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Review by Vives Anunciacion
Playlist your joy ride.
Baby Driver
Written and Directed by Edgar Wright
Rated PG
Published 7.26.2017 Inquirer Libre, PH
Edgar Wright (of Shaun of the Dead, 2004 and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 2010) directs the playlist of your crimes with a stylish crime caper choreographed to killer music. Volume up.
Young getaway driver-for-hire Baby (Ansel Egort) wants to quit the crime syndicate with one last heist, but alpha-jerk Bats (Jamie Foxx) hijacks the caper, to disastrous results. Syndicate boss Doc (Kevin Spacey) doesn’t want to let Baby go, but there’s pretty waitress Deborah (Lily James) in the way. Basta driver, sweet lover; only Hudas not pay – diba.
Listen closely to the song lyrics and you’ll hear that the soundtrack plays according to what’s happening onscreen. Baby has tinnitus (ringing in the ears) and the only way he can cancel the noise is to listen to his funky iPod compilations.
The narrative has similarities with the edgier and more violent Drive (2011) by Nicolas Winding-Refn and a direct reference to the 1978 getaway-driver-for-criminals movie The Driver by Walter Hill.
It’s Footloose by way of Fast & Furious, Bonnie & Clyde by way of Broadway. A musical non-musical with the colors of the rainbow. I was waiting for a song-and-dance number for no apparent reason, instead we get a lip-synch mime from Egort and that sashaying-on-the-street to the tune of Harlem Shuffle.
There’s Spacey showing off as an actor during a fast monologue on how he met Baby while actually drawing the heist plans on a blackboard. And there’s Hamm doing a Pinoy 1990s action star – all macho with the worst lines. Egort may be correctly cast as an innocent-looking criminal, but he has the slightest of chemistries with Jones. And there’s not enough Jones to actually say she’s criminally oriented, too.
It’s a cheesecake movie that’s closer to Grease (1978) than Reservoir Dogs (1992.) Certainly much more enjoyable than car heist Gone in 60 Seconds (2000.) It has fun and entertaining written all over the film – and surely less social bite than Mean Girls. Almost none, actually.
All said, the central plot moves around criminals, and that any movie that resorts to violence and gunfight, no matter how glamorized, is still about criminals. Let’s just not forget that crime should pay. In the case of Baby Driver, it’s a good thing that he does. Cheese.
Cars 3
Directed by Brian Fee
Third in the Cars series by Disney-Pixar
Rated G
Owen Wilson’s third outing as Lightning McQueen is really getting old, since the first Cars back in 2006.
Lightning wants to prove that he’s still king of the racetrack, but the arrival of technically superior machines like Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer) is getting Lightning sidetracked. Under new sponsorship, Lightning returns to old-school training with the help of old friends and a young trainer Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo) to get him back on track for another Piston Cup.
I’m glad to see Pixar make awesome animation again, but it’s a little sad to say that the studio has had better days especially with the reputation that they have built making emotionally engaging top animation.
Thematically – about Lightning’s retirement – Cars 3 should have been Cars 2 three years ago and the story should have ended there. While poignant and charming (with Cruz), one can really feel that the tires are running thin.
The attached short animation Lou about lost playthings is freakishly weird and forgettable.
acid reflects 
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