Style over substance

Rating: 4/10 (24 November 2017)

Spoilers: I felt like Ansel Elgort was miscast in the movie. I've seen a number of his roles and I don't think I liked any of the characters he portrayed. Whenever he's on screen, I can't help but think of Big Baby from "Toy Story 3", which ruins moments completely. I'm not sure if it's his acting or the way the role was written, but his character comes across as obnoxious, to the point where I was rooting against him.
As the movie progresses, you get more and more of an incentive to dislike him as he's continually in a position where he can build up evidence and rat out the people he's involved with, as he records snippets from every heist meeting to make mix tapes out of them later on at home. But this sadly isn't the case, as he keeps it to himself, allowing innocent people to die in the process which he could've stopped; to me that's unforgivable even if he does perform good deeds every now and again to ease his dirty conscience.
I don't think I liked or connected with any character in the whole movie, except for the lady behind the counter at the postage shop, but besides that, nobody. All the characters were flat and one-dimensional. We don't learn enough about these character's past to care for them and the direct result of this is that we don't care where the story is going which makes for a rather pointless movie.
Sure we touch on Ansel Elgort's character's past, but it it's only briefly and it's the most clichéd series of flashbacks: "Look his parents died in a car crash and now you as an audience will sympathize and connect with the character as a result". Sorry, but even though it's sad, it makes me feel indifferent based on his actions.
I thought that there were a lot of actors who were too big for the roles that they were given. Instead of being lost in their performances as I should've been, I was found saying, "There's Jon Bernthal, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx and Kevin Spacey!". These actors took me right out of the movie just as Matt Damon did when I watched his small cameo in the movie "Interstellar". I thought that Kevin Spacey was justified, but he phoned it in and just played Kevin Spacey, like he's been doing for years now; he didn't even have enough material to work with to begin with like everyone else in the movie.
The core of the movie is a love story, but it is so unrealistic, the two lovers only meet twice and are prepared to run away together in a heartbeat. Not only that, but they have zero chemistry and you don't buy into their romance at all, sadly. It all felt rushed and the story-line and characters were sacrificed for what the movie was born out of; music. If Edgar Wright didn't hold such an emphases on this aspect of the movie, then maybe we, as an audience, could've had something to work with.
The movie was not only a love story but a story about a getaway driver who drives to music, but the music parts didn't mix well and sometimes I felt there was too much to the point where it ruined some of the scenes. The in-sync style that Edgar was trying to do in moments wasn't well crafted, no where near as well as the iconic in-sync moment in the third act of "Shaun of the Dead" when the characters are beating zombies in rhythm to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now", which was a highlight of the movie; there were no noteworthy moments equal to that scene in "Baby Driver" which is mind boggling. On a side and more nit-picky note; the music wasn't really my taste.
There were some scenes that just made absolutely no sense. Such as the scene when the characters have to go to a garage to pick up some untraceable arms for their next heist. These arms are being supplied by some dirty cops, but beforehand, you would've thought Kevin Spacey's character would've told them this as a man of complete detail, as shown in his intricate planning of the heists, but he doesn't bother to mention it which goes against his character; instead it's a moment used to further the plot even if it doesn't make sense logically. It's small and big things like this that took me right out of the movie and diminished all sense of authenticity.
The action sequences I thought were too choppy, especially the car chases, which lacked inspiration and creativity on Edgar's part and felt like they were out of a Bourne movie; the only well directed shots were the ones in the trailer. Going in I wanted something along the lines of "Drive", where there was intensity and high stakes while driving, but it was too light hearted and you knew they'd lose the cops, no problemo.
I acknowledge that some of you have said that this isn't a movie about serious characters, that we're supposed to connect with on a real and human level, but a fun movie to sit back, relax and enjoy with friends like any number of superhero movies nowadays. That it's not a serious movie meant to be taken seriously, I get that, but that part of the movie isn't even done well; if it had been then I would've enjoyed it a lot more.
At the end of the day, I look for movies with strong characters that I can connect with and authentic dialogue and a realistic plot, "Baby Driver" wasn't that. The characters were weak, the dialogue was weak and the plot was weak. It was a movie that relied too much on music to the point where nothing else was given a chance to breath and grow organically.