'Gran Turismo' Isn't Perfect But Is A Fun Ass Racing Movie
Based on the unbelievable, inspiring true story of a team of underdogs - a struggling, working-class gamer, a failed former race car driver, and an idealistic motorsport exec - who risk it all to take on the most elite sport in the world.
I'll preface this with the fact that I am not a fan of the Gran Turismo video games or of racing in general. Fast cars are cool as hell and I appreciate the fanaticism of euro racing/NASCAR fans but I've just not had any room in my fandom to get into them.
The only thing I knew going in was that I really liked director Neill Blomkamp and have since he put out the one of the best sci fi movies of the last 20 years in 'District 9'. He's so good at sci fi that I was actually pissed when I heard he was taking on this project instead of making a new original movie. Couple that with a cast of mostly unknowns, David Harbor and the faded star Orlando Bloom and I really didn't have a lot of excitement for this at a personal level.
That said, this is a damn fun time. I'll cut it into pros and cons for those of you trying to figure out if it's worth going to a theater for.
PROS
- It's easy to digest as a non-fan of the sport or game. Everything is relatively boiled down so that no term or piece of technical knowledge hurts your understanding of a situation.
- David Harbor is real solid. He's just born to play the gruff dad type of dude.
- Archie Madekwe is solid as the everyman thrown into the spotlight. A ton of this movie depends on him being able to sell that role and he does.
- The effects. They rock, plain and simple. I don't know what Blompkamp knows that other directors don't in this field but all of his movies excel in that area. He does a great job mixing some of the practical effects with the SFX while including some playstation/video game effects.
CONS
- Orlando Bloom is certainly there. It's easy to forget that this guy was in, like, a trillion dollars worth of movies from 2000-2005 without having much talent.
- It's lacking a good villain. Every sports movie needs a big bad with charisma. The villain, Capa, doesn't have that. The movie just expects you to hate him by virtue of him being rich. That would be ok if they at least made him more of a sniveling brat or pretentious dick. He was just kinda this vaguly european dude that seemed like he never acted before.
- It's pretty formulaic. Nothing will surprise you too much.
So this is all to say that this is a fun movie that definitely has flaws. You'll probably have a good time regardless of your standing in the racing world.