Need For Speed

I've reached the point in my adult life where the highest praise I give to a movie is that I actually watched it all the way through. Well, that's the highest praise I can give to this movie, anyway. I'm sure I could think of something more thoughtful to say about Citizen Kane or the Godfather. Needless to say, Need For Speed isn't quite up there with Citizen Kane or the Godfather. I couldn't even say it's the Citizen Kane or the Godfather of racing movies. Hell, it might not even be the Citizen Kane or the Godfather of Need For Speed movies. But, hey, I watched it all the way through.

Need For Speed is a racing movie based on the Need For Speed series of videogames. I did not know that before I rented it. I'm not saying that would have changed my decision to watch it, I'm just sharing this information. I have played, and enjoyed, the game series, and this film actually really captures the look and feel of the games. Ever played a Need for Speed game? Then you'll know what I mean if you watch this movie. There were some shots during the racing where the view changed from the interior of the car to a view chasing behind it, and it was almost as though I had manually changed the view on a game controller. I guess that's neat.

Anyway, as racing movies go, this succeeds because the racing is awesome. However, as racing movies go, this is kind of a failure because it's way too long and the story is overly convoluted. The story is about how this guy's father just died so he has to enter a street race to save the garage he inherited, but then in an unrelated race his best friend is murdered and he gets framed, so after getting out of prison he enters another race to avenge his friend's death and prove his innocence. Or something. It's really fucking stupid and makes no sense but it thinks its it's poignant and moving.

But, anyway, the racing was awesome, partly because it was actual cars racing on actual streets. If any of the racing was CG, it was so well done I couldn't tell. For the most part, this was real, old school car chase scenes, which was a joy to see after all those Fast and Furious movies turned into CG cartoons.

It stars that guy from Breaking Bad, some british chick named Imogen Poots who is maybe the cutest girl I've ever seen, and Michael Keaton, who appears throughout the film in the same set, so I'm assuming he put in maybe two days of work at most. But I'm not complaining because it's Michael Keaton.

And that's all I have to say about Need For Speed. I don't even know if I'm recommending it or not. If it was an hour and a half, I'd recommend it whole heartedly, but at two hours and ten minutes, it's a bit of chore to get through. Whenever there weren't cars on screen, I felt the NEED for them to SPEED up the plot.

Anyway, that's my review.