When the hoon takes your eye

Need for Speed (M)
Starring: Aaron Paul, Imogen Poot
FOR those with an interest in converting hydrocarbons into questionable driving behaviour, here is the film for you.
Need for Speed may be a soulless video game of a film but it’s reasonably well done for all that.
Interestingly, its makers have denied the whole computer-generated trend in racing movies and gone totally old school – all you’ll see here is real, flying, crashing, bending, smashing, crumpled metal.
And plenty of it.
Aaron Paul – yes, Jesse Pinkman of Breaking Bad fame – takes the lead role as Toby Marshall, a petrolhead ne’er-do-well with a heart of gold, mechanical genius – you know the score.
And so Marshall has to win the race, get the girl, vanquish the villain – you know the rest.
The film never strays one inch from the formula.
Imogen Poot capably provides the right-seat eye candy, and not much else.
Aaron Paul is decidedly emotionally beefed up, playing a more macho role than previously.
But the makers rightly leave the steel at centre stage – notably a very pretty modern Mustang and some less aesthetically pleasing, if somewhat faster, Koenigseggs.
But like all modern driving films, it fails to capture the magic of the first edition of The Fast and the Furious.
Set your brain in neutral, sit back and enjoy the squealing symphony of near-collision.
– Jason Beck