Film Review: Baby Driver

"The Moment You Catch Feelings Is The Moment You Catch A Bullet..."

Of all the rare successful exports of sunny, sunny Dorset, director Edgar Wright is undeniably up there with the best the South West has had to offer within the 20th century, and whilst his humble beginnings with the likes of the Simon Pegg starring Spaced gave Wright the opportunity to begin his venture into stardom through the medium of televised entertainment, his crowning jewel is indeed the triage of movies within the so-called "Cornetto Trilogy", a series of successful movies which began all the way back with Shaun of the Dead in 2004 and continued with Hot Fuzz and The World's End in 2007 and 2013 respectively. Emerging once again into the cinematic spotlight, Wright returns with Baby Driver, a star-studded action comedy led by the likes of  Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey and Jamie Foxx, and a movie which overtly revels in a superbly crafted jukebox soundtrack, a collection of musical accompaniments which acts as the cornerstone for both the narrative and the development of the film's titular leading character, resulting in a blockbustingly entertaining thrill ride which features all the tricks and twists you expect from an Edgar Wright film, albeit one which is slightly lacking in a similar level of charm which has encompassed his earlier work. 

With an opening set piece which sets the standard for the rest of the action ahead, the audience is swiftly introduced to the life of Baby (Ansel Elgort), an ultra-skilled, high-speed driver who alongside suffering from a hard case of tinnitus, is caught under the thumb of Kevin Spacey's crime boss, Doc, a softly spoken, calculating Joe Cabot figure who forces him to carry out heist after heist in order to pay off a substantial debt. Using music as both a blockade to its' leading character's ailment alongside acting as a bedrock of carrying out the film's narrative, Baby Driver is undeniably an audience pleasing joy-fest, one which wins on a surreal number of levels through its' constant supply of rib-tickling humour, brilliantly measured OTT acting and action set pieces which prioritise practicality and stunt work over the CGI overkill which tends to encompass many so-called contemporary blockbusters. I mean really, who can beat a high-speed car and foot chase played out to the backdrop of Hocus Pocus by Focus? Whilst the ending set piece does seem a little too far-fetched and overlong, one which makes the final shootout of Hot Fuzz look like the lowest key fight scene ever, Wright has managed to bag himself another cinematic success, using his love of cinema and sound to create a film which will no doubt be as big a hit with audiences as it has been with critics, a rare combination to say the least.

Overall Score: 8/10

The Worlds End - Quicky Review - SPOILERS

A triumphant return to the Cornetto trilogy by the threesome? This is certainly debatable.

As far as stories go, The Worlds End is quite an outlandish tale. A typical alien invasion uncovered by the most obtuse group of people on a weekend of downing pints across 12 pubs, or as they call it - The Golden Mile. Throughout this, Simon Pegg causes endless amounts of trouble and uncovers this invasion. Thus leads to them trying to complete the Golden Mile while staving off the hordes of "Blanks". It sounds fairly straightforward, yet the character back stories are fairly complicated. These backgrounds really affect each other and cause endless amounts of trouble, one of which that is most notably is Gary King's (Simon Pegg) drinking problems.

As a comedy, it was fairly good. A collection of jokes which made you giggle and a few made the cinema roar with laughter, yet nothing hugely substantial. The other side of the coin is the action portion of the film. It is dramatically sped up and it easily noticeable, but it is aggressive, full on and just great fun. It's also nice to see that Nick Frost played a different style of character in this instalment. Starting off as a dead beat ass with no job and no life causing controversy among the group in Shaun of The Dead, following it up with a dead beat cop with little understanding of full on police work but a love for violence to end up as a non-alcoholic whose life appears well and is still a strong, tank of a man.

Speaking of actors, the rest of the fairly large cast acted extremely well and it was a present surprise to find out the Pierce Brosnan had a role within the story for a few scenes.

Visually, there are very little special effects apart from the occasional face lighting up, a piece of modern art and a large incident at the end, so for what it is, they are good and stage effects and lighting were executed perfectly, especially at the end with a haze of oranges, blues and blacks that filled the screen and wisp gently across. The music and sound side was also very good. I'm still trying to locate the trailer music for its massive bass drops, but the music kept an powerful roar throughout, that set scenes up perfectly.

As a part of a trilogy, it is certainly the weaker of the bunch. It wasn't as stupid and over the top as the rest of the trilogy and appeared the action side of the story took a lot of the priority and then a few inner squabbles between the group that took the movie from comedy to a drama. I do recommend you see it and many of you will enjoy, but I think it shall get a 7/10. It's funny but takes itself a little too seriously at points and could have done with a few more jokes. Sorry for another quicky review but its been a a few late nights and early mornings!
(PS - It uses the word C**T. If you don't like this, you may have a little trouble dealing with the movie.)

The World's End

 Trailer Analysis: The World's End 

"Analysis is probably a better phrase about what I'm writing about rather then review"   

So here it is, the final movie of Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy "The worlds end". If you haven't seen the other two, I really recommend you do, both "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot-Fuzz" are amazingly entertaining and damn right hilarious.

"20 years after attempting an epic pub crawl, five childhood friends reunite when one of them becomes hell bent on trying the drinking marathon again. They are convinced to stage an encore by mate Gary King, a 40-year old man trapped at the cigarette end of his teens, who drags his reluctant pals to their home town and once again attempts to reach the fabled pub, The World's End. As they attempt to reconcile the past and present, they realise the real struggle is for the future, not just theirs but humankind's. Reaching The World's End is the least of their worries" (The World's end official Facebook page)

Edgar Wright (director), Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are back once again with the final addition to the Corntto trilogy. However this time they are joined by a few more additions to the cast, such as Martin Freeman who was in Hot-Fuzz for a few scenes but luckily he is playing a bigger role this time as Oliver; one of the pub crawlers, I'm greatly looking forward to seeing his performance. Also including Rosamund Pike, Paddy Considine, David Bradley and the talented Eddie Marson. All of these amazing and well known actors in one production, is sure to be an awesome show and I can't wait.

Now it wouldn’t be a Cornetto film if there wasn’t a pub involved and what a way to finish the series with a good old pub-crawl. In an IGN interview, Simon Pegg claimed that their films are very British. Pubs are British and they are a part of our culture, so it makes sense to make films around pubs. 

This film has a lot more computer animated effects then their other films. With all of the glowing eyes and robots this could be influenced by "Paul" which they released back in 2011. The effects are not bad or brilliant by avatar standards but this is a British comedy film, I'm not expecting anything big like that, but its still good to see. 

I am glad that they have kept some of the traditions from there previous films such as the pubs but also some of the comedy scenes, such as the fence hopping at the end of the trailer, which fans of the trilogy would have immediately recognised, but still tweaking it to keep it original, perfect. But they also keep that pub violence against a mass of people which I love, for example in Shaun of the dead it was zombies, hot-fuzz the village cult and now robots looks awesome.

So the film comes out on July 19th and I will defiantly go see it in the cinemas to give you all a full review. "So prepare to get annihilated and a little hungover".  

Also check out this trailer which a bit more dialogue: