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Created Jul 07, 2017 11:20PM PST • Edited May 31, 2020 06:54PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Choreography comes to car chases in Baby Driver. British director Edgar Wright’s benchmark blockbuster presents like Tarantino set to music. Nowhere to Run, Radar Love and Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up lead the 60s & 70s chestnuts that impart old-school cool into this new-school movie. Star power finishes the job.

   A juke-box musical as much as a romance, drama or satire, Baby Driver is a consummate exercise in style. Nihilistic in the extreme, its inverse-ethics could have been drawn straight from Suicide Squad, sadly.

   Killer Cast Crushes Edgar Wright’s Satiric Script

   • Ansel Elgort as the Baby driver, himself: Young Ansel is an incipient superstar.
   • Lily James as his diner Cinderella
   • Kevin Spacey, bank robber kingpin and criminal mastermind
   • Jon Hamm, super-handsome bank robber
   • Eiza González, super-hot bank robber & girlfriend
   • Jamie Foxx, batshit crazy bank robber
   • Jon Bernthal is always great, always. Playing an angry bank robber is right in his wheelhouse.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Ansel Elgort

   The baby driver himself delivers a star-making performance that is shockingly impressive. Learn to pronounce Ansel Elgort, because that name is gonna be atop movie posters for many years to come.

   Lily James

   Lily James sweetly plays his diner darling. She’s British, yet is the sweetest All American girl ever. Wow.

   Kevin Spacey

   The great Spacey sinks his teeth into a criminal mastermind role like a Doberman sinks his into a T-bone.

   Jon Hamm & Eiza González

   Couldn’t they have picked an attractive couple to make-out all the time? Hamm, handsome? González, hot? OK, suppose so. Him we knew about. She’s a find — smart, sharp & oh so sexy. Wow. More please.

   Jamie Foxx

   Jukebox Jamie is more than up to the task of playing a hopped-up motherfucking criminal crew chief.

   Others

   • Jon Bernthal gets the movie going in the proper direction.
   • Flea as a bank robber named No-Nose. Yes, Red Hot Chili Peppers Flea.
   • Lanny Joon as a bank robber who “puts the Asian back in home invasion”, an instantly classic line.
   • The rappers Big Boi & Killer Mike as restaurant patrons
   • Other Others: Paul Williams • Jon Spencer • Sky Ferreira

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    Edgar Wright has made lots of distinctive films, each reliably funny and pretty darn fun. Baby Driver tops ‘em all. It now heads up his oeuvre, easily outranking Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and the widely beloved Hot Fuzz. About that last, it’s not beloved by me, but beloved by many. Baby Driver? Beloved.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Great 4.0

13. Music Perfect 5.0

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    Hotlanta’s never been the scene of a caper flick like this before.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.3

    The collateral damage is no laughing matter.

17. Sex Titillating 1.8

18. Violence Savage 3.7

19. Rudeness Nasty 4.5

21. Reality

    Supernatural 3.1

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.6

23. Biological Surreal 2.7

24. Physical Supernatural 3.9