Need for Speed

Rated 1.0

As the listless lead of this dim-witted video-game adaptation, Aaron Paul already seems decades removed from his days of winning awards for Breaking Bad. Here he plays street racer Tobey Marshall, who, after winning a street race, is wrongfully blamed for the death of his friend in a different street race, leaving only one way to clear his name—a street race! For some reason, director Scott Waugh (Act of Valor) and screenwriter George Gatins felt that this single-celled Fast and the Furious clone demanded a leisurely 130 minutes of hand-me-down characters and monosyllabic dialogue. There is an argument that this sort of cinematic twaddle “isn't hurting anyone,” but then, illiteracy isn't technically hurting anyone, either. If you find this sort of vroom-fetish nonsense irresistible, go ahead and turn off your brain, but just know that it may never turn back on.