That what was “translated” from the game to the film was a compulsion to drive, a literal need for speed, is amazing to me. Somehow, the film did not become a car crash highlight reel or an extended car commercial it seems more based on a coming of age novel I would have read in junior high. Of course, the game would never be good enough for him, instead needing the feeling of a wheel under his hands and the pedal beneath his feet. The idea of a space for racers to work on their cars, join together in races as they see fit, and roam the wonderful expanses of Redview County would probably really excite him. What’s funny is that Tobey Marshall might actually really like Need for Speed: Rivals. Somehow, the film did not become a car crash highlight reel Unlike Need for Speed, where the car provides conveyance and might as well be anything else (they say Mustang enough for this to be a Western), in Rivals you are the car. In fact, it is actually rather difficult to tell who, if anyone, is actually any of the automobiles in this car-world. The player essentially plays the car, not the driver of the car. I don’t think that any racing game has ever been about a personal journey or any kind of growth other than a rapsheet or horsepower. Rivals exists for players to vent their driving aggressions in a fast, free-roaming world, where super-cars are not only common, they are the de facto mode of transportation. Somehow, perhaps entirely by accident, the Need for Speed movie became the deeper of the two. It’s about self reliance and causing damage, about driving as far and as fast as you can while maintaining a healthy disrespect for authority or a healthy disrespect for other players if you are police officer. It’s about sabotaging other racers or even busting them as the cops. Rivals is about griefing everyone around you. Without the climactic race and a less paint-by-number script, Need for Speed might be a really poignant drama, a story about a man whose friend is murdered and must come to terms with his guilt and crushing debt all while learning to accept a new person into his life.īut as our own Dan Solberg said, Need for Speed: Rivals is not about those things. Unlike every other car/racing movie before it, the car, though necessary, is not the star of this particular racing movie. Tobey grows and changes, learns to appreciate Julia, and the Ford Mustang gets totalled and forgotten by the film. This is why it’s a road movie and not a car movie. He’s driving to deal with his misogyny, his insecurities, his father’s passing, and his guilt.Īs Tobey travels with Julia he realizes that his heart has been closed to the world since even before Little Pete was PIT’ed by Dino into flipping off a bridge and exploding. Tobey is truly driving west in order to redeem himself for allowing Little Pete to be killed. ![]() Tobey isn’t driving to the DeLeon (an ultra-secret, ultra-illegal street race) in order to wreck Dino the same way that Dino wrecked Little Pete. His companion, Julia Maddon (Imogen Poots), believes that she needs to protect her employer’s investment, a $2.7 million Shelby Mustang whose drivetrain was built by the late, great Carroll Shelby, car whisperer.īut the story is more about redemption than about revenge. Tobey Marshall (Paul) believes that his goal is his revenge against Dino Brewster for murdering his friend Little Pete. This is a preposterous thing to happen in a Need for Speed movie.Īnd yet: it does. It’s truly a “road film,” one in which the characters journey and explore not only the 2,600-mile expanse that they cross but also themselves, growing and changing on the way to what they think is their goal. Need for Speed is actually the “anti-car movie” ![]() Need for Speed is actually the “anti-car movie,” a deconstruction of the ultra spec’ed car culture so entrenched in games and film. But there is some worth in Need for Speed, some tiny glimmering gold dust floating amongst the sediment. I could talk for hours about the ways in which the movie was bad, the ways in which it failed to execute on so many different levels (like how forced the down-on-their-luck expert car tuning shop feels). ![]() Even the box office attendant looked at me funny, her eyes filled with incredulity and perhaps despair. No one saw the trailer and said, “This has promise.” I’m surprised that anyone besides myself showed up at the theater. Here, the only thing which may “accel” are the cars.īut no one expected Need for Speed to be a triumph of cinema. He was good in that- Breaking Bad has room for actors to succeed, to excel. How this is Aaron Paul’s first post Breaking Bad role is beyond the imagination. It features a lackluster cast delivering lines from a script that is narratively untenable. Need for Speed is a total mess of a movie.
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