This is a nice car chase movie antidote to
The Fate of the Furious, a car chase movie that made me never want to see a car chase movie again, let alone Vin Diesel’s mushy mug.
The soundtrack is one of the year’s best, and the guy in the title role is a major star in the making. Ansel Elgort plays Baby, who we see in the film’s opening sequence driving the getaway car for a robbery, a kinetic chase choreographed to the great Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s “Bellbottoms.” The scene snaps with a colorful energy that’s been missing from car chases of late.
The best car chase movie in years,
Drive, also featured a lonely driver and great vroom-vroom, but the soundtrack and look for that film were more meditative and hazy—not complaining; it worked beautifully.
Baby Driver opts for a more clear-eyed, zippy approach, and it pays off.
Edgar Wright writes and directs for this, a project he took up after his failed dalliance with Ant-Man. The chases go off with precision editing, filmed in a way that makes you feel like you are in the car. And the soundtrack, featuring music ranging from Simon and Garfunkel to Hocus Pocus to Queen, perfectly complements them.