Need for Speed Movie Review

I'm sure you're expecting for me to write about how Need for Speed is an absolute "car crash" considering recent reviews for it. I won't say that, but I will say that it is a very interesting film to review...

Need for Speed is directed by Scott Waugh and stars Breaking Bad actor Aaron Paul, who plays a character who's made out to be the perfect street racer. The film sees his character frame for an act of crime which he didn't commit, and when he is released from his prison cell he embarks on an across the country mission of revenge and redemption, with lots of fast cars along the way. There's a lot of cars in this movie, a lot of really awesome ones!

But if you're like me then you need more than dumb entertainment to get your money's worth. Unfortunately, Need for Speed doesn't quite work for me as there are a hell of a lot of things that I really dislike about it. The first issues is almost certainly the pacing, or lack of it. Too often the
movie centred around speed grinds to a screeching halt where we're forced to watch characters that we really don't care about.

What I will say though is Aaron Paul is a fantastic actor, evident from multiple top-bracket performances in Breaking Bad's 5 season run, and he makes the movie a hell of a lot better than it would have been. He has an exciting presence on screen and does well with the character and the material he does have in front of him. He makes the film more watchable than it merits.

The rest of the characters are incredibly unforgettable because you don't care about them and you can't relate to them one bit. They're either clichéd beyond belief or they're forced to regurgitate poorly written humour that left me cringing on multiple occasions.

Between the racing sequences the movie is incredibly boring. This is down to a mixture of multiple factors; mainly the stupidly slow pacing, the forgettable and unrelatable characters and screenplay which offers up the most bland, generic and watered down dialogue that's simply weak and unimaginative. If you're making a movie about a street-racing based video game, offer up some exciting dialogue and cool characters, not this.

The film isn't a complete train wreck when the race sequences are done. They're filmed well and are entertaining to behold. I was very impressed however when I found out that the car sequences were all authentic and real, with CGI taking a back seat for once. It really is nice to see a director create action set pieces and craft them by himself using his own inspiration.

Yet Need for Speed still feels unsatisfying. When we're not watching cars perform dumb and stupid flips and tricks that would never work in real life, we're forced to watch a considerable amount of water-down dialogue scenes which are only there to make Need for Speed a feature-length film. Plus I should probably mention that if you have OCD about a movie having to make 100% sense, I wouldn't recommend this movie because I swear there are more things which don't make sense than thing that actually do. No joke.

 If I'm honest, I would skip this one if you haven't already:


Rating - C-


1 sentence summary - A good lead and some brilliantly crafted car sequences give some credibility to a film which really could have been an abomination had it not had those things!


If I've put in any car related puns in there by accident, I apologise!

Thanks for reading,
Matt