Saw it. Loved it. Completely understand why one might dislike it. But... this:
I think the majority of the criticisms here are valid, they just didn't matter to me.
Exactly this.
I think Scott Pilgrim, which I deeply love, prepared me for Baby Driver. Once it clicked that this was a heightened universe, I was in, and there was no escaping.
Most of the supporting cast, Kevin Spacey and John Hamm especially, were just magnificently fun. Some things exist just to be funny or weird, but they also sort of feed the propulsion of the whole thing.
The movie was both bananas and emotionally resonant, and I'm genuinely not sure how that happened, because it shouldn't have worked. After 5-10 min, it was like a snowball effect. I was delighted by basically everything all the way through the end.
SPOILERSThere is one cute moment where he gets into a new car and can't start driving until he finds a good song on the radio which does the most with this idea. It's fun. But it doesn't have any real dramatic function in the film. And thus, the hero essentially has no arc.
I understand that, but none of that would have occurred to me. I just wasn't in that mode. Nor did I care about Scott Pilgrim's arc.
I think they gave us just enough content to make Baby compelling, and nothing more. That is completely fine with me. Once I understood that he might be on the spectrum, and that he is definitely dealing with post-traumatic stress, that is literally all I needed to sync with the character. Didn't even require much from the performance. And this is going to sound ridiculous, but his blankness was refreshing. Not all people are explosively emotional and generous with their thoughts and feelings. With some people, you can only get that out of them in certain moments, which is exactly what happened here. Felt just right to me.
The ending is unearned. Instead of coming up with a plan to outsmart the other dudes, why does he just go along with it and then go to prison? I get it's the unexpected thing to do, but again, dramatically it doesn't really make sense. He's been blackmailed by these dudes essentially that he has to be their driver, so why not have some agency and fuck them over instead of just turning yourself in for something that you weren't entirely responsible for?
It's a way for him to get away clean in the end. Because Kevin Spacey and anyone who might come after him are dead. He is also free to live his life not always running from the law. Seems pretty tidy and fair. An unearned ending would have him riding off into the sunset with Debora as fugitives. That would feel off.
As for why he went through with the job... that made complete sense to me. Because as they say in that scene, the alternative wasn't going home, it was fleeing the country immediately. Baby wouldn't have an opportunity to flee with Debora if he's already fleeing with them.
Lily James is cute and charming and unfortunately a placeholder for where an actual character should go.
True, but I didn't care. I did not want any more exposition. We get just enough for things to make sense. I don't think this is a movie about fully-developed characters, and I'm glad it doesn't try to be something it's not.