NEED FOR SPEED is a dreadful addition to the 'car race' genre of movie-making, one that's based on a popular video game series. It's not as bad as the worst I've seen, SPEED RACER, but it's still largely unwatchable and totally clichéd from beginning to end. A film which dumbs down the story to the lowest common denominator at every point. Aaron Paul gives a rubbish, workmanlike turn as the supposed hero of the piece, while Dominic Cooper is the supposed villain but is far more charming than Paul. The less said about the token and embarrassing role for Imogen Poots, the better. There are a lot of racing scenes here but they all seem to end with the same CGI car flipping stunt and they quickly become tiresome. Give me the outlandishness of the FAST & FURIOUS franchise over this nonsense any day of the week.

Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul) runs his dead father's small garage in Mount Kisco, New York. He street races his car against rival Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper). His ex Anita Coleman (Dakota Johnson) is now going with Dino getting away from the small town. Dino hires him to finish his Mustang for a quarter of its $2 million price. Car broker Julia Maddon (Imogen Poots) agrees to buy it if the car gets close to 230 mph. Dino proposes to race Tobey and Anita's brother Pete for their commission on the car. Dino hits Pete's car killing him and drives away. Tobey is left holding the bag as he and Pete are blamed for stealing Dino's two race cars. Tobey spends 2 years in prison. Julia is able to get Tobey the Mustang as he tries to enter the underground road race De Leon run by the eccentric Monarch (Michael Keaton).

It's has some great car street racing. I especially like the real stunt driving and the beautiful cars. The story is a convoluted mess. This should be an easy 'Cannonball Run' with great car racing. Instead, it's overly complicated. Imogen Poots tries to be funny but Aaron Paul doesn't seem to want any part of it. The only exception is the helicopter ride. If only they could take the cars and attach the car stunts to a better written story, this could have been a good fun movie. Also Michael Keaton is as annoying as heck in this.

Need for Speed is a silly film but is harmless fun if you leave your brain on off.

I guess the film bears little resemblance to the video game apart from some cool sports cars, racing, spectacular crashes with added fireballs and a revenge plot. It is also overlong and very, very silly.

Aaron Paul is bland and dull as the ace racer and mechanic who ends up being framed for the death of his friend during a road race with rival Dominic Cooper. Somehow Cooper managed to escape from liability for the death by saying he was not involved in the race and no witnesses or CCTV footage mentioned three cars racing.

When he leaves jail he wants to take him on in a secret road race in California. Somewhere along the line Michael Keaton calls the shots as some kind of guru like illegal road race DJ.

Once the car race gets going the film does gather speed but its nowhere near the standard of the Fast and Furious franchise. Paul's associates are all quirky stereotypes, the plot is nonsense and so is some of the racing but it does have some fun elements, if only the lead actors just camped it up and treated as nonsense this could had been better.