Who is the target audience for this movie? It's got to be like 10-year-old boys or something. Here's the thing: I like cars. I like sports cars. I like supercars. I like hypercars. I even like the video game this movie was based on. The problem with liking cars is that I probably know too much about them for this movie to work. I also have a basic understanding of physics.
Movies need to fake stuff in order to heighten tension - I get that. When three identical cars are racing down the same road, and two of them come to a complete stop while the other continues relatively all-out, It seems discontinuous to have the two cars that came to complete stops within a car length 5 seconds after starting back up again.
This movie also suffers from the same issue that the 2007 movie Redline had. See, both movies have races with a bunch of different cars that all seem to perform nearly identically. In this movie we have: 1) A Bugatti Veyron Super Sport - one of my all-time favorite cars, and the fastest production car in the world (at the time of writing). It has roughly 1200HP, and it has no equal in this movie, yet it never gets a substantial lead. 2) A Lamborghini Sesto Elemento - a great car, but it's not built for this race. Most of the race is long, sweeping turns or straights, and the Gallardo engine in the Sesto Elemento just can't push the HP like the others. It somehow manages to overpower better cars just because the story calls for it. 3) A McLaren P1 is a nice car, but it's a mid-pack runner here. It is noteworthy as the only hybrid in the bunch. 4) A Saleen S7 Twin Turbo - and I just don't get the inclusion of this car. It's a 10 year old car that was very nice in its day, but it is outclassed, even with 750HP. 5) A GTA Spano - and I don't want to be harsh on the Spanish supercar, but this beast is going to be toward the back of the pack, and I can think of many cars that could have taken its place... like a LaFerrari. 6) Our hero drives a Koenigsegg Agera R, and this car has the best chance of the bunch to beat the Bugatti.
Okay, I have gone a bit astray with this review, and I know it. Aaron Paul plays a cookie-cutter bad guy who is a good guy racer. If they had simply plucked the same character out of Drive, I wouldn't have batted an eye. If they had pulled Ethan Hawke out of Getaway, the movie wouldn't have changed. Aaron tries, but I get the sense that he's trying to make a good movie in spite of the writing like Ryan Reynolds did in green Lantern, and it didn't work there, either.
An added bad point was Michael Keaton as the mysterious multi-millionaire who hosts the prestigious and exclusive illegal race. He plays the role of announcer who also appears to have a real-time online radio show that is always on and he doesn't always talk. Sometimes, he just stares at a TV that no one else can see and says nothing for extended periods. His whole deal makes no sense. Nor does the race, the winning of which will result in the winner getting pink slips... to burning piles of wreckage that used to be competitors.
Direction was uninspired
Acting was mediocre
Effects were pretty good
Fake cars were mostly believable
Story was a let down
1.0/5