Where do I even start with this? From the first scene right through to the very last credit, Baby Driver is an utterly absorbing blast of absolutely fabulous music and choreography. This isn't an action movie, it's a musical! Oh, man, the music! Even the tracks pulled from genres that I normally don't like just blended together so well. There is no way this film can not win at least one Oscar next week, for sound editing or mixing. It's all so well done.
Ansel Elgort* just kills it as the titular driver (called Baby, because what else would his name be?). Rarely have I seen such a young actor disappear so completely into a role—and he's in every scene. I was impressed by his seemingly effortless performances, and intrigued by the character. When a character is truly interesting, the way Elgort's Baby is, it's like a breath of fresh air after all the bored, tired, flat stereotypes we usually see in big Hollywood films. Baby isn't unique, by any means—plenty of characters in film, television, and stage plays get their core drive from some sentimental attachment to the past—but it's his way of moving, of taking what life throws at him, that makes Baby an interesting young man to watch. Most of the seemingly stock characters in Baby Driver come alive, actually, and that's a major credit to all the actors involved.
On the action side, there's a bit of Die Hard feel thrown in there, just for fun. The police chases feel pulled straight out of The Blues Brothers. The nods in this film keep coming, and they don't stop coming (but sadly that song was neither referenced nor used).
I'm throwing away my movie rating rubric for this one. I don't care how predictable or far-fetched the plot is, it's a "totally ninja" ride!
* — Elgort's father was a photographer, so it's not hard to guess why he was named Ansel.
Review by dgwVIP 9BlockedParent2018-02-26T05:34:43Z
Where do I even start with this? From the first scene right through to the very last credit, Baby Driver is an utterly absorbing blast of absolutely fabulous music and choreography. This isn't an action movie, it's a musical! Oh, man, the music! Even the tracks pulled from genres that I normally don't like just blended together so well. There is no way this film can not win at least one Oscar next week, for sound editing or mixing. It's all so well done.
Ansel Elgort* just kills it as the titular driver (called Baby, because what else would his name be?). Rarely have I seen such a young actor disappear so completely into a role—and he's in every scene. I was impressed by his seemingly effortless performances, and intrigued by the character. When a character is truly interesting, the way Elgort's Baby is, it's like a breath of fresh air after all the bored, tired, flat stereotypes we usually see in big Hollywood films. Baby isn't unique, by any means—plenty of characters in film, television, and stage plays get their core drive from some sentimental attachment to the past—but it's his way of moving, of taking what life throws at him, that makes Baby an interesting young man to watch. Most of the seemingly stock characters in Baby Driver come alive, actually, and that's a major credit to all the actors involved.
On the action side, there's a bit of Die Hard feel thrown in there, just for fun. The police chases feel pulled straight out of The Blues Brothers. The nods in this film keep coming, and they don't stop coming (but sadly that song was neither referenced nor used).
I'm throwing away my movie rating rubric for this one. I don't care how predictable or far-fetched the plot is, it's a "totally ninja" ride!
* — Elgort's father was a photographer, so it's not hard to guess why he was named Ansel.