Need for Speed

Instead of an exciting racing film, an everyday road movie arrived in movie theaters with the most common and predictable story of revenge and the most ordinary romantic plot. The chases and racing scenes do have energy, but everything else is hopelessly uninteresting. The characters lack charisma, the film lacks insight, tension and humor, and the creators' quest for realism is a clear step back after the last two parts of The Fast and the Furious series. Desperately dull and uncool. (03/10/2014)

This film is a treat for the fans of the game, or at least for people who have ever played it, the rest will struggle and complain about how unrealistic and illogical it is. The gaming feeling is manifest in every other scene, and the original shots during car crashes and the fantastic "FPS" view from the car are a clear indication that the people behind this film know what they're doing and are teasing us. The screenplay is perhaps nonsense in terms of plot, emotions, and character motivation, but something had to be there, right? Aaron Paul is good and fits well into tough guy roles. The best car scenes in the history of cinema. (07/29/2014)

Had I seen this as a teenager obsessed with playing NFS, I’d be ecstatic. The movie is full of gaming poetics and the cars are a level higher than in the Fast & Furious series. With its great locations, Need for Speed is like a road trip around US national parks and cities, as if they were levels in a game. As for characters and the logic of the story, however, it couldn’t be lamer. But the 130-minute running time is not grating, as it makes the film into the longest guilty pleasure mind-fuck in the history of cinema. (03/12/2014)

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. (11/17/2014)

I have to say that this movie features great cars and some quite interesting racing with some pleasant locations, but that is about it, hence the two stars. The narrative is told in a strange way and it was not original - just some clichéd rivalry issue between two drivers and a quest for revenge for the ruined life of a friend. Unlike in The Fast and the Furious, I did not get on with the main male protagonist or his crew (the main female protagonist was not very sexy, either), so I was almost wishing for the cops to catch them already. I do not know if it was the stupid Czech dubbing or if the dialogues are this crazy in the original; however, the lines of those guys and the way they were communicating with each other left me with only the question “WTF?” and it was almost impossible to bear. Somehow I do not believe that guys in their twenties talk like I did when I was thirteen. If there were going to be another NFS, I would have liked a better story, a more charismatic main protagonist, a prettier girl, and edgy, relevant, and believable lines, not just a random load of supposedly funny lines meant to sound edgy to kids aged thirteen to fifteen. 3/10. (11/22/2014)