Early in Need for Speed, an adaptation of the video game series, the main characters are seen playing what I assume is one of those games. It further accentuates how thin the story measures, and how thinner the source material. At its best, Need for Speed plays like a sequel in the Fast & Furious franchise; at its worst, Need for Speed plays like a sequel in the Fast & Furious franchise.
Fresh from five seasons of TV’s Breaking Bad, the talented Aaron Paul underwhelms in the miscast lead role of bankrupt, glowering gearhead Tobey Marshall. He can drive fast cars faster than anyone else because he says so, and because these things dictate that he must. His considerable skills behind the wheels of modified rides shift into personal when an incredibly dangerous, dick-measuring race down both sides of a highway results in the fiery death of his pretend “little brother” (Harrison Gilbertson, Haunt), thanks to a bumper nudge from rich, hot-as-snot Dino Brewester (Dominic Cooper, Captain America: The First Avenger).
Payback for Tobey will come in the crushing defeat of Dino in a super-secret, super-illegal annual race that is invitation-only and thrown by a super-embarrassing Michael Keaton (The Other Guys) in Wolfman Jack mode. First, Tobey and his British passenger/love interest (Imogen Poots, 2011’s Fright Night remake) have 48 hours to get from New York to San Francisco, thus allowing for several races along the way of this race to that race. Director Scott Waugh (Act of Valor) shoots these sequences in a gung-ho manner that delivers the shiny, well-oiled goods in the department of vroom-vroom, but does so via a template of Bruckheimerian angles viewers can check off mentally.
Despite the here-and-now gloss, Need for Speed seems to herald from another era, like the jalopy-ready pictures AIP pushed to teens in drive-ins — you know, like 1955’s The Fast and the Furious. (Need for Speed even begins at a drive-in!) Paul, Cooper, Gilbertson and company all sport haircuts so high and spiked, they visually recall a live-action version of Dragon Ball Z. It’s particularly distracting for Paul, who’s all forehead, which he touches constantly as he looks toward the ground and then up dramatically. Half his performance is this move.
Need for Speed is diverting enough, but also needlessly exhausting for something so frame-one predictable. Imagine what a better, more interesting movie it would be had Poots — such an ugly name for such a pretty woman — been placed in the driver’s seat instead. For 130 minutes of my life, I think that’s a fair trade. —Rod Lott
A shame that Paul picked this as his post-Breaking Bad bid for big screen stardom. While Bryan Cranston got all the attention for that series, I thought Paul’s performance was equally impressive and criminally neglected. Then he does a movie like this. I hope the paycheck was worth it, at least.
I don’t know that winning two Emmys qualifies as “criminally neglected,” but yes, he was great in the show. I think Cranston got the notices because We knew him for so long as Malcolm’s goofy dad, whereas we didn’t know Paul at all.
Hey, I wasn’t saying he didn’t get noticed at all (“criminally neglected” may have been too strong), but whenever I hear or read discussions about the show, it’s almost always about Cranston’s performance and his character. I thought Paul’s work was just as strong.
This looked DOA as soon as it was announced. The trailer was pretty awful as well. Someone gave Aaron bad career advice here.