Financial Times March 13, 2014 Tells you how to get from point A to point B the most colourful way: by reverse-smashing through all the other letters of the alphabet first...
You wouldn’t think a movie called Need For Speed would feel so slow.
Chicago Reader March 13, 2014 Unfortunately there’s not much of a sensibility beneath the pleasant surfaces; the movie is easy to enjoy, but just as easy to forget.
Slant Magazine March 11, 2014 Even when compared to other films posing as Ford Mustang commercials, Need for Speed isn’t particularly memorable for anything other than the...
Aside from some needlessly frantic editing, the main drawback here is an unwillingness to admit that the impulses being celebrated are basically an...
There’s nothing here you haven’t seen before.
This movie is a complete bore.
Need for Speed is just another pileup in Hollywood’s long accident report of taking games from the couch to the theater seat.
Need for Speed celebrates reckless driving with the bloodless consequences of an Xbox game rated for 10-year-olds. (Little wonder: The 3-D film is...
Toronto Star March 14, 2014 Need For Speed fails spectacularly on so many levels, it almost begs you to bring back the hyperactive, overacting Nicolas Cage for Drive Angry&nbs...
New York Times March 13, 2014 "Need for Speed" is dumb and loud and sometimes technically impressive, which means that it is successful on its own terms.
The Guardian March 13, 2014 Need for Speed is enjoyable in its highly implausible way: a petrolhead festival with some outrageously silly stunts.
ScreenCrush March 11, 2014 [I]diotic in addition to being irresponsible.
Independent March 14, 2014 The characterisation and plotting are as crude as the car chases are slick.
Keaton, riffing faster than a souped-up Agera ("Christmas came early, wing nuts!"), is clearly having a great time. That makes one of us.
Though later sequences lean a little too heavily on contemporary car flick clichés … they are all nonetheless informed by a gee-whiz appreciat...
Chicago Tribune March 13, 2014 Happily, director Scott Waugh comes out of the stunt world himself, and there’s a refreshing emphasis on actual, theoretically dangerous...
Daily Telegraph March 13, 2014 On the whole, this is like test-driving something advertised as a top-of-the-range sportscar, only to find it corners like a milk float.
The cars are fast and pretty and the stunts are impressive. But when it comes to the script, it just spins its wheels.
"Need for Speed" is like a great-looking roadster with a junky engine.
The Guardian March 16, 2014 Hundreds of non-racing civilians are merrily run off the road but no one cares, least of all the screenwriters who remain locked in single-player m...
If you like watching people drive really nice cars really fast, "Need for Speed" scratches that particular itch. But expect nothing more, because e...
Paste Magazine March 12, 2014 Waugh shows an ability to create frenetic set pieces. But what does that matter when the movie’s adrenaline-fueled characters are so repugnant?
More hipster curmudgeons driving around in muscle cars with this passable 3D street-racing flick.
With dozens of crashes, injuries and possible deaths caused by the street racers in Need for Speed, what stands out most is the story’s callo...
Detroit News March 14, 2014 Honestly, Aaron Paul, what were you thinking?
Rolling Stone March 13, 2014 What to say about a racing movie that’s stuck in idle as drama? For starters, don’t race to see it… there’s nothing to distr...
L.A. Weekly March 13, 2014 Not to be a killjoy, but if filmmakers are going to embed pixel mayhem in the photo-real world, then they’re inviting us to ask if this...
You’d have to be a true carmudgeon (sorry) to want it to stop.
Irish Times March 14, 2014 Nothing in Need for Speed makes a lick of sense: the geography is off, the story daft, the cliches plentiful.
You can see why the film stretches out to 130 minutes. It contains 45 minutes of setup, then a cross-country race before the cl...
TIME Magazine March 17, 2014 This is cinema reduced or distilled to its purest definition, of movies that move
RogerEbert.com March 14, 2014 As exciting as getting a tow from AAA, and just as slow.
Stupidity and incompetence are two very different things, and this movie isn’t smart enough to be as stupid as it wants.
In trying for the vicarious varoom of the street-racing video game that inspired it, and no doubt dreaming of "Fast" success, "Speed" clocks in at...
New York Post March 12, 2014 Young men and fast cars are automatically stupid together, but even if you set your intelligence level at "off" … you’ll get a hangover...
