Baby Driver Review

I wish I liked Baby Driver. I really do. But sadly, I don't.

I go back and forth as to whether it's just a film that "wasn't for me" or if it's actually a bad movie. It's possible it's a mix of both.

To start, there's a lot to like about the film:

• The coloring/general look
• The costumes and character designs - Seriously, these are ridiculously good.
• The casting, for the most part
• Jon Hamm - so much, he's easily one of the best parts of the movie
• Kevin Spacey - for the most part
• Jamie Foxx - delectably wicked
• Eiza González - delicious, but... (see below)
• CJ Jones - solid, with the bare minimum / basic material he was given
• Edgar Wrights attention to detail
• A generally straight-forward and simple throwback story
• Practical effects
• The drama, for the most part - Particularly the end (see further below)

Then, there's a handful of things I'm mixed on, with the first one being pretty important: 

• Ansel Elgort - If the lead actor is one I'm mixed on, that's a really tough spot for a movie. He has an interesting arc during the movie and shows some good talent, particularly with his choreography, but Baby is one of the least interesting characters in his movie. His retro style (along with Lily James' Deborah) was very shrug inducing.
• Tonal inconsistency - Baby starts out so happy-go-lucky despite spending half a life in this job (and seriously, only now do things start going poorly?), but things get dark fairly quickly. I get the story of innocence lost, but it felt uneven in this story - characters being overly intense or too schmaltzy and "happy." There's such a great human story in Baby Driver that gets hurt by almost everything around it. 

But with a film that's generally style over substance, the things that "didn't do it for me" really bring the film down:

• Almost all the music - I rarely recognized the songs or found them enjoyable
• The choreography of almost everything to the music - I can appreciate the style and choreography, but with the challenge of the point above, it makes it that much more difficult
• The implausible action sequences - I get doing a stylized action movie, but I could never suspend my disbelief enough to buy into the stylized editing and fast pacing, trying to dive into the action and experience of Baby. This happens for pretty much every action sequence with cops, as I could never buy them responding or chasing Baby the way they did. Hell, even the way Baby acts, particularly while on foot. The implausible sequences become that much worse in comparison to the dramatic action.
• The Women - Yeesh. There wasn't a single woman in this movie that wasn't a character in relation to a man (Debora, Darling, Baby's Mom). Homage movie or not, Debora was too cheesy and retro for me. Darling was better, as she was almost a character, but the sexualization of her was a bit on the much side. Baby's Mom was largely so throwaway, more of an idea than a character.
• Kevin Spacey - For the small part, as great as his voice is, his "70s narrator"-style dialogue and delivery was a little too much for me, but slightly more than that his SPOILER character turn at the end seemed a bit uneven, though nicely in service of the general story of the movie
• Jon Bernthal - Seemed a little too out of left field for how dark and challenging he was of Baby. It set an odd vibe and tone to the start of the movie.
• Wright's "cleverness" - There were too many times where Wright would go for a joke, either spoken or visual, that just fell flat or rang hollow because it was too obvious how clever it was trying to be (much like Tarantino's often masturbatory dialogue). The best jokes were ones that were honest reactions by the characters.

To be fully transparent, similar to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, the film lost me with the opening sequence with Baby dancing in the car, followed by the second half of the opening with the title sequence (or vice versa, I forget the order despite writing this the same night as watching). I then greatly struggled from there to get into it - there were tiny nuggets along the way, but I wanted to walk out probably 5 times in the first 30 minutes alone. 

Then again, the final act is pretty solid, particularly when Wright uses his great stylistic skills to highlight the thematic and character elements at play vs shallow style timed to music that detracted me from the movie. 

I honestly would love to do a recut of the movie to try and cut out the (stylized) parts I didn't care about - even if that means making the movie 30-45 minutes; hell, I'd LOVE to do a recut of the movie with whatever footage they shot, including picking new songs, etc. - I do enjoy the core story presented. The more I think about it, the more I realize how much more interesting Jon Hamm is in this movie than Baby, and the movie I'd like to see is more of their stories being at odds with each other.

Regardless of my enjoyment or lack thereof, Edgar Wright is an unprecedented technical, narrative and stylized director. Give him more work and stories to tell. 

Though Baby Driver didn't work for me, I'd still RECOMMEND the movie as it's one you should see and judge for yourself. Hell, you may greatly enjoy it! Heck, maybe I'd enjoy it more on a rewatch. Until then, Scott Pilgrim and Shaun of the Dead are the two Wright movies I enjoy the most.