Baby Driver - New Edgar Wright Film

[phantom_power]

This is getting great review across the board, the latest being A- from AV Club. I am really looking forward to seeing this on Friday

[hewantstolurkatad]

100% on Rotten Tomaytos, for all that means

It means at least five critics in the world liked it.

98% from 60 reviews with an average rating of 8.3/10
89% from 9 top critic reviews with an average rating of 8.7/10

Assuming there's no ulterior motive for good reviews beyond it actually being good (i.e. virtue signalling), 98% from 60 with that average rating is a good indicator it's at least okay. The top critic sample size is too small to mean anything at all but usually if there's a big disparity between the two it's a sign that it's some filmmaker that makes shit that specifically appeals to internet movie geeks (if the top critics are harsher) or is a bit less accessible (if top critics is higher)

[phantom_power]

I haven't seen a bad review of it yet so I am going to go ahead and assume that it will be good and the trailers aren't very good. This might not bode well for the box office though.

Is the average cinema punter affected more by reviews or trailers I wonder

[hewantstolurkatad]

Is the average cinema punter affected more by reviews or trailers I wonder

For a new IP, it's gotta be trailers. If they're not even going to check out the reviews then their impact is going to be greatly diminished.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I haven't seen a bad review of it yet so I am going to go ahead and assume that it will be good and the trailers aren't very good. This might not bode well for the box office though.

Yarp. Even at a low budget for a summer film (40 million, according to wikipedia) I can imagine this faring poorly at the box office. Despite under performing, Transformers could still steamroller it this weekend, followed by the new Spider-Man the next.

[Bad Ambassador]

I've always found Wright to be all surface. Shaun of the Dead was enjoyable, but largely for layering the tropes of films I like onto a mundane environment. I've no real interest in action films, so Hot Fuzz left me unmoved. I had to turn Scott Pilgrim off after less than 10 minutes because it was utterly unbearable. I have The World's End recorded from Film4, so I probably ought to watch it, but like his other work, it just seems to be nothing other than stylised pop culture introversion, a form of 'Member This: The Movie, with no depth or personality to the writing. He's Michael Bay if he had normal parents.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I have The World's End recorded from Film4, so I probably ought to watch it, but like his other work, it just seems to be nothing other than stylised pop culture introversion, a form of 'Member This: The Movie,

There's a bit more to it than that.

[phantom_power]

I would say the opposite is true. I think Wright is one of the few makers of "fun" films who packs them full of subtext. They may not be to your tastes but there is a lot going on under the surface in all of his films, which is possibly being lost by some in the dazzling surface.

[Shit Good Nose]

I have The World's End recorded from Film4

Delete it immediately.  It's an absolutely abysmal film and contains everything a lot of people now hate about Wright and Pegg and the films they make.  Nick Frost is about the only one that walks away from it relatively unscathed.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

You're an abysmal film!

[Shit Good Nose]

You're an abysmal film!

Yes, but this thread isn't about me!

[Glebe]

The World's End was a completely joyless downer for me.

[surreal]

The World's End was a completely joyless downer for me.

Agreed - a couple of years ago I watched all 3 of the Cornetto Trilogy back-to-back and it was the first (and only!) time I'd watched World's End.  Just really put a downer on the whole thing, I don't know what it was specifically but it just felt miserable start to finish, and the twists in the plot were fairly terrible too.  Pegg's character was massively unlikable, and I didn't care about any of the others at all.

[surreal]

I think I'm the only one here who's seen this so far?  Waiting for you all to tear it to pieces next week when it fails to live up to the massively glowing reviews... Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it, it's a fun and quite funny movie, and the soundtrack is great and well selected, but the gushing praise does seem to be over the top.

[hewantstolurkatad]

How did they get away with calling it Baby Driver, btw? Surely that's one of the most unmarketable major(-ish) film names of all time?

[surreal]

Not really much worse than Hot Fuzz I'd imagine...

[ASFTSN]

Delete it immediately.  It's an absolutely abysmal film and contains everything a lot of people now hate about Wright and Pegg and the films they make.  Nick Frost is about the only one that walks away from it relatively unscathed.

It ain't great, that's for sure.  I really love the conceit of the arrested development goth trying to get his staid grownup mates back on the piss for the glory days of their pub crawl though, probably just 'coz I love pubs.  It's a shame the actual action, science fiction, horror, characters, concept, ending and humour in the film isn't very good.  It could have been great.

Apart from the 'Go down the drainpipe' gag which did make me laugh because I have low comedic standards.

[chocky909]

Well I thought it was fucking great and I'm not a big fan of Worlds End but love Scott Pilgrim. It's a total ride with comic book romance and non stop audio joy. I recommend a Dolby Atmos showing if you can. I caught it at Leicester Square Superscreen and it looked and sounded fantastic.

A lot better than the trailers in summary.

[asids]

Yeah, this is really great stuff. Worth watching. Grabs you by the balls right from the start and keeps on going (like your mum lol), while still having that Edgar Wright style humour and charm about it. Highly recommended.

The soundtrack's cracking as well.

[hewantstolurkatad]

Not really much worse than Hot Fuzz I'd imagine...

Good point! Surprising he didn't get a renaming forced on him there in the US.

[kidsick5000]

Agreed - a couple of years ago I watched all 3 of the Cornetto Trilogy back-to-back and it was the first (and only!) time I'd watched World's End.  Just really put a downer on the whole thing, I don't know what it was specifically but it just felt miserable start to finish, and the twists in the plot were fairly terrible too.  Pegg's character was massively unlikable, and I didn't care about any of the others at all.

I've come to like it more, or at least get acclimatised to it.
There's irony to how two of its messages reflect the Brexit vote - "everything was better in the past", "Don't tell us what to do (even if it's beneficial)"
On a more superficial level, it irked me that Simon Pegg's younger self was played by a much better looking chap; yet the joke about the character's inflated opinion of his self didn't come - so it looks more like the actor's vanity.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

On a more superficial level, it irked me that Simon Pegg's younger self was played by a much better looking chap; yet the joke about the character's inflated opinion of his self didn't come - so it looks more like the actor's vanity.

Isn't the point that he's stuck in the past, though? He was the good looking cool one of the group and the tragedy is that his life truly did never get better than that. I suppose it could also show the toll that drink has taken on him.

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

Saw this with my 3 year old. He enjoyed it and overall it was worth the cinema entrance fee. I was close to falling asleep during the latter third of it when they went back up to baby heaven or limbo or whatever. Still, it's by far the best thing Wright has ever been involved in to date.

[kidsick5000]

Isn't the point that he's stuck in the past, though? He was the good looking cool one of the group and the tragedy is that his life truly did never get better than that. I suppose it could also show the toll that drink has taken on him.

Even with the ravages of drink (and I'm using Keith Moon as a barometer) I still felt it was a leap.
It could be that I just feel there was a decent chance for a self-depracating joke (which the cornetto trilogy does really well) that when the versions of the younger selves turn up, the rest of them have some incredulous look of "is that what you think you looked like?" Which would fit into the overall message to not get sucked into believing the past is better than it really was.



(yes, using the pics is an unfair comparison)

[Small Man Big Horse]

Just back from seeing it now and I thought it was a bit of a turd unfortunately. I had such high hopes, I like Wright a lot and this was my first cinema trip in the four months since the operation so I was in a pretty forgiving mood, but I was just bored by it. The opening twenty minutes are pretty great and I was enjoying it a lot but then it gets bogged down with dull romantic stuff and the car chases are few and far apart. Most problematically for me is that I didn't find either Baby or Debora sympathetic at all (the latter being especially bland) and the dialogue is surprisingly weak and by the numbers. Whilst the final twenty minutes are quite fun again boy is it a slog to get there, and I'd rate this 5/10 at the very most.

[asids]

Just back from seeing it now and I thought it was a bit of a turd unfortunately. I had such high hopes, I like Wright a lot and this was my first cinema trip in the four months since the operation so I was in a pretty forgiving mood, but I was just bored by it. The opening twenty minutes are pretty great and I was enjoying it a lot but then it gets bogged down with dull romantic stuff and the car chases are few and far apart. Most problematically for me is that I didn't find either Baby or Debora sympathetic at all (the latter being especially bland) and the dialogue is surprisingly weak and by the numbers. Whilst the final twenty minutes are quite fun again boy is it a slog to get there, and I'd rate this 5/10 at the very most.

While I very much disagree and thought it was really great fun (and the romantic stuff or whatever doesn't bog it down), I thought Debra's (sp) character was a little weird, yes. That's one of my very few problems with the film.

[BJBMK2]

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Absolutely sparkles when Spacey, Foxx or Hamm are on screen, or during any of the car chases. When the lead character and his girlfriend are on screen, it just...deflates. You just want them to sod off and get on with the next chase/musical interlude/bit where Eiza González is showing off those amazing legs.

[Sin Agog]

She was pretty underwritten, but Lily James' resemblence to a young Shelly from Twin Peaks kind of made her more interesting for me than she probably was for others.  It is a little jarring how quickly she turns outlaw for Baby, but then I guess there are a ton of filmic precedences for lost young things going rebel for their man.  The way it descended into a straight-ahead action movie in the third act, with brazen baddies and every character suddenly becoming pawns for the plot, was the only real sour note in a pretty good moovee.  That scene of Baby getting the coffees for the first time almost felt French New Wavey.

[Small Man Big Horse]

It is a little jarring how quickly she turns outlaw for Baby, but then I guess there are a ton of filmic precedences for lost young things going rebel for their man.

That was a big issue for me admittedly, I could kind of understand it when she thought he was forced to hang out with dodgy types but when he started shooting them I thought she might freak out. And as she didn't, some kind of explanation earlier on in the film might have helped me a bit.

That scene of Baby getting the coffees for the first time almost felt French New Wavey.

Yeah, I loved that bit, the film had so much energy up until the part where Baby becomes a pizza delivery boy, but after that I struggled with it a lot. Baby became a lot less interesting at that point as well, and seemed to spend the rest of the movie scowling but little else. Gah, I'm really annoyed as I did want to like this so much, and was enjoying it for a good while, but the middle section sagged so much that I became really frustrated with it.

Oh, and this comes down to personal taste as well but everyone's been raving about the soundtrack and again, I'd agree for the first third it was great, but I thought it became a lot less interesting as the film went along.

[surreal]

I'd kind of have to agree with this - I enjoyed it as I said before, but I was struggling to figure out where it didn't quite live up to the gushing reviews and I think that is exactly it, the film kind of "deflates" when it's just Baby and Debora.  I'm going again tomorrow though so I'l see what a second viewing does for it.