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| The poster is pretty kick-ass too. |
Edgar Wright is one of those directors that film critics & aficionados hold in high esteem, but that the American public hasn't fully caught onto. Of his four previous films released in the U.S. none scored lower than 81% on Rotten Tomatoes or 69 on Metacritic, yet none of them made more than $32 million or finished in the top 90 in yearly domestic box office. Whether it's because of the overt Britishness (& R ratings) of his Cornetto Trilogy, or the consistent lack of star power* in his films, Wright's been unable to break through with mass audiences the way he has in the industry. Ant-Man was meant to provide that opportunity, but creative differences led to his leaving that film. Perhaps that was for the best, Baby Driver is more distinctively Wright than any Marvel film could ever be, & if things go well it will have exceeded the domestic box office office of any of his previous works by the end of the weekend.
*With Brie Larson, Chris Evans, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, & others, "Scott Pilgrim" has a lot of retroactive star power but at the time only Evans might've been a bigger draw than Michael Cera, crazy as that sounds.
And, by God, it should. Ansel Elgort, Lily James, Jamie Foxx, & Kevin Spacey, have all had major roles in $100 million hits, with the latter two having three Oscars to their names, & between his Emmy win & overwhelming handsomeness Jon Hamm's no slouch either. It's easily Wright's most high profile cast. Sony has ensured the film has had plenty of publicity & it's received the best reviews of Wright's career. More to the point, it's a ton of fun.
Wright dreamed up the idea for the movie over twenty years ago, & from the get go it's clear Wright's imagination hasn't stopped perfecting it since. Set perfectly to The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's "Bellbottoms" the opening heist, from the moment Elgort starts singing along (much of the film's music comes courtesy of Baby's many iPods) while the rest of the crew robs a bank through the entirety of the car chase to follow, is an absolute blast. The rest of the film follows suit.
The structure is not especially complicated – heist, guy meets girl, heist, hero thinks he's out until he's pulled in for one last job – but no one is better at taking the basics of a genre, putting his own spin on it, & creating something that exceeds 95% of what came before than Wright.
Elgort is given much less to work with than Simon Pegg or Michael Cera was in Wright's previous films. Those movies were deeply interested in their main character's psyches, & the significant flaws within them. Baby is much less complicated. He's a good guy stuck in a bad spot, trying like hell to get out. It works though because even with sparse dialogue Elgort is a winning presence. He has a naturally affable quality about him. Whether he's dancing down the street to Bob & Earl's "Harlem Shuffle" post-heist, wooing Lily James' Debora, or hanging with his deaf stepdad Joseph, Elgort's Baby permeates decency and quirky charm. And it's those relationships, with Debora & Joseph (James & the deaf in real life CJ Jones do fine work as well), that give Baby a reason to get out of crime & the audience something to root for.
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| He's not slow. |
As good as the cast is though the true stars of the film are the soundtrack & Wright's camera. Thanks to Baby's tinnitus, & the way he uses music to time the robberies, music is almost ever-present throughout the film, but where that could've become overwhelming in less capable hands Wright's selections infuse the film with a further sense of exhilaration & the way he keys it up to the action is astounding. It's the best movie soundtrack in ages.
Not every director understands the full implications of film being a visual medium, they'll put actors in front of a camera, have them recite lines & call it a day (especially a problem in comedy). Or they'll commit the cardinal sins of action filmmaking, overuse of shaky cam & forgetting to establish a scene's geography. These are not problems for Edgar Wright. He's always understood that the camera is as capable as any actor at delivering a joke, and he's become more assured shooting action with each subsequent film, culminating in 2013's The World's End. In Baby Driver he outdoes himself. The car chases are top notch, all the more impressive because at no point during any of the chases are CGI or green screens utilized, the violence packs a real punch, & you have a clear understanding of what is happening the entire time. One of my favorite bits of camera work though was a scene where Baby is dancing in his apartment while making Joseph a sandwich. The camera doesn't just watch Elgort move, it dances along with him. The camera in Baby Driver doesn't just record the action, it comes alive.
Light on depth, Baby Driver may not be the best film in Wright's oeuvre (I'm a Hot Fuzz partisan myself), or of the year (Get Out is hard to beat), but you'll be hard pressed to find a more enjoyable two hours at the cinema.
Grade: A-
One of the great things about the film is all of the ringers Wright recruited to play the bad guys, and how it's impossible to guess how they'll each play into the ultimate end game. Spacey's at home playing the crime boss who sets up the robberies, & has Baby under his thumb, but he plays him with just a hint of ambiguity that makes one wonder if he has any true affection for his star driver or if Baby is merely a pawn to be rid of when he ceases to be useful. Hamm, & Eiza Gonzalez, are having a ball as a pair of sexed addled crooks in the game to fuel their drug loving lifestyle. Jon Bernthal plays gruff bad-ass as well as anyone, & gets one of the, retroactively, funniest lines of the film. And, to paraphrase a friend I watched the movie with, no one plays unhinged the way Jamie Foxx does. His character's causal cruelty sets him up as Baby's opposite, & the way their conflict culminates is one of the most shocking moments of the film.
ReplyDeleteNot every director understands the full implications of film being a visual medium, they'll put actors in front of a camera, have them recite lines & call it a day (especially a problem in comedy). Or they'll commit the cardinal sins of action filmmaking, overuse of shaky cam & forgetting to establish a scene's geography. These are not problems for Edgar Wright. He's always understood that the camera is as capable as any actor at delivering a joke, and he's become more assured shooting action with each subsequent film, culminating in 2013's The World's End. In Baby Driver he outdoes himself. The car chases are top notch, all the more impressive because at no point during any of the chases are CGI or green screens utilized, the violence packs a real punch, & you have a clear understanding of what is happening the entire time. One of my favorite bits of camera work though was a scene where Baby is dancing in his apartment while making Joseph a sandwich. The camera doesn't just watch Elgort move, it dances along with him. The camera in Baby Driver doesn't just record the action, it comes alive.
ReplyDeleteEdgar Wright is one of those directors that film critics & aficionados hold in high esteem, but that the American public hasn't fully caught onto. Of his four previous films released in the U.S. none scored lower than 81% on Rotten Tomatoes or 69 on Metacritic, yet none of them made more than $32 million or finished in the top 90 in yearly domestic box office. Whether it's because of the overt Britishness (& R ratings) of his Cornetto Trilogy, or the consistent lack of star power* in his films, Wright's been unable to break through with mass audiences the way he has in the industry. Ant-Man was meant to provide that opportunity, but creative differences led to his leaving that film. Perhaps that was for the best, Baby Driver is more distinctively Wright than any Marvel film could ever be, & if things go well it will have exceeded the domestic box office office of any of his previous works by the end of the weekend.
ReplyDelete*With Brie Larson, Chris Evans, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, & others, "Scott Pilgrim" has a lot of retroactive star power but at the time only Evans might've been a bigger draw than Michael Cera, crazy as that sounds.
And, by God, it should. Ansel Elgort, Lily James, Jamie Foxx, & Kevin Spacey, have all had major roles in $100 million hits, with the latter two having three Oscars to their names, & between his Emmy win & overwhelming handsomeness Jon Hamm's no slouch either. It's easily Wright's most high profile cast. Sony has ensured the film has had plenty of publicity & it's received the best reviews of Wright's career. More to the point, it's a ton of fun.
Wright dreamed up the idea for the movie over twenty years ago, & from the get go it's clear Wright's imagination hasn't stopped perfecting it since. Set perfectly to The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's "Bellbottoms" the opening heist, from the moment Elgort starts singing along (much of the film's music comes courtesy of Baby's many iPods) while the rest of the crew robs a bank through the entirety of the car chase to follow, is an absolute blast. The rest of the film follows suit.
The structure is not especially complicated – heist, guy meets girl, heist, hero thinks he's out until he's pulled in for one last job – but no one is better at taking the basics of a genre, putting his own spin on it, & creating something that exceeds 95% of what came before than Wright.
Elgort is given much less to work with than Simon Pegg or Michael Cera was in Wright's previous films. Those movies were deeply interested in their main character's psyches, & the significant flaws within them. Baby is much less complicated. He's a good guy stuck in a bad spot, trying like hell to get out. It works though because even with sparse dialogue Elgort is a winning presence. He has a naturally affable quality about him. Whether he's dancing down the street to Bob & Earl's "Harlem Shuffle" post-heist, wooing Lily James' Debora, or hanging with his deaf stepdad Joseph, Elgort's Baby permeates decency and quirky charm. And it's those relationships, with Debora & Joseph (James & the deaf in real life CJ Jones do fine work as well), that give Baby a reason to get out of crime & the audience something to root for.
As good as the cast is though the true stars of the film are the soundtrack & Wright's camera. Thanks to Baby's tinnitus, & the way he uses music to time the robberies, music is almost ever-present throughout the film, but where that could've become overwhelming in less capable hands Wright's selections infuse the film with a further sense of exhilaration & the way he keys it up to the action is astounding. It's the best movie soundtrack in ages.
ReplyDelete