Review of Need for Speed (2014) by Diogomendes — 09 Dec 2014

Need for Speed is ah… bad. I think that was expect, seeing all films based on videogames received poor reviews from film critics (Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Tomb Raider). This is no exception. It’s noisy, blandly directed and mostly stupid. It’s a shame because I really like Need for Speed games. They are thrilling at least. This movie is not entertaining. I mean, occasionally it is, but when I see a movie, I don’t want the movie just to be “entertaining”. I want the movie to be satisfying, well-paced and decently plotted. Not what’s happening here. There are some points really good, but that’s about it. It’s not “Need for Speed”. It’s “Need for Coherence”. Before pointing out all the flaws, let’s start telling the plot summary of this film.

Framed by an ex-partner for a murder he did not commit, Tobey Marshall, a financially struggling custom-car builder and street-racer, spends two years in jail thinking about one moment. Fresh out of prison he reacquires the fastest car his workshop ever built and sold, and seeks to enter a secretive and extremely high-stakes race known as The Deleon. His purpose; redemption, recognition from the world of racing and to solve his problems. Yet all this fades in comparison to his driving reason. Revenge. Above all, revenge. This is a story about love, redemption, revenge and motor oil all swirled together, but above all; It's a story about fast, fast cars.

The plot above makes absolutely no goddamn sense. See, when you play Grand Theft Auto, you don’t want to understand the complexity of the characters’ relationships or relish the entire narrative of the game. You want to steal cars, you want to kill people, you want to run over them with cars, tanks and trucks, you want to rob a bank, you want to explode everything. You want to make Liberty City (or whatever the hell they’re located) into a big Michael Bay horror show, you want to torture people, kill your own girlfriend or your best friend. So, for the most part, no one cares about the story. They just want to f*ck everything. No one gives a **** about the story of Need for Speed too. So when you fit the plot of a game into a live-action movie, it doesn’t work. Because these movies should be grounded in reality and with this movie already having realism applied to it, when it comes to action sequences, it doesn’t work. It becomes so stupid. That’s not the only complaint I have for this film, as the characterization in this flick is so damn poor it makes me feel nothing about the characters. Before we get to that, let’s talk about the race scenes.

The race scenes are pretty freaking cool. I mean, the stunts, the flips, the explosions are so exhilarating it prevents myself from giving a lower score, and the actors’ performances are really pretty cool to see but when the characters are so underdeveloped like these in this movie, you can’t feel emotion in them. For instance, when Tobey’s friend died, I didn’t feel anything about the deceased character. Why? Because the character was underdeveloped, so when the character is not entirely developed throughout the movie, you can’t feel anything for it. Oh by the way, how the hell did Tobey get framed for a crime he did not commit? There wasn’t any proof that he did that. *Sighs*.

As I was saying, you don’t feel anything for the characters and that’s a major flaw. Actually, it’s pretty much what ruins a movie. I felt sad for Gwen’s death in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” and Groot’s supposed death in “Guardians of the Galaxy”. In “Need for Speed”, I didn’t feel anything for Peter. What am I going to learn about the character to feel sad for her? Nothing. I didn’t learn anything about the character. Peter is not the only stock character this movie. Tobey Marshall is the most developed character in the film, and that’s not saying much because it still lacks emotion within the character. Besides him, there’s a sh*t ton of characters with short development, one of them being the love interest, Julia Maddon. She clearly is in the movie to be another “pretty face” cliché. How sad.

Final Score to Need for Speed: 3/10. While there’s, undeniably, some fun attached to it, this video game adaptation fails to please moviegoers due to its absurd plot, bloated direction and underwritten characters. If the Uncharted film eventually comes out in 2016, it will definitely suck and it’s not because it has bad writers or a bad director (which there’s not), but because this whole concept doesn’t work. Face it, Hollywood. Adapting videogames into the cinema won’t work unless if there’s something new to add in the formula.