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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.
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