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In "Need for Speed," a character cites the oft-quoted phrase that a man in a big, flashy, expensive car "is overcompensating for something." The same can be said for this movie. It wears on its sleeve the desperation of trying to create another macho racing franchise like " The Fast and the Furious ." That series had six movies to create, shape, modify and solidify its mythology. With five fewer tries, "Need for Speed" aims for "F&F's" level of goofy, fan-pleasing grandiosity while attempting the existential vengeance vibe of " Drive ." The resulting mishmash is as exciting as getting a tow from AAA, and just as slow.

This type of movie was more fun—and more dangerous—when Roger Corman and other '70s B-movie producers made them. Screenwriter George Gatins hints at elements Peter Fonda or Warren Oates would have nailed, and there are moments when "Need for Speed" flirts with the darkness found in films like "Dirty Mary Crazy Larry" and "Race with the Devil."

Aaron Paul doesn't have the coolness nor the gravitas of '70s era Oates or Fonda, but I can't blame him for this film's failure. The script pulls every punch, opting for a safe, wimpy simplicity that insults the viewer. The characters who inhabit "Need for Speed" may as well be stick figures with the trope they represent written over their heads. There's not one note of interest nor complexity at all. An actor with Paul's talent deserves a better feature in which to make his leading actor debut.

Gatins' script is also so full of contrivances and coincidences that you'll be compelled to bang your head into the seat in front of you, sending your 3-D glasses flying into the air. (Note: Don't waste your money on the 3-D.) There's a sloppiness to the writing that is downright infuriating; each overly plotted moment is reconciled in ways that would get a failing grade in the cheesiest screenwriting class. It raises many "but wait…" questions, and the film is so sluggish that you'll have plenty of time to contemplate each one with disgust.

Of course, one must expect, and welcome, a certain level of preposterousness in a film like this. A good movie, however, will pump a viewer so full of adrenaline that problems are noticed only upon much later reflection. Director Scott Waugh makes sure you feel all 130 minutes of "Need for Speed," and even worse, he expects you to take this nonsense seriously. He pauses for all manner of false emotional effect, and the main character's "anguish" is expressed in ways that are unintentionally hilarious rather than heartbreaking. The sudden appearance of a preternaturally slow, somber version of "All Along the Watchtower" under a scene nearly sent Sprite shooting out of my nose. A solitary tear shed near the end would shame even the most melodramatic telenovela.

The source of all this drama is Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul). Marshall is The One Who Drives, a car shop owner who enjoys racing with his co-worker cronies Joe ( Ramon Rodriguez ), Finn ( Rami Malek ) and best friend Pete (Harrison Gilberton). Benny ( Scott Mescudi ), a pal with a pilot license, flies overhead, radioing down traffic information and road conditions to the drivers as they navigate streets filled with clueless regular drivers. An early race gave me a rather icky feeling, especially when one racer hits a homeless guy's cart, nearly killing him. (Note to filmmakers: Cars crashing through fruit stands—cool. Cars hitting homeless people—NOT COOL.)

Into this chummy, platonic circle drives Dino ( Dominic Cooper ). Dino has a long rivalry with Tobey, so the latter should be suspicious when he's asked to complete the Mustang that auto maker Carroll Shelby was working on before he died. Tobey and crew do the job because there's a $3 million price tag on the finished product, of which they'll receive 25 percent. Helping Dino sell the car is Julia ( Imogen Poots ), a British woman whose "Meet Cute" with Tobey is an excruciatingly long variation on the "Oh, it's a girl and she knows guy stuff!" cliché.

Dino offers to race Tobey for the entire price, which leads to Dino committing vehicular homicide. Tobey winds up in jail for three years, wrongly convicted of killing his best friend. Dino rubs salt deeper in Tobey's wounds by proposing to Tobey's ex (and Pete's sister), Anita.

When Tobey gets out, his desire for vengeance isn't manifested by finding Dino and beating him to a pulp like a normal person. He instead wants to beat Dino in an illegal race called the DeLeon. Run by a crazed Michael Keaton , who seems to be channeling Jack Nicholson playing Max Headroom, the DeLeon is the MacGuffin in "Need for Speed." Most of the remaining movie involves a cross-country drive to the DeLeon with Tobey and Julia in the Mustang and the other guys in their respective cars and airplanes. It takes forever.

Even as mere car pornography, "Need for Speed" is a failure. The races are shot and edited in a manner that leeches them of any excitement, and I don't think a single car is onscreen more than five seconds at a time. Though the sound mix sends the appropriate rumbles through your person, there's no time to linger on and drool over these expensive marvels. In fact, you get a longer look at Finn's inexplicably exposed naked butt than you do at any car, which is appropriate. People seeking car-fueled excitement at "Need for Speed" will be left feeling "ass out."

Odie Henderson

Odie "Odienator" Henderson has spent over 33 years working in Information Technology. He runs the blogs Big Media Vandalism and Tales of Odienary Madness. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

Need for Speed (2014)

Rated PG-13

102 minutes

Aaron Paul as Tobey Marshall

Dominic Cooper as Dino Brewster

Imogen Poots as Julia

Scott Mescudi as Benny

Rami Malek as Finn

Ramón Rodríguez as Joe Peck

Harrison Gilbertson as Little Pete

Dakota Johnson as Anita

Michael Keaton as Monarch

Scott Waugh
George Gatins
John Gatins

Cinematography

Shane Hurlbut

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Need for Speed Reviews

It's nowhere near a perfect movie, and where there should be humor there is often less of an audible laugh and more of an awkward chuckle.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 9, 2021

A car crazy story where characters take a backseat to the action, but if you know what a Two Lane Grasshopper is, then you'll probably get a kick out of the driving scenes.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 1, 2021

If the uninspired foundation wasn't bad enough, many of the central characters' motivations are either contradicted or never explained.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/10 | Dec 4, 2020

The best way to approach Need for Speed is mindlessly.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.0/4.0 | Sep 18, 2020

Need For Speed continues the trend of video games turned into films. The trend hasn't been a good one.

Full Review | Original Score: D+ | Jul 21, 2020

The strongest points involve cars, and the weakest involve more delicate matters like characters and story.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jul 8, 2020

Let the checkered flag wave for Need For Speed as it crosses the finish line first with fast cars, phenomenal practical stunts, superb lensing, a story with heart and a future superstar in Aaron Paul.

Full Review | Jan 8, 2020

Presumably set in a world where humans never mentally evolved from an animal state, the movie features increasingly nonsensical behaviors by derpy morons whose ability to dress themselves is as impressive to us as their ability to defy physics with cars.

Full Review | Original Score: F | Aug 6, 2019

It did stir up dormant gearhead fantasies with an array of epic shots. When the cars soar, so does Need for Speed.

Full Review | Apr 26, 2019

Credited as a film that glorifies the notion of honor, friendship, and loyalty, all whilst revisiting the vintage stylings of 60's and 70's "car-culture" cinema, it's safe to say that Need For Speed fails on all counts.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 26, 2019

Need for Speed takes itself a little too seriously and ultimately overstays its welcome.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 26, 2019

Neither fast nor furious, Need For Speed isn't a car crash. It's a $66 million pile-up, with no survivors.

Dumb but technically competent.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Apr 26, 2019

Need for Speed wants to take audiences on a ride, but it ends up going nowhere fast.

Full Review | Original Score: D+ | Apr 26, 2019

With a name like Need for Speed, subtlety was never going to be a key selling point, but the freewheeling pomposity runs out of fuel a good hour or some before its painfully predictable finale.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 8, 2019

A major bore. This big-budget action film with franchise aspirations that should be parked in the garage permanently.

Full Review | Feb 1, 2019

Only a better script could provide us with a sense that the characters and story are genuinely worth our emotional investment.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jan 16, 2019

A satisfying bit of here-and-gone sensory stimulation that delivers exactly the kind of high-octane, high-velocity thrills promised by the title.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Dec 22, 2018

The sloppy script, weak dramatic direction and an uninteresting supporting cast constantly impede on the fun.

Full Review | Original Score: 5.5/10 | Nov 1, 2018

In spite of that movie's popularity and its kinship with the multi-release racing video game, a big screen adaptation of Need for Speed took more than 10 years to roll up to the line. It's not a perfect run but it delivers the goods.

Full Review | Nov 1, 2018

Entertainment
REVIEW: <i>Need for Speed</i>: It Kills and Thrills. Deal With It.

REVIEW: Need for Speed : It Kills and Thrills. Deal With It.

I n the canyon-wide disconnect between what moviegoers see on screen and what they find in real life, consider the race-car film genre in the wake — the literal wake — of Paul Walker. Co-star of the immensely popular Fast & Furious franchise, which glamorizes stunt driving, Walker died last Nov. 30 when the red Porsche Carrera GT two-seater his pal Roger Rodas was driving crashed into a light pole in Santa Clarita, Cal. Police said the car may have been going 100 mph; both the Porsche and its passengers were incinerated. Walker’s death interrupted filming of Fast & Furious 7 , which was due out this summer, though shooting is to resume next month.

Can’t wait till 2015 for a movie about car races, chases and crashes? Here’s Need for Speed , based on the world’s top-selling racing video game. In the first act, three guys — brooding speedster Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul), his cute greasemonkey Pete (Harrison Gilbertson) and the rich bad guy Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper) — race identical cars down the highways of Mount Kisco, N.Y. When Dino realizes he’s about to lose the race, he back-ends Pete’s car, which takes flight, hits a light pole on a bridge, bursts into flames and crashes in the river below. Dino’s killer car, like Paul Walker’s, is red.

(READ: Fast & Furious 7 director Justin Lin on the life and death of Paul Walker )

And the weird thing is that, while watching this scene, even a viewer who had the details of Walker’s death seared into his brain doesn’t think about them. His eyes are transfixed by the choreography and spectacle of the stunt, the horrific majesty of the red car’s launch and torque, its fiery collision with the pole and its fatal descent, like winged Icarus, into the water. Such is the (possibly toxic) power of a superbly crafted action sequence over the moviegoer. Kinetic immediacy obliterates factual memory, and art — which in today’s films so often, too often, means gorgeous VFX or daredevil stunt work — transcends life and death.

Later in Need for Speed , Tobey, driving his retooled Ford Mustang cross-country with Brit bird Julia Maddon (Imogen Poots), is pursued by Dino’s rifle-toting goons through the Utah Canyonlands and toward the Moab Fault. Fortunately, his buddy Benny (Scott Mescudi, aka rapper Kid Cudi), who spends most of the movie hijacking one plane or another, has accessed a U.S. Army Apache helicopter. Flying above the car, Benny drops a long seat belt, which Tobey buckles just as the Mustang sails off a cliff, and the chopper totes him and Julia to safety. They’re like Thelma and Louise, only with a happy ending.

(READ: Richard Schickel’s 1991 cover story on Thelma & Louise by subscribing to TIME)

Happy middle, actually, since Tobey is headed to San Francisco for the big, super-secret De Leon race masterminded by a manic entrepreneur named Monarch (Michael Keaton), who oversees and narrates the action like Wolfman Jack in American Graffiti . Winding through the forests and coastal highways of Mendocino, this is a winner-take-all challenge for six contestants — including, of course, Dino — and, eventually, dozens of police cars and copters. Dino’s thugs have totaled Tobey’s Mustang, so he’s at the wheel of what car? The red one Dino was driving when he sent Pete on his trip to that automobile graveyard in the sky.

Like an abandoned vehicle with a complex motor that legendary Mustang retooler Carroll Shelby would be proud of, Need for Speed won’t win prizes for dramaturgy. The script, by George Gatins from a story he contrived with his brother John (who wrote the Denzel Washington drama Flight ), is generic revenge motif: the poor boy hates the rich kid not only for his myriad evil qualities but because he stole Tobey’s girl Anita (Dakota Johnson, quite a bit of whom will be seen as the female lead in next year’s Fifty Shades of Grey film). Tobey’s pit crew mirrors the tokenistic ethnic diversity of Fast & Furious — the black guy (Mescudi), the Hispanic guy (Ramon Rodriguez), the Arab guy (Rami Malek) and the cute blond dead Pete (Australia’s Harrison Gilbertson) — each with one quirk, none with distinctive appeal.

(SEE: The Need for Speed trailer )

Paul, known to Breaking Bad fans as the whiny, needy, half-bright Jesse Pinkman, originally auditioned for the Dino role. Short and unprepossessing, he’s not hero material, though by glowering and dropping his voice an octave he can pass for an outlaw adult. Cooper is a better choice for Dino; he mans the wheels of his swank cars with the shifty-eyed intensity of a guy watching porn in his work cubicle. And Poots recalls English actresses of 40, 50 years ago — the enormous eyes of Rita Tushingham, the fetching, platypus mouth and careless sex appeal of Susan George — and is nearly plausible as a capable racer. Still, it’s not until the last lap of their 45-hour cross-country journey that Tobey lets the girl drive so he can take a fast nap before the Mendocino finale.

It will not surprise you to learn that character complexity is not why people — do I mean only men? — go to car movies. Directed by stunt coordinator Scott Waugh in an ambitious step up from his Navy SEALS superhero picture Act of Valor , Speed gets souped up with eight to 10 action scenes, from a drag race through the streets of Mount Kisco and a police chase through Detroit to the Mendocino gig ending at the Point Arena lighthouse — a berserk Baedecker tour of the Lower 48. Waugh also showcases fast driving against the traffic, the chaining of a cop car to a gas-station pump and a high-speed refueling of the Mustang from the gas nozzle of his crew’s van driving next to it. Call it rampant assholery or just cool guy stuff.

(READ: Corliss’s review of Act of Valor )

Besides filching plot lines from ’70s car-crazy films like Vanishing Point , Death Race and Dirty Mary Crazy Larry , Waugh has the big lug nuts to show a clip from Bullitt , the 1968 movie starring the original Steve Queen that provided the blueprint for urban car chases. Yet Waugh backs his nerve with cinematic verve — as long as you suspend the usual disbelief and don’t tot up the damages to the cars and lives of cops and civilians. The stunts, like the best ones in the Fast & Furious films, are often primally thrilling. They work on the most primitive part of the brain in the most sophisticated manner

Need for Speed is also going up against its own video game, which has sold something like 150 million units over its 20-year span. But video races, even with the viewer at the digital wheel, can’t compete with a movie version of the real thing, executed by insane geniuses who put their lives on the line so you can pretend to risk yours. This is cinema reduced or distilled to its purest definition, of movies that move. If you want dewy humanity in your entertainment, watch Lifetime.

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Film Review: ‘Need for Speed’

The stunts are spectacular, the characters expendable in this modest, diverting muscle-car epic.

By Scott Foundas

Scott Foundas

Film Review: ‘Black Mass’ 9 years ago
Film Review: ‘The Runner’ 9 years ago
Film Review: ‘Straight Outta Compton’ 9 years ago

'Need for Speed' Review: Aaron Paul Gets Behind the Wheel

To say that “ Need for Speed ” is one of the better movies derived from a videogame source may not sound like much of an endorsement given the competition (“Street Fighter,” “Tekken,” “Super Mario Bros.”), but it’s an apt description of this mash note to the American muscle car in which high-flying stuntwork routinely trumps plot, plausibility or particularly memorable characters. The “Fast and Furious” franchise has nothing much to worry about, but as long as the engines are humming and the gears are grinding — which is most of the time — “Need” is modest, diverting fun that should have at least a couple of good box office laps in it before “Divergent” and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” muscle it off the track.

Because the “Need for Speed” games, of which there have been 20 different installments since 1994, don’t really offer much in the way of narrative, director Scott Waugh (“Act of Valor”) and sibling screenwriters George and John Gatins are pretty much starting from scratch here. They have, in turn, created even more of a self-conscious, 1950s hot-rod/greaser throwback than the “Fast” movies themselves, plunking us down in the kind of pastoral small-town America (Georgia doubling for Mt. Kisco, N.Y.) where people talk of “the big city” as if it can only be reached by arduous overland journey, and where ruddy-cheeked youths gather on summer nights at the local drive-in theater (where “Bullitt” is either enjoying a reissue, or has simply been playing continuously for the past 45 years).

One half expects James Dean and Sal Mineo to enter at any moment, but instead we get Tobey Marshall ( Aaron Paul ), a youth stock-car prodigy who now runs a local custom auto shop, and his best bud, Pete (Harrison Gilbertson), who’s also called “Little Pete,” and whose sensitive, childlike demeanor tells us from the start that he’s doomed to meet an untimely end. Tobey, by contrast, is built Ford-tough, and Paul plays the part with the flinty, tightly wound charisma of a small man who makes up in moxie what he lacks in stature. There’s something of the young James Cagney in him, and he’s by far the best thing “Need for Speed” has going for it.

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In a mildly refreshing change-up from the American action-movie norm, Paul is surrounded by an ensemble of similarly small-to-medium-sized gearheads who, collectively, might equal one Vin Diesel or the Rock. They include the wiry, bug-eyed Rami Malek (as a mechanic who gives his cubicle-dwelling day job an exuberant kiss-off), and hip-hop star Scott Mescudi as a wise-cracking Army Reserve pilot who improbably pops up in a variety of civilian and military aircraft throughout the movie, lending the racers eagle-eyed air support whenever they seem to require it. (File his performance under “a little goes a long way.”)

With his slick pompadour and cocksure strut, Dominic Cooper is nearly a caricature of wanton privilege as Dino Brewster, the hometown boy turned NASCAR pro, newly back in town with Pete’s sister Anita (Dakota Johnson), who happens to be Tobey’s former high-school flame, on his arm. Dino has come into possession of the prototype 50th-anniversary Ford Mustang that legendary designer Carroll Shelby was working on at the time of his death in 2012. He has a British buyer on the line for a cool $3 million, and he proposes to hire Tobey and company to finish building the car in exchange for a cut of the sale. But Dino has a few dirtier tricks up his sleeve, too. After the Mustang is built and the sale is done, he challenges Tobey and Pete to a winner-takes-all road race in three identical, street-illegal Swedish Koenigsegg supercars.

Resembling sleeker, more aerodynamic Batmobiles, the Koenigseggs look like trouble, and prove to be just that for Pete, in what is certainly one of the most spectacular aerial car flips ever captured on film. The vicarious thrill-making of that scene and others that show drivers racing in excess of 100 miles per hour through crowded city streets can’t help but hit a slightly queasy note arriving barely three months after the death of Paul Walker. Then again, it’s hard to shake the feeling that “Need for Speed” is a movie Walker himself would have very much enjoyed.

Framed by Dino for Pete’s death, Tobey does his time and emerges two years later with revenge on his mind. At which point “Need for Speed” evolves into a kind of latter-day “Cannonball Run” or “Gumball Rally,” with Tobey hightailing it from New York to San Francisco to compete against Dino in the Super Bowl of illegal street racing, the De Leon. His car of choice: the custom Mustang, whose owner agrees to lend it on the condition that his associate Julia (Imogen Poots) travels with it. The tart, spunky Poots has some fun playing a woman for whom the sound of grinding gears is close to a mating call, but make no mistake: The true romance here is that of man and machine, as Tobey races against the clock, the cops and (in one of the movie’s dumber plot twists) some high-octane bounty hunters dispatched by Dino.

A veteran stunt performer and coordinator, Waugh isn’t as distinctive an image maker as longtime “Fast and Furious” helmer Justin Lin (or Ron Howard in “Rush”), but he certainly knows his way around a stunt sequence and, as in “Act of Valor,” draws heavily on practical special effects with a minimum of CGI. That includes the Mustang’s gravity-defying, 160-foot leap across multiple lanes of downtown Detroit traffic — a stunt so dazzling it help to compensate for some of the movie’s even more death-defying leaps in logic, such as why one would detour through Detroit en route from New York to California in the first place. The rest of the time, Waugh and stunt coordinator Lance Gilbert and d.p. Shane Hurlbut keep the screen busy with lots of fancy driving shot from a battery of dizzying but never disorienting angles (two additional d.p.s, David B. Nowell and Michael Kelem, are credited with the frequent aerial images).

When we finally get to San Francisco, the De Leon almost feels like an anticlimax — unsurprising, given that we’re already well past the 90-minute running time Roger Corman deemed ideal for such fare. But there is an oasis of private amusement waiting in the form of Michael Keaton as the Monarch, mythic impresario of the De Leon, who beams his rhythmic color commentary over the Internet from an undisclosed locale, working himself into flurries of manic intensity as he goes. It’s a tailor-made role for the sly, inventive and chronically underrated Keaton, and he does much to guide “Need for Speed” ably across the finish line.

Reviewed at AMC Empire, New York, March 5, 2014. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 130 MIN.

Production: A Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures release of a DreamWorks Pictures and Reliance Entertainment presentation of an Electronic Arts/Bandito Brothers/Mark Sourian/John Gatins production. Produced by John Gatins, Patrick O’Brien, Mark Sourian. Executive producers, Stuart Besser, Scott Waugh, Max Leitman, Frank Gibeau, Patrick Soderlund, Tim Moore.
Crew: Directed by Scott Waugh. Screenplay, George Gatins; story, George Gatins, John Gatins, based on the video game series created by Electronic Arts. Camera (Deluxe color, widescreen, HD), Shane Hurlbut; editors, Paul Rubell, Waugh; music, Nathan Furst; music supervisors, Season Kent, Gabe Hilfer; production designer, Jon Hutman; art director, Steve Graham; set decorator, K.C. Fox; set designer, Thomas Minton; costume designer, Ellen Mirojnick; sound (Datasat/Dolby Digital/SDDS), Gene Martin; supervising sound editors/sound designers, Ethan Van Der Ryn, Tobias Poppe, Erik Aadahl; re-recording mixers, Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell; visual effects supervisors, Tony Lupoi, Kevin Baillie; visual effects, Cantina Creative, Atomic Fiction; special effects supervisor, Joe Pancake; stunt coordinator, Lance Gilbert; assistant director, David Sardi; casting, Ronna Kress.
With: Aaron Paul, Dominic Cooper, Imogen Poots, Scott Mescudi, Rami Malek, Ramon Rodriguez, Harrison Gilbertson, Dakota Johnson, Stevie Ray Dallimore, Michael Keaton.

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Aaron Paul, left, and Dominic Cooper in Need for Speed

Need for Speed review – 'Enjoyable in its highly implausible way'

I t's crass. It's vulgar. It's based on a video game – of all the culturally reprehensible things! There is, moreover, no question of cast-members Aaron Paul , Dominic Cooper and Imogen Poots taking to the Oscar stage next March to sob over the "journey" that took them there.

But Need for Speed is enjoyable in its highly implausible way: a petrolhead festival with some outrageously silly stunts. Screenwriter George Gatins and director Scott Waugh award themselves a bit of an ancestor-worship moment with a clip from Steve McQueen in Bullitt , but basically they seem to be remembering Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop , along with quite a few of the old-style freeway chase/airborne-car extravaganzas such as Smokey and the Bandit . It's about blue-collar driver-mechanic Tobey Marshall (Paul) who's in a race for his life against the sinister billionaire Dino Brewster (Cooper), and who falls for super-hot British car-lover Julia Maddon (Poots). Subtle it isn't. But the entertainment rev counter more or less keeps turning over.

Need for Speed
Drama films
Dominic Cooper

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Need for Speed film review

Can Hollywood do what EA couldn't, and spin a story out of street racing?

From a gamer's perspective, Need for Speed seems an odd choice for a movie. In 20 years and as many games, EA's glossy, hyper-real street-racing series has never produced a character or storyline worth a damn, although it has tried - notably in 2011's misfire The Run and the horribly gauche live-action cut-scenes of 2005's Most Wanted. At their best, the games are thrilling entertainment, but it's of a kind that has next to nothing to do with cinema.

What on earth did Dreamworks' producers see in it? Something quite simple, I reckon: a chance to use EA's evergreen brand to lever themselves into the cheap, dumb and dirty world of gearhead cinema, currently under the uncontested rule of Universal's enormously profitable and shamefully enjoyable Fast & Furious flicks. And also, significantly: a blank slate. Perhaps if they could write their own story and chisel their own lead, they wouldn't fall into the same pit of dramatic ineptitude that every previous video game adaptation had.

They have anyway. As a dramatic film, Need for Speed is exactly as silly and almost as amateurish as EA's own attempts at blacktop opera. It has a contrived plot and risible characters, leaden gags and flat melodrama, a script that is simply awful, and worst of all, it takes itself seriously. The latter and better Fast & Furious movies seem to know they are straight-up capers, but Need for Speed pictures itself as a tale of honour and redemption.

The director Scott Waugh - who made 2012's gung-ho military hit Act of Valor, which was only nominally not a Call of Duty film - has dared to namecheck such classic car movies as Duel, Bullitt and Vanishing Point. But while it might have their unsmiling mien, this film has none of their grit. It doesn't even have the grit of Smokey & the Bandit or The Cannonball Run (both made by Hal Needham, whose career trajectory from stuntman to director Waugh has followed). It takes place in a ludicrous fantasy land where characters act without consequence or logic, computers can do anything (really - anything ) and a Ford Mustang can travel at 230 miles per hour without falling to pieces. It's nonsense.

And yet you still might walk out of the cinema wearing a smile that is not entirely ironic. Need for Speed is entertaining in spite of itself for a couple of reasons - and Waugh and the producers deserve all credit for sticking to these two important principles. One, it's not a digital effects bonanza; it was all shot for real, with practical stunts in real cars. Two, it keeps its foot on the gas. This isn't one of those racing movies that's all montage and build-up. I don't think you're out of a speeding car for more than 10 of its 130 minutes at a time.

Our hero is Tobey Marshall (Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul) a blue-collar mechanic and street racer from New York state. His nemesis is Dino Brewster (Fleming's Dominic Cooper), an oily, monied car dealer and racing champion. Dino pays Tobey to modify a Shelby Mustang 500 for sale, then cheats him out of the deal and lands him in jail when a wager they make on a street race ends in tragedy. Two years later, Tobey emerges from jail and immediately sets about exacting revenge and clearing his name by entering the same Mustang against his rival in the glamorous De Leon, a secret underground race for the highest of rollers - but it's in two days' time in California, and Dino has put a bounty on his head.

It's a preposterous scenario but it does what's needed: it keeps Need for Speed on the road. The film starts with a race, follows it with a race, then - en route to its climactic race - enacts the classic scenario of both Detroit and Hollywood myth: 48 hours to get from one coast to another on nothing but eight American cylinders. Screw the law and screw the rules, apart from the one that says it's compulsory to drive through Monument Valley.

"Crucially, Need for Speed understands that video game visuals are advanced enough now that there's no point faking it when adapting them"

The gaps are mostly filled with wooden hi-jinx between Tobey and his crew, who follow him on the ground and in a plane - he must be the only working-class kid in America with air support - as well as a romantic subplot involving a posh British girl in his passenger seat, played by Imogen Poots. Aaron Paul, who owns an original AC Cobra, presumably enjoyed himself shooting this movie, but his famous intensity comes off as absurd when it's applied to this dramatic chipboard. Poots fares better, mostly because she wears a permanent expression of amused incredulity at everything she is required to do or say.

However, Waugh's tin ear for dialogue is balanced by an expert eye for action. Crucially, he understands that video game visuals are advanced enough now that there's no point faking it when adapting them; games already do a nice line in crisp digital mayhem and have aped all of Hollywood's most cutting-edge effects within months. He knows that what we want is to see Need for Speed's signature jumps, drifts and ridiculous flips enacted for real. The stunts aren't too inventive but they're cogently staged, thrillingly cut and landed with conviction, backed up by the bullying roar of a histrionic sound mix. (I'm pretty sure I heard a Prius taxi emit a V8 rumble at one point, while the Mustang sounds like the voice of Beelzebub.)

The (apparently late) decision to post-convert the film to 3D hasn't done it any favours, as some shots end up looking more fake than they actually are. On the other hand, the first-person sequences shot from behind the wheel are pretty exciting. It's interesting to note that first-person camerawork, once the gimmicky preserve of ropey game adaptations like Doom, is now starting to take root in mainstream filmmaking, having featured in the gritty drama End of Watch as well as the Oscar-winning cinematography of Gravity. This must be video games' first important contribution to the grammar of film. Having taken so much from Hollywood, stylistically speaking, are games finally ready to give back?

Let's hope they don't give too much of their brazen commercialism. Like the games, the film is saturated with licensing opportunities, some of it for Need for Speed itself: virtually every screen bears a familiar black-and-yellow interface, while Tobey and his bros enjoy a game of Rivals on PS4 in one painful scene. Most of the rest is a sort of bacchanalian two-hour Ford advert - although the Mustang, having done its muscle-car duty and swallowed a continent whole, is sidelined for the final race. In its place we get a line-up of the car world's most extreme exotica, true to Need for Speed form. Koenigsegg, Bugatti, McLaren, Lamborghini: all are paraded before our eyes in day-glo colours before being hurled against cop cars and each other like a toddler's toys. After they're all written off, Aaron Paul cries a single tear. For his character's catharsis or for all that twisted metal? Who knows?

Need for Speed opens in UK cinemas today, Wednesday 12th March.

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The 10 best kung fu movie stars of all time, jake gyllenhaal's confirmed road house 2 return can't repeat the 2024 movie's controversial $85 million mistake, car lovers and films fans that are willing to switch off their brains should find need for speed offers (at the very least) an amusing ride..

In Need for Speed , local grease monkey and street racer, Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul), is struggling to keep his auto shop business open (and his team of mechanic friends employed). With creditors knocking at his garage door, Tobey agrees to a temporary partnership with longtime opponent, professional racer Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper), in order to complete, and then sell, a modified Ford GT500 that once belonged to renowned car designer Carroll Shelby.

After finishing the project, the brash (and insecure) Dino challenges Tobey to an impromptu race - in the hopes of humiliating his rival and making off with a bigger chunk of their sales commission. However, when the not-so-friendly race results in tragic consequence, Dino speeds away - leaving Tobey to endure a two year prison term (for a crime that he did not commit). Upon his release, Tobey vows to prove his innocence through the only means available to him - journeying across the country to compete in the mother of all illegal street races.

Moviegoers have been skeptical about Need for Speed ever since it was first announced - and for good reasons: it's a video game adaptation, with a relatively thin premise, that (no doubt) attempts to capitalize on continued interest in the mega-successful Fast and Furious franchise. Based on those details alone, it would be easy to dismiss Need for Speed as a shallow cash grab; however, the final film, from Act of Valor director Scott Waugh, differentiates itself enough to be a worthwhile watch. The story may be flimsy and a few over-the-top moments will have viewers rolling their eyes, but a solid mix of amusing personalities paired with eye-popping practical (not CGI) racing sequences should engage both car enthusiasts and casual moviegoers - assuming they're open to a fun, albeit brainless, high speed adventure.

The Need for Speed storyline borrows elements from the video game franchise (including law enforcement crackdown) - but is not an outright adaptation of any one installment. Instead, the script, written and developed by George and John Gatins, is a very basic tale of injustice and retribution - set in a world where heroes can solve their legal troubles by racing cars through crowded city streets (often at the expense of/damage to innocent bystanders). It's a goofy setup, one that significantly limits what the film can explore in its two hour runtime, but the Gatins make up for any shortcomings in the core narrative by padding the film with fun set pieces and an enjoyable cast of quirky side characters.

Aaron Paul (known best for his portrayal of Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad ) isn't given much to work with outside his standard repertoire but, at the same time, he elevates what could have been a one-note role. In spite of thin scripting, Paul actually fleshes Tobey out with gravity and charm - ensuring that even the most heavy-handed character beats supply emotional impact. Yet, Tobey can also take (or give) a joke and Paul has no trouble playing-off the rest of Need for Speed 's ensemble for cathartic laughs.

As indicated, the supporting cast is surprisingly rich - especially in the case of Tobey's co-pilot, Julia Maddon (Imogen Poots). Certain aspects of Julia try too hard to differentiate the character from damsel in distress tropes but, overall, her spirited personality is a fun juxtaposition (especially against Paul's more solemn disposition). Team Tobey members Finn (Rami Malek) and Joe Peck (Ramon Rodriguez) help fuel the storyline and offer tongue-in-cheek gags but Scott Mescudi (also known as rapper Kid Cudi) steals the comedy relief spotlight in nearly every one of his scenes - as pilot/navigator/watch dog Benny. Select Benny moments challenge disbelief but the character is essential in keeping the dynamic between Tobey and his team light-hearted - irrespective of dark turns.

Unfortunately, while Dominic Cooper gives a serviceable performance as Dino, the character is underdeveloped. Waugh attempts to flesh Dino out with conflicted emotions and financial pressures of his own, but regardless of the filmmaker's intent, the script prevents Dino from becoming anything more than a stock cartoon villain. Similarly, Michael Keaton makes a brief appearance as race organizer Monarch and while his contribution is fun to watch, Keaton's overblown portrayal is often excessive instead of intriguing.

Of course the true stars of Need for Speed will be the cars - along with Waugh's heart-pounding race sequences. Car enthusiasts will have plenty of rubber and metal to feast their eyes on, with appearances from the 2015 Ford Mustang GT, Saleen S7, as well as Lamborghini Sesto Elemento, among others, and the filmmaker captures the raw power of the machines with in your-face visuals and sound design. Need for Speed is a loud and frantic film but, in spite of all the high speed flash, Waugh succeeds at keeping the cinematography (mostly) grounded. The choice to shoot the racing sequences using actual cars and stunt drivers, not CGI post-production, sets Need for Speed apart with a convincing realism that is noticeably absent in modern blockbuster vehicle chases.

Moviegoers who now expect fist punching machismo and complicated heist sequences in their car racing movies will likely find Need for Speed to be a cliched and restricting movie experience - one that spends more time following exotic muscle cars around hairpin turns than it does developing main character arcs or surprising viewers with unique twists. However, speeding from one rip-roaring chase to the next is what sets Waugh's film apart from similar offerings. Even though it's not a particularly smart or original movie, car lovers and films fans that are willing to switch off their brains should find Need for Speed offers (at the very least) an amusing ride.

If you’re still on the fence about the Need for Speed movie, check out the trailer below:

[poll id="773"]

Need for Speed runs 130 minutes and is Rated PG-13 for sequences of reckless street racing, disturbing crash scenes, nudity and crude language. Now playing in 2D and 3D theaters.

Let us know what you thought of the film in the comment section below. For an in-depth discussion of the film by the Screen Rant editors check out our Need for Speed episode of the SR Underground podcast .

Follow me on Twitter @ benkendrick for future reviews, as well as movie, TV, and gaming news.

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DVD & Streaming

Need for Speed

Action/Adventure , Drama

Content Caution

In Theaters

March 14, 2014
Aaron Paul as Tobey Marshall; Dominic Cooper as Dino Brewster; Imogen Poots as Julia Maddon; Kid Cudi as Benny; Ramon Rodriguez as Joe Peck; Rami Malek as Finn; Harrison Gilbertson as Petey; Dakota Johnson as Anita; Michael Keaton as Monarch

Home Release Date

August 5, 2014
Scott Waugh

Distributor

Walt Disney

Movie Review

Visit sleepy Mount Kisco, N.Y., and you’ll be forgiven for thinking you’ve gone back in time. That’s largely because it’s here that vintage car tuner extraordinaire Tobey Marshall and his posse of gifted wrench spinners devote most of their waking resources to resurrecting the hot rods of yesteryear—rides from a time when engines were still measured in cubic inches and motivated by barking four-barrel carburetors. After hours, it’s off to the drive-in where hot rod classics like Bullitt play on the big screen, and then to a clandestine street race to see which car—and which driver—has what it takes to win.

Wrenching and racing … it seems like a pretty good life to Tobey and his tool mates. But there’s a screwdriver hitting the cooling fan.

Tobey’s garage is on the verge of foreclosure, a secret only he knows. And so Tobey does more than just half-listen when the much-loathed Dino Brewster shows up with a lucrative offer up his sleeve. Dino is another local who nabbed Tobey’s ex-girlfriend Anita, and became an IndyCar champ before setting up his own high-end tuning operation in California. No one’s happy to see Dino drive up. But he thinks Tobey’s is the best outfit in the country to finish work on a very special project: hot rodder extraordinaire Carroll Shelby’s uncompleted final Mustang with Ford.

Dino thinks they can get $2 million for the 900-horsepower monster when it’s done. And he promises to give a quarter to Tobey’s garage. It’s an offer the cash-strapped and struggling mechanic-cum-racer can’t afford to refuse.

Dino actually manages to fetch $2.7 million for the fabled car—with payment made by a rich business magnate and negotiated by his beautiful assistant, Julia Maddon. And that’s when screwdriver No. 2 starts to twist.

Dino invites Tobey and the youngest member of his crew, Petey, to go for a spin in three Swedish Koenigsegg Agera supercars. And he ups the ante: Beat him on the road, and he’ll give Tobey the full $2.7 million. Lose, and Tobey surrenders his quarter. Tobey, of course, isn’t about to say no to a race. And Dino, of course, isn’t about to lose. Even if he has to take out Petey in a fiery accident to win—a murderous act he then pins on Tobey.

Two years later, Tobey gets out of prison, determined to prove that Dino killed Petey. The only way to get justice, he believes, is to enter a top-secret (and illegal) road race that Dino’s participating in. It’s dubbed DeLeon, and it’s sponsored annually by a former racer known only as Monarch.

But it’s invite only. And to get an invite, you have to get Monarch’s attention. To get Monarch’s attention, you’ve got to have a fast car with some YouTube exploits to prove it. Even then, Tobey’s got only 48 hours to drive from New York to California, where he thinks this year’s race is being held.

Easy peasy. Because, after all, Tobey already knows exactly what car he needs: the Mustang. And it turns out the new owner is game to loan it to him … on one condition: Julia has to ride along.

Positive Elements

Justice is the endgame here, and if you completely overlook all the illegal racing that’s going on to get to that goal, you can hand out compliments to Julia and the three guys from the garage for lending a hand. Anita, too, finally realizes what a louse her boyfriend is and gives Tobey critical information to help him prove Dino’s guilt.

[ Spoiler Warning ] It’s also great to see moments of self-sacrifice, like when Tobey decides to rescue Dino from the wreckage of another explosive crash when he could have just let his nemesis burn. And the fact that Tobey gets arrested again after the DeLeon at least offers the suggestion that he’s being punished for his illegal activities.

Spiritual Elements

Petey’s funeral service features a pastor reading verses from Isaiah 41, including the lines “Fear not, be not dismayed, for I am your God,” “Those who war against you will be as nothing,” and “Fear not, I will help you.” One car gets dubbed a “chariot of the gods.” Twice we hear “Godspeed.”

Sexual Content

Young women at a street race wear short shorts paired with tiny tops that bare cleavage and midriff. Tobey’s crew uses a camera to zoom in on the jiggling forms of three female joggers. While quitting his office job, Finn (one of Tobey’s guys) strips to just socks, leaving his clothing strewn behind him as startled onlookers stare. (The camera repeatedly shows his bare rear.) In the elevator, an older woman looks down at Finn’s crotch, prompting him to quip, “It’s cold in here.” When Finn’s asked why he did it, he says it was to make sure he could never go back to the job again. We see a couple kiss, and it’s implied that they’re want to go quite a bit further than that.

Violent Content

Need for Speed is chockfull of high-speed and very dangerous racing, with crashes galore and many, many innocent and uninvolved drivers being forced to take evasive action. When Tobey goes the wrong way on a freeway (sometimes the racers get up to speeds of 270 mph), the results are predictably destructive. Dino purposefully bumps Petey’s car, sending it flipping into the air. Many rolls later and on fire, it flies off a bridge, then explodes. Tobey clips a homeless man’s grocery cart, destroying it (and prompting jokes about it).

One cataclysmic street skirmish, this time with police in Detroit, gets filmed and uploaded to YouTube. The reward for all the recklessness? Monarch sees the clip and welcomes Tobey to participate in the DeLeon.

Thugs try to force Tobey and Julia off the road, using shotgun blasts to “persuade” them. Several of those attackers, not surprisingly, end up dying in explosive crashes. A crash in California flips the car Tobey and Julia are in, bloodying both of them and landing Julia in the hospital with a broken arm and concussion. Tobey ties a chain to a policeman’s car, ripping off the rear axle of the vehicle when he tries to pursue.

The DeLeon race obliterates five of the six cars participating in it, along with numerous pursuing police cars. Several of the crashes involving the police are quite serious, and we hear radio calls for aid for the injured officers.

After dragging Dino from the burning wreckage of his flipped Lamborghini, Tobey makes sure he’s OK … then punches him in the face.

Crude or Profane Language

One muffled f-word. A dozen-plus uses of the s-word. Two misuses of Jesus’ name and half-a-dozen of God’s. Six or seven uses each of “a‑‑,” “h‑‑‑” and “b‑‑ch.” “B‑‑tards” is tossed in once, as is “douche bag.” We hear four or five crude slang terms for the male anatomy (“balls,” “nut sack”) and see one obscene hand gesture made by a woman mocking a man’s “size.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Empty beer bottles sit in Tobey’s shop. We see folks drinking wine and champagne.

Other Negative Elements

A particularly perilous stunt involves refueling the Mustang while zipping down the freeway. Julia hangs out the window of the car while one of Tobey’s friends in a truck feeds a hose to her. Afterward, the guy stands atop the truck (it’s still moving) and raises his hands in victory.

Note that most of the time, cops are made to look like annoying buffoons here. And at one point, Monarch tells his online audience, “Racers should race. Cops should eat donuts.”

One guy instructs another not to “soil your panties.”

Need for Speed is not a movie about the subtle nuances of character transformation. It’s a souped-up, turbocharged melodrama with the struggling Good Guy facing off against the nefarious ‘n’ dastardly Bad Guy, with a damsel who eventually manages to end up in distress plopped down into the passenger seat. There’s not much more than that going on here, really. And in an almost cartoonish (read: video game-ish) way, the movie asks us not to think too deeply (or at all) about Tobey’s breakneck, utterly illegal cross-country sprint to make sure Dino gets what’s coming to him.

If you’ve owned a video game console recently, there’s a good chance you’ve played one of the 20-plus Need for Speed titles that Electronic Arts has published since the franchise’s inception back in 1994. Since then, EA has sold a combined 150 million units, making the series the most popular racing franchise of all time. No doubt DreamWorks and Disney are counting on that built-in marketing advantage when it comes to this big-screen adaptation.

Tobey takes the games’ devil-may-care approach to careening through traffic at obscene speeds, with never so much as an afterthought being proffered for those trying desperately to get out of his (and other racers’) way. And the fact that several of the cars he drives (most notably that rocket-like Mustang) sport heads-up displays projecting aforementioned obscene speeds on the windshield only helps to reinforce the story’s video game credentials.

Yes, Tobey gets locked up again in the end. Yes, the movie’s producers have dutifully tacked a big ol’ “DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME, KIDS!” disclaimer onto the closing credits, a tardy and ultimately timid attempt to remind impressionable or unstable moviegoers that what they’ve just seen really is a fantasy, not something they should go out and imitate.

Still, it’s not hard to see how this movie, just like its go-fast soul mates in the Fast & Furious franchise, could nevertheless inspire teens (and teens at heart) who have fast rides to see just how far they push down that pedal, too. (And who cares about those goody-good cops, the movie snipes.)

If they get in trouble or hurt innocent bystanders along the way, they’ll quickly learn that life isn’t a video game—even if some movies are.

Adam R. Holz

After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.

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Need for speed, common sense media reviewers.

Fast-paced stunts, dangerous driving will thrill teens.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The main thrust of the story is revenge, and the m

Aside from wreaking untold destruction and going o

The movie includes many car chases and crashes, an

A male character quits his office job by stripping

Language is not very frequent but does include "s-

A female character mentions her prized "Gucci boot

Characters occasionally drink in restaurants or in

Positive Messages

The main thrust of the story is revenge, and the main characters destroy countless amounts of property with no consequences.

Positive Role Models

Aside from wreaking untold destruction and going out for revenge, the main character is a good team player, and has a sense of right and wrong. In two cases, he stops during a race to check on fellow racers after crashes, even though he risks his lead. (The bad guy does not show this same tendency.) Some female characters are treated as sex objects in skimpy outfits.

Violence & Scariness

The movie includes many car chases and crashes, and filmed without the aid of CG effects, the impact of these stunt sequences is quite strong. Characters die in car crashes. We see some guns and shooting, and some punching, but only a little blood is shown (mostly injuries after crashes).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A male character quits his office job by stripping down to nothing. It's a long sequence as he walks through the building and outside, interacting with his friends, though only his naked bottom is shown. The main character and the lead female character share an almost-kiss.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Language is not very frequent but does include "s--t," "bitch," "ass," and "douchebag."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

A female character mentions her prized "Gucci boots." The brand names of cars are mentioned, such as "Ford Mustang."

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters occasionally drink in restaurants or in a background way.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Need for Speed is an action movie, based on a video game, and centers around car racing (and car crashing). Teens will be attracted to the movie thanks to its star Aaron Paul in his first lead role after the hit TV series Breaking Bad . Expect plenty of car chases, stunts, and crashes, and characters die, though only a little blood is shown. Infrequent language includes a few uses of "s--t" and "bitch." In some scenes, women are shown as sexual objects, a man strips naked (only his bottom is shown), and the main character and the leading lady fall in love and nearly kiss. Parents of driving-age teens should be aware that the very fast stunt driving in the movie was done by both stuntmen and actors after intensive training, and they might want to remind them that this kind of driving in real life is extremely dangerous. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (7)
Kids say (27)

Based on 7 parent reviews

What's the Story?

Tobey Marshall ( Aaron Paul ) could have been a champion racer, but instead he remained behind in his small community of Mt. Kisco, working on cars with his faithful crew. An old rival, the successful Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper), returns to town with a lucrative offer to restore a classic Ford Mustang. An argument over the sale of the car leads to a race between the enemies, followed by an accident that lands the innocent Tobey in jail. Two years later, he plots to enter the dangerous "De Leon" race, run by the mysterious Monarch (Michael Keaton), but to do so, he must make a speedy cross-country run to San Francisco, with the daughter of the car's owner, Julia (Imogen Poots), in tow. Can Tobey beat Dino and restore his good name?

Is It Any Good?

Former stunt man Scott Waugh pays respectful homage to the classic action/car chase movies of the 1960s and 1970s by choosing to use all live stunts, with no computer-generated effects. He also casts an actual actor (Aaron Paul), rather than an action hero, to play the lead, resulting in more meaningful, human moments. So, even though the movie is a fairly routine popcorn entertainment with typical twists, romances, heroes and villains, it feels old-fashioned, organic, and exciting. It's based on a video game, but you'd never know it.

The stunts, especially one involving an Apache helicopter rescuing the escaping Mustang from the edge of a cliff, is tremendous, with far more powerful impact than CG effects could accomplish. It helps that Paul and his co-star, English actor Imogen Poots, are so good and sympathetic together, showing fear and doubt as well as exhilaration. And even though it runs past two hours, the movie is briskly paced; it's a terrific ride.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the movie's violence and car racing. What would be the cost of all this violence and wild driving in real life? Does the movie reflect the true consequences of the way the characters drive their cars?

Could you tell that the movie is shot without computer-generated effects and used all real stunts? What is the difference?

What positive qualities does the main character have? Is he a good role model ? What would make him a better role model?

Movie Details

In theaters : March 14, 2014
On DVD or streaming : August 5, 2014
Cast : Aaron Paul , Dominic Cooper , Imogen Poots
Director : Scott Waugh
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Genre : Action/Adventure
Topics : Cars and Trucks
Run time : 130 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : sequences of reckless street racing, disturbing crash scenes, nudity and crude language
Last updated : February 1, 2023

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Entertainment
Movie Review

‘Need for Speed’ review: not so fast, not so furious

Aaron paul can't break the video game movie curse.

By Chris Ziegler on March 12, 2014 09:04 am 108 Comments

As the lights go down in the theater, an “EA” logo flashes across the screen, which prompts a few errant chuckles from the moviegoers around me. I laugh too, and I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe it’s that it looks like a video game is booting up, or maybe we just all know movies adapted from video games are at a high risk of being absolutely terrible. Super Mario Bros . Street Fighter . Mortal Kombat . Doom . I could keep going.

This one is Need for Speed , a movie based on EA’s long-running game franchise with just the thinnest of plot parameters to work with: there are fast cars, and there are cops. The fast cars are running from the cops. That’s pretty much it. Presumably, everything else was fair game for screenwriter George Gatins, who shares a credit for the movie adaptation with his more broadly accomplished brother John ( Real Steel , Flight ).

In other words, the Gatins brothers were basically working with a clean slate. Alas, they still arrived on an elementary, age-old formula. It involves a down-on-his-luck kid, Tobey, played by Breaking Bad 's Aaron Paul, with a talent for racing and a heart of gold. It has a bad guy (who’s conveniently always wearing black clothes to remind you he’s the bad guy), a love interest, and a final showdown involving — you guessed it — a bunch of exotic cars. There’s rarely a moment in the film’s two hours and ten minutes when you can’t roughly predict what’s going to happen next.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course. With a name like Need for Speed , moviegoers have a very good sense of what they’re going to be getting for their money. And this formula has practically printed money for decades: if you made NFS animated, you’d have a bizarro analog of the Pixar classic Cars . If you swapped cars for boxing gloves, you’d have the rough outline of Rocky IV .

It’s particularly true that you can lean on a tired plotline when you’re appealing to gearhead culture; you certainly won’t find any Oscars on the mantel for The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift , but for all its silliness, it’s endlessly entertaining. Unfortunately, it’s that unavoidable comparison to the Fast & Furious series where NFS starts to look like the freshman effort that it is. Apart from Michael Keaton, who plays an eccentric millionaire operating an illegal street race, the only recognizable star from the film is Paul himself, and he hasn’t yet shaken his image as Breaking Bad’s rage-prone loser Jesse Pinkman. (Somehow I kept expecting him to slink off somewhere and smoke meth.) No doubt there are A-listers who have built an entire career playing more or less the same character — Bruce Willis, to name but one example — but Aaron Paul is a long way from Bruce Willis,.

Still, for what it tries to be, a movie like NFS can be saved by the action alone. You might think that a film filled to the brim with exotic cars and testosterone would beget an endless string of massive explosions, but NFS is a surprisingly low-explosion affair. Apart from a fiery Koenigsegg Agera flipping spectacularly off of a bridge, most of the action is limited to driving and the occasional crash. That may be due in part to the movie’s budget, roughly a third of last year’s Fast & Furious 6 . Impressively, NFS involves essentially zero CGI and the actors did many of their own stunts. Aaron Paul took a crash course in stunt driving, and Scott Mescudi — better known by his stage name, Kid Cudi — actually learned to fly for the role, which involves spending most of the film piloting an aircraft or helicopter of some sort.

But that DIY attitude of the film’s production comes out in places; I couldn’t shake the feeling that the adrenaline-packed action sequences could’ve been considerably more intense. Even a high-speed cliffside chase felt strangely brief and low-stakes. If this had been a Fast & Furious movie, the sequence would’ve been three times longer, more people would’ve died, and something — something — would’ve exploded. A cargo plane, a battleship, a speedboat, I don’t care. Something!

NFS has turned out to be an odd pairing of a big-budget video game franchise to its mid-budget film adaptation, a dangerous equation that comes off feeling like an actual video game cutscene: lifeless, ill-conceived filler that gamers just want to skip through to get to the good parts.

Still, despite the budget concessions, NFS can be rewarding for car lovers at times. It could’ve easily gotten by with bog-standard supercars like the Lamborghini Aventador and Ferrari F12berlinetta, but the producers dug deep to arrange appearances by unicorns like the GTA Spano, the Saleen S7, and Lamborghini’s glorious Sesto Elemento. Those appearances are brief, though: most of the movie focuses on Tobey’s 900-horsepower Shelby Mustang, which is cool but not that cool. And, unwilling to be a merchant of death for any million-dollar exotics, crews built low-cost replicas of many of the cars for use in dicey scenes — I may have been psyching myself out, but I felt like I could tell when and where the cars were fakes.

Rare supercars aside, I left Need for Speed feeling… well, I wasn’t really feeling much at all. I was never emotionally invested in the well-being of Tobey’s crew the way I’ve become invested in Dom’s through his adventures with Brian O’Conner and the motley Fast gang. I don’t blame the producers for spinning such a thin thread connecting this film to the video game franchise that created it; they had practically nothing to work with, after all. But in the age of Fast & Furious 6 , gratuitous car porn on the big screen only works when it’s over the top in every sense of the word — and the people behind NFS appear to have had neither the money nor the imagination to pull it off.

Need for Speed is now playing in the UK. It opens in the US on March 14th.

Need For Speed Review

14 Mar 2014

132 minutes

Need For Speed

You can just imagine the pitch that gave rise to Need For Speed. “It’ll be the new Fast & Furious! We’ll base it on a huge gaming IP, throw in some young, affordable actors and pack it with car porn. Win! You think we need a hook? Huh. Say, have you seen Breaking Bad?”

And so Aaron Paul, who delivers what is arguably the best performance in one of television’s most lauded dramas, ends up driving across America in a film that makes Fast 6 look like Battleship Potemkin. It’s not so much that Need For Speed is stupid, which is all but mandatory in this genre, but that stuntman-turned-director Scott Waugh fails to work the trick that Diesel et al have down pat: make the stupidity fun.

The car-eography lacks much of the balls-out audacity we’ve come to enjoy from pistonhead outings, stuck mostly in second gear thanks to lethargic editing and an over-reliance on long shots. That one (bafflingly over-wrought) set-piece involves Imogen Poots climbing out of a window to fill the car up with petrol should tell you all you need to know about the level of invention on show here.

It doesn’t have the video game to blame either, sharing almost nothing beyond the title and opting for an entirely new story that doesn’t bear a great deal of scrutiny. You’ll never understand why Dino (Dominic Cooper) not only leaves damning evidence lying about but keeps a shortcut to it on his desktop, nor how Michael Keaton’s mysterious DJ/race organiser manages to keep his identity secret while live-broadcasting his show via webcam. But as Paul and Poots dangle upside down over the Grand Canyon arguing about whose eyes are bluer, what will baffle most is how a film called Need For Speed can feel so slow.

Paul emerges as the film’s one saving grace, imbuing Tobey with steely earnest and storming through the revenge-themed bunkum with complete abandon. As his first post-Pinkman lead, however, this is a disappointing misstep for an actor of Paul’s potential.

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Movie Review: Need for Speed (2014)

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--> March 19, 2014

Need for Speed (2014) by The Critical Movie Critics

Moseying down the line.

“The Fast and the Furious” is a great movie. When compared to the latest fast car drama, Need for Speed , that is. It has more fully developed characters played by more interesting actors, a less implausible plot, better choreographed racing and cuter cheerleaders. That last one is a bit of stretch, however; there really are no losers when comparing the looks of Imogen Poots (“ Filth ”) to Jordana Brewster (“ Fast and Furious 6 ”).

There are losers everywhere else, though. Namely, Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul, “Breaking Bad” TV series). Like every movie in this genre, there is a criminal element to it and he is it, although director Scott Waugh (“Act of Valor”) tells us he shouldn’t be. The real bad guy is Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper, “ Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter ”), a successful legitimate racer who, during an unsanctioned street race, kills Tobey’s best friend Pete (Harrison Gilbertson, “ Beneath Hill 60 ”) but lets Tobey take the fall.

A man can dream up a great many ways to exact revenge when sitting in the clink for two years. Tobey, unfortunately, can only muster up wanting to challenge Dino to a race. Not just any race, mind you — it’s the “De Leon,” the most famous illegal street race of the year, or so says Michael Keaton (“ RoboCop ”) as the announcer/promoter/financer guy. Luckily, Tobey easily obtains a 2.7 million dollar Shelby Mustang and is able to reassemble his talented rag-tag team of automotive experts — Benny (recording artist, Kid Cudi), Joe (Ramón Rodríguez, “ Battle Los Angeles ”) and Finn (Rami Malek, “ Short Term 12 ”) — to help since their alternative is to continue sitting around doing a whole lot of nothing.

The final straw is Poots, and with her riding shotgun, the New York to San Francisco cross country adventure of Need for Speed begins.

The path to get there is fraught with obstacles, of course. There are traffic jams and those pesky toll booths to contend with! No, I kid you not, and the solution to such annoyances is to put the greater public in harm’s way by breaking every imaginable law as Tobey speeds down side streets, jumps curbs and weaves through parking lots to circumvent. It’s fun to watch — impressive car handling skills always are — but it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever since all he needed to do is activate the “traffic reroute” option on his navigation app on his smartphone. It would have saved him gas, damage to the multi-million dollar car he’s borrowed and eliminated every cop on Earth being in pursuit.

Also in pursuit are hapless bounty hunters but at least in their incompetence they’re treated to the best stunt of the show.

Readying for the race.

Now I’m kidding. Actually the best stunt in Need for Speed comes from Aaron Paul managing to maintain a blank stare for the entire 132 minutes of mindlessness. It is, however, only mildly better than the Dominic Cooper’s constant glare — he even glares at his wife Anita (Dakota Johnson, “ 21 Jump Street ”) and she sticks with him even though she knows he is a lying asshat. I do feel bad for Imogen Poots having to stand between these guys. She’s got more than just pretty looks going for her but starring in throwaways like this and January’s “ That Awkward Moment ” is not helping her cause to gain a foothold in the states.

Need for Speed is quite literally a car crash on all fronts. Even its stunts, while commendable for actually being stunts done with real cars and real people, can’t hold a candle to its fancier brethren. At least that explains why more car manufacturers didn’t offer their flagship vehicles to the production (Ford didn’t seem to mind much). As to why everything else is so bad, there is no explanation.

Tagged: prison , racing , revenge , video game adaptation

I'm an old, miserable fart set in his ways. Some of the things that bring a smile to my face are (in no particular order): Teenage back acne, the rain on my face, long walks on the beach and redneck women named Francis. Oh yeah, I like to watch and criticize movies.

Movie Review: Ghosted (2023) Movie Review: Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020) Movie Review: Fantasy Island (2020) Movie Review: Snatched (2017) Movie Review: Horrible Bosses 2 (2014) Movie Review: ABCs of Death 2 (2014) Movie Review: Life After Beth (2014)

'Movie Review: Need for Speed (2014)' have 5 comments

March 19, 2014 @ 10:33 pm Qwerty

I have no desire to see this but I just have to know: what was the tie-in to the video game?

March 20, 2014 @ 11:05 am Seegee

If I were to venture a guess it was the shot where the drivers were matched up against one another on Michael Keaton’s computer screen. It had a video game inspired vibe to it.

March 19, 2014 @ 10:40 pm Fitzwell

I couldn’t even classify this as mindless fun. It was so not good.

March 20, 2014 @ 4:46 am Ron Hopper

Funniest review I’ve read for one of the worst movies I’ve ever made the mistake of watching.

March 21, 2014 @ 9:12 am wombat

There may not have been many of them but those cars were nice.

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'Need For Speed' Movie Review: A Frivolous, Fun, High-Octane Action Film

Aaron Paul - Need for Speed movie review

Movies based on video games usually suck. They frequently graft dense, stupid stories to the tropes of a given game. In doing so, the soul of the game is lost, and you don't care about the story, either. Need for Speed , on the other hand, finds a near perfect balance. There's a story, but it contains just the bare minimum amount of logic and drama to make two hours of near non-stop racing believable.

Aaron Paul 's lead character, Tobey Marshall, is given a motivation, enemies, and the push of a ticking clock. He pretty much sits behind a wheel for the whole movie, but it's exciting. From the opening moments, Need for Speed puts the pedal to the metal and never lets up.

The most obvious comparison people will make with Need for Speed is the Fast and Furious franchise. Of course, this movie probably wouldn't exist if those weren't grossing billions. Need for Speed distinguishes itself by being even more about racing and cars than that franchise. It feels smaller, more succinct, yet it probably contains more actual racing than all six Fast and Furious combined. That racing also feels grittier because director Scott Waugh shoots action practically as often as possible. When a 900 horsepower, $2 million dollar Mustang is E-brake sliding through a crowded gas station parking lot, you tense up because it's happening for real.

You wouldn't care, however, if it weren't for the story; the one from screenwriter George Gatins wrote works well. Tobey, a talented local street racer, is framed for the death of his friend. The man doing the framing is Dino, an evil pro driver played by Dominic Cooper . After serving his prison sentence, Tobey immediately starts hatching a plan to get even. His means is a highly competitive, secret, and highly illegal street race. The only problem is, it's on the other side of the country and he has two days to get there.

So basically because of one race, Tobey has to do a second race to get to a third race. Yes, Need for Speed is that kind of movie. You have to buy into its tone. The second you take yourself out of the fun, realistic action, the plot is incredibly thin and vulnerable to be massacred. It works, however, because the stakes feel high, there's always tension, and Aaron Paul is damn charismatic as a leading man. That was one of the biggest question marks going into the film. Could he follow Jeese Pinkman, and thrive in a lead role? Rest assured, Paul is cool, confident and commanding as the lead.

The supporting performances all work, too. Imogen Poots is a great foil for Tobey. His crew members – including rapper Scott Mescudi, and Rami Malek – are perfect comic relief. They're all second fiddle to the main story, but that's okay because they serve their purpose well.

Despite some issues, Need for Speed surely ranks among the best video game adaptations ever. It never takes it self too seriously, but also takes itself just seriously enough. It's predictable, frivolous and all kinds of dumb. But the logics of the plot melt away as you enjoy this expertly made, fun, action film. Need for Speed is a hell of a ride.

/Film rating: 7.5 out of 10

Need For Speed (2014)

Need for speed.

DreamWorks Pictures’ “Need for Speed” marks an exciting return to the great car culture films of the 1960's and 70's, when the authenticity of the world brought a new level of intensity to the action on-screen. Tapping into what makes the American myth of the open road so appealing, the story chronicles a near-impossible cross-country journey for our heroes -- one which begins as a mission for revenge, but proves to be one of redemption. Based on the most successful racing video game franchise ever with over 140 million copies sold, "Need for Speed" captures the freedom and excitement of the game in a real-world setting, while bringing to life the passion for the road that has made our love of cars so timeless. The film centers around Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul), a blue-collar mechanic who races muscle-cars on the side in an unsanctioned street-racing circuit. Struggling to keep his family-owned garage afloat, he reluctantly partners with the wealthy and arrogant ex-NASCAR driver Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper). But just as a major sale to car broker Julia Bonet (Imogen Poots) looks like it will save Tobey's shop, a disastrous race allows Dino to frame Tobey for a crime he didn’t commit, sending Tobey to prison while Dino expands his business out west. Two years later, Tobey is released and set on revenge -- but he knows his only chance to take down his rival Dino is to defeat him in the high-stakes race known as De Leon—the Super Bowl of underground racing. However to get there in time, Tobey will have to run a high-octane, action-packed gauntlet that includes dodging pursuing cops coast-to-coast as well as contending with a dangerous bounty Dino has put out on his car. With the help of his loyal crew and the surprisingly resourceful Julia, Tobey defies odds at every turn and proves that even in the flashy world of exotic supercars, the underdog can still finish first. Based on the most successful racing video game franchise ever with over 140 million copies sold, “Need for Speed” captures the thrills of the game in a real-world setting. “Need for Speed” is presented by DreamWorks Pictures, produced by John Gatins, Pat O’Brien and Mark Sourian and directed by Scott Waugh. The screen story is by John Gatins and George Gatins and the screenplay is by George Gatins and John Gatins, based on the video game series created by Electronic Arts. The film releases in U.S. theaters on March 14, 2014.

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Need for Speed

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

What to say about a racing movie that’s stuck in idle as drama? For starters, don’t race to see it. Need for Speed is based on a racing video-game franchise that has sold 150 million copies. It stars Aaron Paul (Jesse on the immortal Breaking Bad ). Paul is a good actor, with two Emmys to prove it, but he’s not a screen-filling star presence in the muscle-bound mold of Vin Diesel ( The Fast and the Furious ). This stings because there’s nothing to distract you from a plot so tired there are tire tracks from other racing movies all over it.

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To illustrate: Paul plays Tobey Marshall, a street racer just out of prison for a crime – all together now – he did not commit. He blames his rival Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper, doing slime personified) for leaving the scene of a racing accident and making Tobey take the rap. Now Tobey wants to beat Dino at his own game by winning the De Leon, the Oscar of street-racing contests. With the help of Brew ster’s pert Brit partner, Julia (a slumming Imogen Poots), Tobey breaks parole to race from New York to San Francisco in just two days.

At that point, director Scott Waugh finally starts the movie’s engines. Too bad the impressive muscle cars and stunt drivers can’t move as fast as the tongue of Michael Keaton, who does Beetlejuice on speed as a racing DJ. Keaton is entertaining. The movie itself is not. It’s got no vroom in it.

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Keanu reeves says he and sandra bullock “would knock it out of the park” if they did ‘speed 3’.

In a joint conversation about the film, Bullock stressed wanting to work with him again before they die.

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Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock might be down for Speed 3 .

The Speed stars stopped by the 50 MPH podcast to discuss the 1994 action-thriller, alongside their fellow co-stars Jeff Daniels and Alan Ruck.

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Is NASCAR feeling the ‘Netflix Effect’? Early signs positive after strong start

Much has been made of the “Netflix Effect” on Formula 1 , with F1’s rise in the United States inextricably linked with the “Drive to Survive” docuseries. NASCAR coveted its own shot at a Netflix docuseries for years, and finally landed one with the excellent “Full Speed” show that debuted in late January.

But while “Full Speed” spent some time among the top 10 U.S. shows on the Netflix charts, it was unclear at the time what sort of tangible benefits that may provide to the stock car racing series.

After nearly two months, the answer may be coming into focus. Aside from a pair of rainouts, NASCAR has seen TV ratings increase for four straight races to open the season. And the last two weeks have been up double-digit percentages (a 19 percent year-over-year increase for Phoenix and 11 percent for Bristol).

Even better for NASCAR: Nielsen data found 88 percent of first-week “Full Speed” viewers did not watch last fall’s championship race. That means the vast majority of people who watched the Netflix show’s debut are potential new fans, and the ratings data suggests a significant number may have been hooked enough to start watching the actual races every Sunday.

And though many fans jokingly theorize NASCAR may be scripted at times, the race winners so far this season couldn’t have come at a better time for the Netflix crowd: Four of the five winning drivers were featured as main characters in “Full Speed,” which means they are immediately recognizable to the new viewers.

“To see 88 percent of new fans watching that show, and then you roll into the season and you have some terrific racing and you have a number of winners who were actually featured on Netflix, it really matched up to what we’d hoped for,” NASCAR COO Steve O’Donnell said. “It’s impossible to say exactly how much it’s driving the ratings, but you’ve certainly got to look at that stat and say we exposed the sport to a new audience.”

On the heels of a strong start both on and off the racetrack — NASCAR has set new records for average number of lead changes, average number of different leaders and green-flag passes through the first five races of a season — The Athletic spoke to O’Donnell for his thoughts on the 2024 season so far.

With a dire forecast for the Southern California area, NASCAR made the extreme decision to move up its season-opening exhibition race at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum by an entire day and raced the Clash on just five hours’ notice.

The last-minute time adjustment was a “moral victory” because it allowed the race to be completed before taking the chance of keeping all the teams in Los Angeles indefinitely, O’Donnell said, but it turned out to be an even better decision than believed at the time.

Three days later, when the rain started to let up, NASCAR drove a safety truck onto the track, and O’Donnell said “it basically sunk” into the surface because the water had weakened the purpose-built circuit so much.

“So if we hadn’t gotten that race in (Saturday), we probably wouldn’t have raced, which would have obviously been a disaster,” he said.

Gluck’s take: Just finding a way for the race to take place saved teams and industry personnel untold amounts of money while also costing NASCAR millions in lost ticket revenue (the race was run on a free attendance day).

Daytona 500

NASCAR’s biggest race always is a tone-setter for the season’s TV audience, so another rainout (this time a postponement to Monday) seemed brutal at the time and threatened to steal any of the newfound Netflix momentum (which had started to show itself through a ratings increase in Daytona 500 qualifying and the Duel qualifying races).

Officials made a quick postponement call on Sunday to shift the focus to the next day, and the race was entertaining. William Byron was barely ahead of Alex Bowman when a caution came out at the white flag of the race, handing Byron the win (the finish was debated for several hours afterward by fans who thought Bowman had the victory).

“We made the (postponement) decision early to try and get as many eyeballs as we could to Monday and let the fans know when we’d be racing,” O’Donnell said. “Made the best of a tough situation. We certainly thought it was an entertaining race and applaud the teams and drivers for what they put out there.”

Gluck’s take: Ending under caution was a bummer after a crash right when the white flag came out, but it was still an entertaining Daytona 500 overall.

NASCAR followed up the Daytona race with an all-time classic at the superspeedway version of Atlanta Motor Speedway, which was a thriller throughout. But the signature moment was the breathtaking, three-wide finish reminiscent of the movie “Cars.”

Mexican driver Daniel Suárez beat Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch by the narrowest of margins, and NASCAR immediately had a buzzworthy result to continue to keep the attention of new fans — which O’Donnell said will continue to be a crucial ingredient to building a larger fan base.

“I’m going to assume for the most part NASCAR is going to put on some great racing,” O’Donnell said. “There may be a couple of challenging ones during the year, but I’d put our racing up against anyone in the world.

“So our job is then to talk about what is so compelling about the racing. … Doing a better job of telling everything that happens during a race is going to be important for us, because there are a lot of different connection points.”

Gluck’s take: This immediately ranked among the best NASCAR finishes ever and became a race that will be hard to top for entertainment value during the rest of 2024.

Kyle Larson opened the “real” racing season (the non-superspeedway portion of the schedule) with a tight victory over a hard-charging Tyler Reddick, who dueled with Larson over the final laps but couldn’t make the winning pass.

The Vegas weekend also featured a Truck Series win by Rajah Caruth — a 21-year-old from Washington, D.C., who became just the third Black driver to win a NASCAR national series race and generated more headlines for NASCAR.

But Vegas also was the second straight race in which a Speedway Motorsports-owned track had drivers make visits to their souvenir haulers for autographs and photos on race day, which was a throwback to a prominent and beloved NASCAR feature from the glory days in the mid-2000s (and is a renewed initiative from track owner Marcus Smith’s company).

“Those old-school things with the drivers at Speedway Motorsports tracks and autograph sessions around licensed merchandise is really getting back to what made us successful in the past,” O’Donnell said.

Gluck’s take: A fairly standard NASCAR intermediate track race in the Next Gen Era — close racing, but also some annoyances like air blocking (which is what Larson used to beat Reddick).

The hotly debated Phoenix race

was viewed as a letdown in some eyes after NASCAR debuted its revamped short-track aerodynamic rules package, with Christopher Bell winning by 5.5 seconds — the largest margin of victory in a Cup Series race since the introduction of the Next Gen car at the start of 2022.

At the same time, Bell charged from 21st to the win after a four-tire pit stop call buried him in the field. So although it wasn’t considered a great race, NASCAR also didn’t think it was bad.

“We were OK with Phoenix,” O’Donnell said. “Certainly, it wasn’t as close of a finish as you’d want to have, but Christopher Bell gained 20 positions. Isn’t that what we want? He ran through the field and won the race. That’s pretty good when you compare it to what else is going around the world in terms of racing.”

Gluck’s take: Phoenix is not a very good racetrack at this point, and this race reiterated how the racing there has become unworthy of hosting the championship. That said, it was still a better-than-normal Phoenix race, and the fastest car won.

A shockingly high amount of tire wear at Bristol last weekend turned the famed short track into a tire management race , but most fans responded positively — and NASCAR was pleased with the on-track product, even if the tire wear was “a little extreme,” O’Donnell said.

“We put it back in the drivers’ hands and the teams’ hands for strategy,” he added.

The high wear caught teams off guard, but also created 54 lead changes — the most in NASCAR’s 76-year history of racing on short tracks (and the most at any non-superspeedway since 1991). O’Donnell called on fans and those in the NASCAR garage to not criticize Goodyear, because increased tire wear is exactly what everyone has been pleading for.

“It’s not always going to be perfect, but directionally, they’re going the way we’ve asked them to go,” he said. “So I applaud them for making the effort and trying new things.

“We’ve asked Goodyear to make tires part of the strategy and get back to the true (style of) Late Model racing on short tracks.”

Gluck’s take: Easily the best NASCAR short track race of the Next Gen Era, and the type of race purists crave to see more often. The tire woes were actually a massive benefit to the quality of racing.

What’s next

NASCAR now heads to a road course for the first time this season (Austin’s Circuit of the Americas on Sunday) and O’Donnell is curious if the Cup Series will see a sixth different winner in the first six races. The more different winners in the regular season, he said, “it starts to build the anticipation of the playoffs and who’s in and the pressure gets ratcheted up as well.”

Of course, it’s not all positive. Contentious negotiations regarding an extension of NASCAR’s charter agreement with race teams (similar to franchises) loom in the background , with teams dissatisfied over NASCAR’s offers and communication so far. All parties must come to an agreement by the end of the year, or the charters will expire.

Plus, it’s one thing to have a strong start to the season; it’s another to maintain the momentum with viewers, particularly in a marathon schedule (there are no breaks until mid-July) and when upcoming tracks (Richmond, Texas, Dover) haven’t consistently seen great racing. And NASCAR still has much work to do to build star power, given the lack of a transcendent driver like it used to have with Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

“We’ve got a bunch of emerging superstars,” O’Donnell said. “It’s our job to really go out there now and promote those drivers and make them more household names. And if we can do that, I think the sport will continue to grow.”

In the meantime, though, there’s newfound momentum for a series which has struggled to find its identity in recent years.

“It’s still early,” O’Donnell said. “I wouldn’t say we’re high-fiving each other, but we’re certainly encouraged by what we’re seeing (and plan) to keep the hammer down and keep working hard to grow the sport.”

William Byron on life after Daytona 500 win and his dangerous bucket list: 12 Questions

(Top photo of Daniel Suárez during the Atlanta race he’d later win in a thrilling finish: Alex Slitz / Getty Images)

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Jeff Gluck has been traveling on the NASCAR beat since 2007, with stops along the way at USA Today, SB Nation, NASCAR Scene magazine and a Patreon-funded site, JeffGluck.com. He's been hosting tweetups at NASCAR tracks around the country since 2009 and was named to SI's Twitter 100 (the top 100 Twitter accounts in sports) for five straight years.

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COMMENTS

Need for Speed movie review & film summary (2014)
A good movie, however, will pump a viewer so full of adrenaline that problems are noticed only upon much later reflection. Director Scott Waugh makes sure you feel all 130 minutes of "Need for Speed," and even worse, he expects you to take this nonsense seriously. He pauses for all manner of false emotional effect, and the main character's ...
Need for Speed
Need for Speed is a thrilling action movie that follows Tobey Marshall, a mechanic and racer, who seeks revenge on his former partner Dino Brewster, who framed him for a crime. Tobey must outrun ...
Need for Speed
Full Review | Original Score: 5.5/10 | Nov 1, 2018. In spite of that movie's popularity and its kinship with the multi-release racing video game, a big screen adaptation of Need for Speed took ...
REVIEW: Need for Speed : It Kills and Thrills. Deal With It.
Can't wait till 2015 for a movie about car races, chases and crashes? Here's Need for Speed, based on the world's top-selling racing video game. In the first act, three guys — brooding ...
Need for Speed (2014)
Need for Speed: Directed by Scott Waugh. With Aaron Paul, Dominic Cooper, Imogen Poots, Kid Cudi. Fresh from prison, a street racer who was framed by a wealthy business associate joins a cross-country race with revenge in mind. His ex-partner, learning of the plan, places a massive bounty on his head as the race begins.
'Need for Speed' Review: Aaron Paul Gets Behind the Wheel
Film Review: 'Need for Speed'. Reviewed at AMC Empire, New York, March 5, 2014. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 130 MIN. Production: A Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures release of a ...
Need For Speed
2014. PG-13. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. 2 h 12 m. Summary Framed for a crime he didn't commit, muscle car mechanic and street racer Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul) gets out of prison determined to get revenge on the man responsible for his false conviction. Action.
Need for Speed (2014)
aldri-feb 13 March 2014. Need for Speed is a brainless racing car movie that should be missed anyway. Whole of of the movie is about showing off cool car, revenge and car chasing. Perhaps the first racing car scene is quite tense but felt exhausted if it repeated many times in 2 hour length.
Movie Review: Need for Speed
This is the type of movie you watch to see fast cars, explosions, and non-stop automotive chaos. And on that front, it delivers. Watching Need for Speed is an undeniably exciting experience thanks ...
Need for Speed review
But Need for Speed is enjoyable in its highly implausible way: a petrolhead festival with some outrageously silly stunts. Screenwriter George Gatins and director Scott Waugh award themselves a bit ...
Need for Speed film review
From a gamer's perspective, Need for Speed seems an odd choice for a movie. In 20 years and as many games, EA's glossy, hyper-real street-racing series has never produced a character or storyline ...
Need for Speed (film)
Need for Speed is a 2014 action crime ... 2014. After its release, the film received mixed-to-negative reviews, criticizing its story, direction, and the performances of the supporting cast, though some praised Paul's performance. Despite grossing $203.3 million worldwide against a production budget of $66 million, the movie was deemed a ...
'Need for Speed' Review
Need for Speed runs 130 minutes and is Rated PG-13 for sequences of reckless street racing, disturbing crash scenes, nudity and crude language. Now playing in 2D and 3D theaters. Let us know what you thought of the film in the comment section below. For an in-depth discussion of the film by the Screen Rant editors check out our Need for Speed ...
Need for Speed
It's an offer the cash-strapped and struggling mechanic-cum-racer can't afford to refuse. Dino actually manages to fetch $2.7 million for the fabled car—with payment made by a rich business magnate and negotiated by his beautiful assistant, Julia Maddon. And that's when screwdriver No. 2 starts to twist.
Need for Speed Movie Review
Parents need to know that Need for Speed is an action movie, based on a video game, and centers around car racing (and car crashing). Teens will be attracted to the movie thanks to its star Aaron Paul in his first lead role after the hit TV series Breaking Bad.Expect plenty of car chases, stunts, and crashes, and characters die, though only a little blood is shown.
'Need for Speed' review: not so fast, not so furious
Reviews; Movie Review 'Need for Speed' review: not so fast, not so furious. Aaron Paul can't break the video game movie curse. By Chris Ziegler on March 12, 2014 09:04 am 108Comments.
Need For Speed Review
Need For Speed Review. Mechanic Tobey Marshall (Paul) is framed for the death of his friend by racer Dino Brewster (Cooper). After two years in the clink, he sets off on a road trip of revenge ...
Movie Review: Need for Speed (2014)
Moseying down the line. "The Fast and the Furious" is a great movie. When compared to the latest fast car drama, Need for Speed, that is. It has more fully developed characters played by more interesting actors, a less implausible plot, better choreographed racing and cuter cheerleaders. That last one is a bit of stretch, however; there ...
Need for Speed Review
Need for Speed Review ... Need for Speed is a dumb movie, and not a dumb fun one. As far as video game movies go, Need for Speed is certainly not an unwatchable turd like Street Fighter: Legend of ...
'Need For Speed' Movie Review: A Frivolous, Fun, High-Octane Action
Need for Speed, on the other hand, finds a near perfect balance. There's a story, but it contains just the bare minimum amount of logic and drama to make two hours of near non-stop racing believable.
Need For Speed (2014)
The latest movie news, trailers, reviews, and more. ... DreamWorks Pictures' "Need for Speed" marks an exciting return to the great car culture films of the 1960's and 70's, when the ...
'Need for Speed' Movie Review
Need for Speed is based on a racing video-game franchise that has sold 150 million copies. It stars Aaron Paul (Jesse on the immortal Breaking Bad). 'Need for Speed' Movie Review
Need for Speed Review
All Reviews Editor's Choice Game Reviews Movie Reviews TV Show Reviews Tech Reviews. Discover. ... After a year off, Need for Speed has the series coasting back over familiar turf, resurrecting ...
The Need for Speed
IMDb is the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. Find ratings and reviews for the newest movie and TV shows. Get personalized recommendations, and learn where to watch across hundreds of streaming providers.
Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock Are Down for 'Speed 3'
Keanu Reeves Says He and Sandra Bullock "Would Knock It Out of the Park" If They Did 'Speed 3' In a joint conversation about the film, Bullock stressed wanting to work with him again ...
The Best Need for Speed Game Is Now Only $3
There have been 25 Need for Speed releases since the first game, The Need for Speed, was released in 1994 for the PS1, 3DO, and Sega Saturn. The most recent release is Need for Speed Unbound ...
Is NASCAR feeling the 'Netflix Effect'? Early signs positive after
But while "Full Speed" spent some time among the top 10 U.S. shows on the Netflix charts, it was unclear at the time what sort of tangible benefits that may provide to the stock car racing series.

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