Baby Driver is the latest film from director Edgar Wright, whose name alone gets me excited to see a movie. He's crafted some of the funniest comedies of all time, and he always seems to explore new avenues as his career goes forward. The key to some of his films in the past has been subversion; he knows how to turn a genre on its head and create a film that both parodies a genre and fits nicely into it. Baby Driver is less satirical in nature, and is more of a straightforward crime/action/drama/romance/musical/comedy. Okay, maybe "straightforward" isn't the right word.
Luckily, the film manages to balance all of these generic aspects very well. The music behind the action is the defining aspect of this film's identity, and for the most part, it's very successful at making action scenes or regular scenes of dialogue feel more rhythmic and energetic. The chase sequences in particular stand out due to the precise editing that matches action to beats in the various songs. Due to there not being a time period or genre that restricts the soundtrack, the pace and punchlines of different scenes are all over the place (but not in a bad way).
Really, the greatest crime of Baby Driver isn't any flaw with the filmmaking, it's simply that the film isn't amazing. It's a solid story, with some fun characters and some great action, but it never pushed the boundaries of the genre, or took the story to a wildly different place. We follow Baby (Ansel Elgort), a getaway driver who works multiple heists for criminal mastermind Doc (Kevin Spacey). After paying off a previous debt, Baby is drawn back into the underworld to perform a heist with Bats (Jamie Foxx), Buddy (Jon Hamm), and Darling (Eiza González). But, after meeting and falling for waitress Debora (Lily James), who shares his passion for music, Baby longs to find a way to escape from his criminal life.
This film's style is the standout aspect of it, and Edgar Wright definitely knows how to put a movie together with some flair. Baby Driver almost feels like a trailer, but without the negative connotation that comes with that. The majority of the film's sound synchronises with the soundtrack, which is an editing trick you don't see often (if ever) in a movie. It seems like a superficial addition, but gunshots matching pounding drums in the middle of a shootout adds a real punch. Unfortunately, the stylistic mastery doesn't make up for the general feeling of disappointment that I felt while watching this film.
Baby Driver isn't bad by any stretch, I just found the majority of it to be unremarkable in comparison to other crime dramas and action films. It starts off very strong, but when the romance gets going, the film slows to a crawl. Romance has never been a great strength of Edgar Wright's films (with the exception of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World), and it's especially weak here. Elgort doesn't have much chemistry with James, and Baby in general is a fairly uninteresting character. Having such a baby-faced (ha, ha) actor play a stoic, strong/silent type doesn't really work, and if that was the joke, then it doesn't land properly.
The humour in general is very hit-and-miss, which I was surprised by. The best jokes hit very hard, but almost all of them were in the trailers, so they didn't work as well as I wanted them to. The same can be said for some action beats, with only a few of them feeling legitimately impressive. Despite being so reliant on emotions, the film never summoned an emotional response from me; there was no point when the combination of action and music made me feel the rush of adrenaline that I expected. All of Edgar Wright's previous films have had some element that I really connect with and admire, but I didn't find that with Baby Driver.
The film's story is its most interesting element, because it manages to be consistently engaging while also feeling stretched out. It does diverge from the story I expected, and did some different things with the idea of a hero who wants to escape from the criminal world. Baby had more agency and was more competent than I expected, which was refreshing. The writing itself had a few problems, more in regards to some very blatant and eye-rolling exposition than story issues. The ending is where it almost fell apart; just as the third act seemed to be wrapping up, a whole other act started, and I started to wonder how long it would keep going. That's never a good sign.
My feeling of disappointment with the film may have more to do with they hype that I built up in my own head, but at this point, expecting a great film from Edgar Wright isn't unfair, because he's never made a movie that I don't consider great. But Baby Driver left no impact on me, despite the fact that I searched desperately for something to love. It's definitely worth seeing, for a fun, action-packed adventure that doesn't shy away from gruesome violence. But it also raises quite a few question marks in regards to the story and characters, and ends up far below what I expected. Maybe Edgar Wright will really hit it out of the park next time, but this is still a solid, original film, and that's something that's increasingly hard to find in the modern blockbuster landscape.
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