of racing courses - are all nods the movie has to make towards the game/s.
I laughed at the dumb characterizations, but they never got in the way of enjoying the movie. And when the plot threw in Julia (Imogen Poots) into the car with Tobey, because I guess you need a chick and a romantic subplot in every movie, I rolled my eyes, but I didn't mind either. I can laugh it off, or at the very least shrug it off. The movie certainly shrugs off a lot of its own stupidity. Like when Tobey deliberately challenges the entire police force to chase him around Detroit, because he "needs to attract the Monarch's attention". Or earlier when Tobey drag races around New York suburbia right after getting released, just because. Or when Tobey decides he can't waste 15 minutes recharging fuel at a station so he has his homies resupply him from a moving truck at high speeds in a rather dangerous stunt... but the next day decides to stop at a gas station, because I guess it would be boring to watch the whole stunt again? We also see Julia applying make-up in the bathroom, wasting valuable time.
[Img_Inline width="330" height="170" Caption="" align="left"]http://musicacinetv.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/need-for-speed1.jpg[/Img_Inline]
I could go on about all the stupid things Tobey does throughout the movie. But, again, you're here for the racing. And while it's very professionally put together, and everything and everyone looks good doing stuff that looks for the most part real... well, I never felt all that excited about it. I never particularly ached for Tobey's revenge, nor did I think Tobey was taking his own revenge that seriously. Most of the car chases aren't even relevant to the plot. You get your obligatory intro, and the ill-fated bet... and after that it's just Tobey kind of being a dick and showing off en route to De León, for silly reasons that are explained at the end of each sequence because the movie is intelligent enough to know what just happened is kinda stupid.
And so a lot of races and chases feel rather inconsequential. It's not a question of there being "too much racing in a racing movie" (how silly would that be), but how weightless most of the racing feels. I'm not feeling the stakes, the pressure, the rush of it all. Tobey and his merry gang of sidekicks don't change a thing between the prologue and the "two years after" subtitle, they're as whimsical and as carefree as ever and all the stuff they do comes across as impractical and "for the lolz". The very final race, the winner take all moment, is as well staged as any other. But if the movie doesn't care about its own stupid characters, why should you?