Need for Speed

En lugar de una exagerada película sobre carreras, llegó a los cines una mundana road movie con la más ordinaria y predecible historia de venganza y la más ordinaria trama romántica. Las persecuciones y las escenas de carreras tienen bastante jugo, pero todo lo demás carece irremediablemente de interés. Los personajes carecen de carisma, la película carece de perspicacia, suspense y humor, y el intento de realismo de los cineastas es un claro paso atrás tras las dos últimas entregas de la franquicia Fast & Furious. Desesperadamente soso y nada guay. (11.03.2014)

Si me lo hubieran presentado cuando era adolescente y no hacía otra cosa que jugar NFS, estaría encantado. Empapado en la poética de los juegos y los coches en sí son una clase más alta que en la serie F&F. Magníficas localizaciones, en definitiva, es un viaje por carretera a través de parques nacionales y ciudades estadounidenses, como si tras los niveles del juego. Pero no toquemos el tema de los personajes y la lógica, no podían ser más cojos. El metraje de 130 minutos no importa, porque gracias a su duración, la película se convierte en el placer culposo más largo de la historia del cine. (12.03.2014)

The game “Need For Speed” is something I remember with fondness. I’d be hard pressed to forget it when the US developers keep making one sequel after another every year. Some of them are better, some of them worse. It was just a matter of time before this franchise would be turned into a movie and I must say that from the amount of bullshit we have been treated to during these races, the story the creators picked wasn’t so bad. I enjoyed the action scenes that felt a lot like playing the game. Those made me happy. On the other hand, the characters took some getting used to. Perhaps with the exception of Imogen Poots, who made me happy since the first moment she appeared. Aaron Paul, on the other hand, is a bit wet behind the ears and it took me about half an hour to accept the fact that he’s no Vin Diesel or Paul Walker. I also cringed during every scene with Dominic Cooper. Michael Keaton, however, managed to knock my socks off with how he was enjoying his character. Had it not been for the running time and contained less talking and more action, I would have rated it better. 131 minutes was too long for such a movie. (17.11.2014)

A surprisingly ambitious ride that cannot disappoint even occasional players. The story about racing revenge perfectly suits the various stunts like a hubcap on a wheel, and that Need for Speed would actually extract stronger emotions from me, I would never have expected even in my most optimistic dreams. When perfect rival chemistry between Aaron Paul and Dominic Cooper works, all I have to do is sit behind the wheel and enjoy a few typical locations or shots cut out from your favorite episode. And Nathan Furst's pleasantly plucked soundtrack makes you want to join the final race yourself. (27.07.2014)

By gamers, for gamers. Or, more precisely, by people who present themselves as gamers (because doing so is favourable with respect to marketing), for viewers who consider those people to be gamers (young men from poorer backgrounds without higher education, dreaming that they will pick up beautiful women thanks to their driving skills). Waugh’s film is possibly one of the most thorough video-game adaptations and thus, more than other game adaptations, lays bare the limits of trying to be maximally accommodating toward fans of the source material. The plot is of marginal importance and serves primarily as an unobtrusive (though necessary) basis for the action. However, the mediocre dialogue, overacting, infantile humour and formulaic situations are significantly more irritating on the big screen than in the cut-scenes of the game (though their purpose remains the same – providing the possibility to give one’s eyes and ears a rest). The slavish adoption of certain formalistic techniques from video games (extreme slow-motion eye-candy crashes) necessarily come across as clichéd, since game designers like to go to the movies for inspiration. By faithfully imitating bad imitations of films – instead of drawing more from, for example, the quoted Bullitt or other 1970s action movies (knowledge of which the director can only boast about) – Need For Speed becomes a copy of a copy that doesn’t have any specific character of its own. However, I don’t think it’s a bad film, since it fulfils its mission (escapist automotive entertainment) more satisfactorily than, for example, the most recent, poorly focused instalment of Fast & Furious. In the context of macho action melodramas that, according to the logic of the genre, must contain unrealistic feats that are not conditioned by emotion or reason and red-lined moments of action, there really isn’t much for which to reproach Need for Speed. For me, it was a pleasant way to relax my mind, which I appreciated for not requiring any greater mental effort than playing one of the games in the series. 60% (10.03.2014)