Baby Driver

Edgar Wright is getting better with every film and this one made me incredibly happy. Baby Driver is an incredible stylistic film with cult potential and could easily become a classic in 20 years. It offered me more or less everything I expect from a movie starting with an excellent cast featuring the likeable Ansel Elgort, the tough Jamie Foxx, the pissed off Jon Hamm, the terribly sexy Eiza González, the terrifying Kevin Spacey, and the cute Lily James. The soundtrack is very catchy and adds to the great atmosphere, the visuals are flawless, the cinematography is unbelievably clear, the action is top notch (the sound design of the shootouts is among the best I've ever seen). The breakneck pace, the occasional humour, the emotional underpinnings and the unexpected reveals made the film an extraordinary experience, where especially near the end I felt like grabbing my balls and throwing them at the screen for joy at what a blast it was. Along with Hacksaw Ridge and John Wick 2, I rank Baby Driver as one of this year's best cinema experiences. This doesn't end with one screening. 95% (07/11/2017)

Despite Baby Driver’s occasional stumble and inconsistent perspective, I consider making an action film in which almost everything happens to the rhythm of the music that the protagonist is listening to or based on the current mood or occasion to be a great way to revive the musical genre (and, at the same time, to subversively foist it off on viewers who otherwise ignore musicals and for whom the year’s best film so far this year is Fast & Furious 8). We can reproach Wright for not being stylistically distinctive (he previously edited The World’s End), for not being capable of working with female characters, and, unlike his great filmmaking role-model Quentin Tarantino, for remaining, even in his forties, an immature nerd with a weakness for autotelic fetishisation of movie references (the road passing by like in Lost Highway, damaged sunglasses like those worn by Warren Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde) and repeatedly telling the same story about protagonists who have to grow up but can continue to have fun in essentially the same way, inhabiting their escapist worlds while being tremendously cool. Or we can simply enjoy an original summer blockbuster with a great soundtrack and some incredibly high-octane action scenes. Since I have no plans to grow up yet, at least in relation to pop culture, I choose the second option. 85% (08/13/2017)

A scented pop escapade with quite an effective rhythm that alternates dynamic and conversational scenes, whose greatest asset is the thoughtful editing and the movement of the camera and the characters around the mise-en-scène, thanks to which even the seemingly slower scenes don't hinder the pace. But finding a single passage that I would want to rewatch in the future, or a single twist that I would find more interesting than driving a car on our highways, no way. The best character is hands down the wisecracking Spacey (the forcibly cool Fox didn't catch on), the funniest scene probably the most static – a crime scene inspection with an eight-year-old. Wright may have the craft down and the individual details figured out, but this time he just doesn't entertain with story or characters. 65% (01/05/2018)

Musicals can still be a lively genre not only in the predictable revival of classic works a la La La Land et al., but thanks also to the grasp of a formal master with ambition. Even though Baby Driver primarily mixes the elements gangster stories and romance, Wright’s concept of building the film’s overall style around the music is far more essential. Though this results in the characters singing and dancing only occasionally, cars dance to the music during chase scenes, shots are fired and banks are robbed in the rhythm of the soundtrack, and even loving looks have their own sound. In terms of the choreography of the actors’ movements, the camera and the mise-en-scène, and the harmonisation of all of these elements, the opening credits with the coffee run represents one of the absolute musical highlights. On a more general level, it is no less fascinating that the most youthful Hollywood film of recent years is the work of a man in his forties, which applies not only to the film’s formal freshness and feeling, but also to the unavoidable feeling of a generational litmus test. The trailer could evoke in thirty-somethings feelings of inappropriateness, which the film further reinforces with its overarching principle as a presentation of the inner feeling of youths growing up in pop culture, where everyone sees themselves as the star of their own video. Wright’s age is indicated only by his taste in music and the particular choice of songs, though like Tarantino, he has a chance to turn dusty old hits and obscure novelties into a generational retro soundtrack. At the same time, however, he also shows what an essential contribution Simon Pegg made to his previous films, because Baby Driver, unlike those works, lacks insight and the ability to not take itself too seriously. (07/04/2017)

For the first time, I was genuinely looking forward to an Edgar Wright film, but this ride doesn't just hurt the eyes, it hurts the head. I don't understand the world in which the story takes place, and it seems detached from all possible realities and even genres. Supporting characters change their essence in a second, moods clash unpleasantly, and at the end, there are so many misgivings that only the sympathy towards some members of the talented cast saves the average. However, I am most disappointed by the so heavily promoted "musical" aspect of the film. The fact that there is an endless number of songs in the film, which simply play in the background of the scenes with Baby often humming them, simply doesn't make it a musical. The occasional gunshot or impact that fits the rhythm is a nice idea, but it becomes tiresome by the second scene. All playfulness remains surprisingly spasmodic. (08/24/2017)