Baby Driver

First things first - I liked this! I did. It was good.

But I wanted it to be great! I expected it to be great! Y'all know how much I loved Drive and how much I enjoy my Fast and Furious movies - "car action" is, weirdly enough, a genre of movie with a very high bar for me. And with Edgar Wright directing, I thought this'd be a slam dunk. And instead it was just kind of, I dunno, fine? The best driving sequence - the only real car chase sequence - is the opening scene of the movie. Jamie Foxx is what you'd expect hi to be, but then Jon Hamm is just, like, so much less than he usually is. Even Kevin Spacey felt weirdly wasted here, and fuck, I've seen 21.

But again, I did like this! It was good! Let's talk about what was good. Uh, well, there was the way the soundtrack blended seamlessly with the story - no coincidence, obviously, that there are like a thousand pop songs from the last forty years that directly address "Baby" - which the movie makes sure you understand, by the way, like two or three times. The characterization and story are incredibly underbaked, even for a "car action" movie, and - wait, shit, this was supposed to be the good section! The part where I rave about what I liked! Gah, why is this so hard? Why did this feel so unpolished and messy in a way no $34 million movie should?

Fuck, you guys. I just feel let down. I wanted to love this, expected to love this. Something original, something fun, something bold, something that isn't just another summertime superhero chapter book. And instead I only sort of liked it. And that's such a tough pill to swallow. Almost easier to hate it. Almost easier to get real mad and incredulous and decide, "no, this thing SUCKS, guys, what's wrong with you all?" But slight disappointment is tougher to process.

Maybe this one will grow in memory, improve with time, get better when I read about or see all sorts of easter eggs. But for now, fuck, it's like a seven. I know, I know, the laziest grade! Nothing safer than a seven. A seven's a B, a seven's a "pretty good," a seven's a goddamn cop out. Maybe it's an eight? No! No, it's a seven. I'm sorry, No one likes this review and this recap less than I do.