Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Need for Speed (2014)

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Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-25-2014, 04:15 AM:

Former stuntman and stunt coordinator turns into movie director. The first result, Act of Valor was a somewhat lukewarm production that primarily excelled in wooden acting. His latest effort is a high-octane racing movie, loosely based on the popular Electronic Arts franchise: Need for Speed. It's clearly a better fit.

The story here is akin to that of a porn movie, nobody was looking for that anyway, so why don't you just cut the crap and go directly for the real beef? There's no reason to keep it running for the whole 132 minutes.

Tobey Marshall, a street racing legend gets screwed over by his former business associate (and friend) Dino Brewster. After he's found guilty of causing a deadly, high-profile crash that not he but Dino was responsible for, he serves a few years behind bars. After being released he wants revenge by beating him at the secretive and illegal "De Leon" street race, organized by some unknown billionaire. Ah, and if the curves of all those supercars aren't enough to please you, there's also a girl involved as screen filler.

While trying to enlist for the race on-time, racing across the States, Dino places a bounty on his head, leading to a race-before-the actual race...

So, while the story is mind-numbingly boring and predictive, the racing scenes are certainly not. If you like fast supercars, over-the-top action and stunts, this is clearly something to see, just make sure your bucket of popcorn is sufficiently deep to last trough the boring bits.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 04-02-2014, 11:57 PM:

I thought the 3D conversion was a mixed bag - some good shots, a lot of pointless shots, some amazing shots (like looking down into the canyon at one point).

the plot/script was it's weakness.

the 7.1 audio mix... for a screening on a Cinemark XD screen - um... mediocre at best - I hardly heard the rear center sound sources behind me. [thumbsdown]

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-04-2014, 01:41 AM:

Although there is an Atmos version of this one, the cinema I watched this in only got a 5.1 version... Not sure if other countries actually were blessed with a 7.1 release too.

Posted by Connor Wilson (Member # 6088) on 04-04-2014, 06:41 PM:

Dolby's official website doesn't list Need for Speed as an Atmos title.

Dolby Atmos Movies

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-05-2014, 01:25 PM:

Need For Speed doesn't have a Dolby Atmos mix. I read something awhile back when this movie was in pre-production or shooting had just started they were planning on using next generation immersive audio formats (implying the use of Atmos and/or Auro). Obviously that didn't happen once the movie was in post production. Maybe they didn't have the time to generate those types of mixes.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-06-2014, 07:34 AM:

Yeah, you're right, it doesn't seem to have an Atmos mix, somebody told me that it had, but it clearly doesn't.

Which is kind of stupid, if you ask me. Still, did anyone get a 7.1 mix or is it all just 5.1?

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 04-06-2014, 04:19 PM:

Deluxe's DCP notes say 7.1 - but as I noted before, I could hardly tell of any additional rear sound sourcing - it sounded 5.1 to me - its too bad it wasn't Auro mixed because the XD screen was recently outfitted to playback in 11.1

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-06-2014, 10:01 PM:

That's the funny with those Auro 11.1 equipped Cinemark XD screens. There are so few movies being released with Auro 11.1 audio tracks that all those extra speakers in those XD-branded houses are about as useful as tits on a bull.

Cinemark plans on installing Auro 11.1 on all of its XD theaters (there are now more than 100 of them). One would think that kind of install base would convince Hollywood movie studios to provide a lot more support for the Auro 11.1 audio format. Unfortunately Cinemark makes absolutely no mention of Auro anywhere on its web site. Each specific theater page on their web site has a list of features icons underneath the theater picture. Auro isn't even listed there. But they do have Dolby Atmos listed in that row of icons in the three theaters where they did have Atmos installed.

Basically Cinemark isn't doing Auro any favors even though they're by far the biggest Auro customer. The Auro folks aren't updating their own theater locations map nearly enough either. The map doesn't look like it has been updated since they launched it months ago (that Auro equipped XD theater in the DC area sure isn't on the map).

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 04-08-2014, 01:02 AM:

Bobby - have you seen where Cinemark/Barco have placed the Egyptian on their site map - it's no where close to where it's supposed to be - they place in Baltimore city proper, when in fact it's just a little south of BWI airport.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-08-2014, 01:49 AM:

I guess that's just Google Maps gone wrong. Instead of GPS coordinates, most of the times, they just feed the address to Google Maps and their address database doesn't really match up with reality in many cases.