Need for Speed

When I saw the advertisements for Need for Speed while watching the final episodes of Breaking Bad, I thought "That movie is going to suck so hard, but we're all going to see it, because Aaron Paul is in it." And I should get this out of the way early; he doesn't ever yell his Jesse Pinkman catchphrase, so that's probably the biggest disappointment, because you shouldn't have any other expectations for this movie.

Paul plays Tobey Marshall, a "famous" street racer with a rivalry Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper) and a backstory with him that goes completely unexplained. I could really tell that Paul didn't really care about this role, because he was really just trying not to be Jesse. There's nothing in this terrible script that Paul could have brought to life on screen. He did what he could, though.

If you care about this movie, you probably don't care about the lack of logic or the defying of physics. Between that, the fact that you can guess everything that's going to happen for the entire movie, and the horrible dialogue, that leaves one thing. Awesome cars. Yes, the movie is full of them. They're loud, they're fast, and they make everyone driving them look cooler. And if you didn't understand when 4 holographic mustangs unveil a silver car, it's a 2 hour 13 minute Mustang commercial.

Imogen Poots plays Aaron Paul's cliche love interest. Looking back, I can't think of anything she did to progress the plot by herself other than getting the best driver in the world the world's fastest car. I can't even understand why that happened. But there's no point in questioning this in the same movie where an amateur pilot has access to an Apache helicopter.

Michael Keaton plays some kind of underground racing commentator/organizer who basically reads out the plot to people in the audience who weren't following the movie's poorly written conversations. He doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than to provide exposition and give really bad commentating on the race he organizes. And how has he not been arrested yet? Who cares?

You probably won't remember this movie a few days after you watch it, and you may just sit through it saying "this movie is bullshit", because it is. While I usually appreciate practical effects, nothing else in the movie was intriguing enough to make me appreciate their use. This could be a great film if you're just trying to kill time, or if you're trying to get some substances out of the film, but not if you want to hear Aaron Paul yell "Yeah bitch!"

Rating: D