Need For Speed

A Partially Educated Review of Need For Speed

In which we have vrooms, followed by screeches, followed by snoring

It's a video-game adaptation, so you may commence eye-rolling at will and I won't blame you. Need For Speed is a cynical product, with the only ties to the game series lying in the fact that there's cars in it. It's almost as though they've decided fast car films might be catching on or something. Not sure what would have given them that idea. I say this to make my stance clear though, because I don't at one point want to seem as though I'm trying to justify Need For Speed as a good film. It isn't. At all. In the pantheon of video-game based movies though, it's nowhere near as bad as it could have been.

Things start off boringly enough, as it becomes readily apparent that this is going to be The Fast And The Furious-lite, if such a thing is possible. To be fair, that's a franchise I've always been able to tolerate so if it that one pushes all the wrong buttons for you, then steer well clear. Sorry, I've just realised the (very unintentional) pun. Also, the film takes FOOOOOREVER to get to the point and it's main plot. When it does get to that, things do get a little more entertaining, but only as much as a throw-away revenge plot allows.

I'd dissect the acting, but it's all a little pointless really. Aaron Paul is fairly acceptable, Imogen Poots is fairly annoying, Dominic Cooper is fairly sneery and Dakota Johnson is fairly bland, which at least provides me with another reason to not watch the Fifty Shades Of Grey film. The only true blemish is Kid Cudi, who, I confess, I didn't realise was Kid Cudi until I looked it up. Serving as the film's comic relief, the only time he generates any sort of relief is when he disappears from the screen. So cloyingly unfunny, it's partly his fault because his general presence is gratingly irritating and partly the script's fault because it hasn't got the remotest understanding of what constitutes wit.

The one thing though that it does need to get right is the racing scenes. They're alright, I guess. Though they're pretty much just an exercise in box ticking. You name it, it's in here. Driving on the wrong side of the road, winning the race by a nose, the moral dilemma when a car crashes. It's all here and it's all been done before. It's also loud. So, if that's your sort of thing, knock yourself out. Be ready, though. This is ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY MINUTES LONG! A breach of two hours has rarely felt more like a breach of human decency.

As I've already said, Need For Speed isn't good. In a year's time, it will be consigned to it's fate as yet another poor video game adaptation and then swiftly forgotten about, as it's nowhere near bad enough to live in the territory of Super Mario Bros. infamy. On that basis, I guess it can rest easy that it's not a complete disaster. The question is whether the filmmaker's would rather it would be remembered.

TWO out of five