Film Preview: Need for Speed (2014)

Poster

Additional posters can be found below.

Trailer Link

Release Date:

March 14, 2014

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “Fresh from prison, a street racer who was framed by a wealthy business associate joins a cross country race with revenge in mind. His ex-partner, learning of the plan, places a massive bounty on his head as the race begins.”

Poster: B / D / C- / C+ / C / C-

Review: (#1) Some films just don’t seem like they need multiple designs. This is just such a film. The first design is the most creative. It uses a palette of colors that are infrequently employed in modern poster design, creating a nice, distinctive aesthetic. The rest of the design is commonplace, but a nice color scheme can add immeasurably to formulaic content.

(#2-#4) The next two designs, especially the first of the two, are much more traditional styles for action posters, both going for the tilted excitement and neither reaching the level of creativity or visual panache as the first. The fourth design is reminscent of drive, but uses the colors from the first poster. The problem with the fifth design is that it’s otherwise too plain.

(#5-#6) The remaining two designs are for foreign markets, which explains why they aren’t particularly eclectic in terms of content. Both are undeniably colorful, but the fifth is more visually pleasing and the sixth is more garish.

Trailer: C / B-

Review: The first trailer highlights the action elements of the film, but leaves out most of the plot, which doesn’t make it seem like a natural antecedent to the Fast & Furious films.

This second trailer still looks like a hackneyed attempt to copy aspects of the Fast & Furious franchise, but puts forward more of the film’s premise, which makes it ever slightly more appealing. Apart from that, most of the film looks generic, but at least it’s set to a nice piece of music.