Over-hyped! Tarantino-style wannabe that mostly fails

Rating: 1/10 (28 June 2017)

Here's a nutshell version why "Baby Driver" failed: Director Edgar Wright did some great 'homemade-style' British indie flicks: "Hot Fuzz," "Shaun of the Dead," "World's End." With Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (and many other great British actors, like Bill Nighy, etc.), the small indie UK movies could be small, because the talent was so huge. They could be a bit 'loose', even sloppy. It was OK with those previous hits, because the wonderful cast filled up the screen for the audience, and kept them entranced. "Baby Driver" was simply too big for Wright's casual, loopy style, however. What might seem charming in a casual context can now seem woefully under-developed. The movie came off more as unfocused and an annoying, disjointed ramble (albeit a frenetic one), than creative and edgy.
Lots of hype with "Baby Driver," but sadly, it is misplaced. The vaunted soundtrack is meh - 'OK' but not memorable. The music sounded geriatric, as if it was being played on a desk-top stereo by someone's Nan, at her Rest Home on an afternoon when she was feeling frisky. The actors are superb! But the overall theme and direction has mislead them into a no-win confused mess.
Yes, there is LOTS of action. LOTS of violence. LOTS of the 'no talk, just shoot' heroics that so often can be energizing and refreshing in a macho action movie. But here it just comes off as cruel, even creepy. In fact, after this movie was over I was stuck with the nagging feeling that this was little more than a flabby rip-off of Quentin Tarantino's style. While Edgar Wright is undoubtedly a lovely man in person, and possesses many other talents, as a director, he is no Tarantino (after all, Tarantino is just barely Tarantino).
One trembles a bit when one considers what last year's amazing "Antman" would have been like had Wright, and his uneven lounge-party style, not been replaced!