Gran Turismo Movie Review - Adrenaline-Fueled Adequacy
As we are close to the midst of the 2020s, it’s becoming quite apparent that video game adaptations have taken over the entertainment industry with significant financial success. We’ve witnessed in this decade that the blue blur’s hitting box office gold, Tom Holland as Not Nathan Drake making gangbusters and a movie starring the most iconic figure in all of the gaming medium being the second highest grossing animated film of all time (or third, if you count The Lion King [2019]) and the first video game movie to reach a billion dollars. Lest we forget to mention the slew of upcoming projects to boot like a Minecraft movie, Mortal Kombat sequel and for this Halloween The problem, of course, is that despite such properties being lucrative, the films we’ve been receiving as of late themselves ranged from being subpar to being straight up garbage. Even ones from the past decade that I personally thought were credible like “Detective Pikachu” and “Warcraft” unfortunately fell into those categories by a majority of people.
However, where video games find their impactful footing in the industry is twofold. One of them is shows. Last decade, shows like the animated Castlevania series was heavily raved by critics and its fans, and of this decade, “Twisted Metal” is turning people’s heads for curiosity and “Arcane” is quite possibly the greatest animated show that I have seen this decade and I’m praying this series gets a second season. Seriously, if you haven’t watched this show, stop this review and watch it now. Go ahead, I can wait. The other example are films and other media genres that are about video games like the acclaimed documentary, Indie Movie: The Game [the one with Phil Fish (remember him?)], this years’ “Tetris”, or in other cases, movies that construct their own video game world building and narrative concepts into their projects; take “Tron” for instance.
For what we have to review today, “Gran Turismo” isn’t about the video game, it isn’t an adaptation of the video games its based on nor tries to go the way of something like “Need for Speed”; creating a story of its own while sharing the name. So…what is it? It’s actually a sports flick and the video game plays a huge part not just in its premise, but in real life. In the year 2008, the GT Academy was initiated by Darren Cox, a Nissan Europe executive, and was a program designed to invite some of the greatest Gran Turismo players to not only qualify, but to achieve an unimaginable career in professional racing. One of the contestants was none other than 2011 winner, Jann Mardenborough, a gamer turned racer who acclaimed multiple medals, placed on podiums for one of the greatest races in the world and has returned after a long hiatus to race this year Fuji 24 Hours in Japan.
Now his underdog story is being brought to theaters by the promising Neill Blomkamp, who’s only known for creating one of the best science fiction films of all time, an underrated action movie, and we’ve never seen him premiere a nationwide release since the disappointing “Chappie”. After holding skepticism in mind for so long, unsure if whether or not Blomkamp has return to make another great movie, “Gran Turismo” is not that bad, it’s fairly good. As far as racing films go, it’s not going to blow anyone’s socks off when compared to the laundry list of racing films throughout generations, as its own feel-good story, it stands on its own admirably instead of being one gigantic commercial for Gran Turismo.
As for the plot of the movie, the events that follow and the names have been changed for creative liberties except for the main character. Being an avid, dedicated player for the racing simulator, Jann has been invited for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to a Nissan/Sony collaborative racing program after finishing first in a qualification race. Through rigorous training from his coach and former racer Jack Salter, and support from the GT Academy founder Danny Moore, we follow Jann overcome and encounter obstacles in his up-and-coming racing career, leading up to him participating in one of the most august, reputable races in the world, the 24 Hour Le Mans.
There’s no doubt that the story has its fair share of cliched underdog elements from sports films, at the same time, “Gran Turismo” takes what would’ve otherwise been a generic, overdone sports story and turn it into something refreshening, and one of the reasons is Neil’s handling of the source material. Jann’s story is incredibly fascinating and is something that in this day and age can be used to generate a movie out of, and for the most part, Neill Blomkamp and his writing crew do a fine job at bringing to life an impossible dream to the big screen. As stated before, the movie does construct moments and characters for the sake of Hollywoodizing the true story. And hey, some classic sports movies from “Rudy” to “Miracle” have done the same, but the stories were told powerfully on their own while treating the source with respect. But some of what happens in “Gran Turismo” are for better and some are…for worse and sometimes a need of improvement.
Because I’m generous and don’t want to start off negatively, let’s get the good elements taken care of. The character work for some of the main cast is pretty good. Jann’s character is done well being portrayed admirably as a teenager with aspirations of wanting to chase towards his dreams while dealing with benefits and consequences of his rookie career of racing. For what the material provides Archie Madekwe does a nice job of portraying Jann as a normal, everyday gaming teenager earning the chance of a lifetime and even executes well in dramatic moments where he’s struggling with guilt and failure.
Supporting members like Orlando Bloom as Danny Moore is solid enough, as a guy wants to bring a project to fruition but ultimately is unsure of Jann being the representative of Nissan’s racing team, and Jack Salter as a former racing, turned technician and instructor for Jann takes away the spotlight with a enthralling performance by David Harbour. The movie also does a good job with Jann and Jack’s crystal mentor-student dynamic and makes up for some quality development between the characters and interesting payoffs…minus one particular scene and that’ll be for later.
Even while serving a purpose in the plot, the movie doesn’t provide enough depth or development for Nicolas Capa, who is a pompous, spoiled, rich-kid racer other than having the film stir up a rivalry between him and Jann. The inclusion of Jann’s romance subplot with a girl he fell in love with is serviceable, nothing too extraordinary but it does come across as a checkbox needing to be checked on how to make a standard sports biopic.
While admiring the camaraderie between Salter and Mardenborough, I also wish we had a couple of scenes that dedicated to Jann and his father, played by Djimon Hounsou. In fact, it’s one of the opening plot lines that you believe would be consistent along with the coach and student relationship taking place, however Djimon Hounsou is gone for the majority of the second act, and it isn’t until the third act where the father/son plot thread comes back again, and there is one scene in third act that is played marvelous by the two actors that display such resonant emotion that is done quite well on a bond that the second was missing so badly.
Finally, there’s even a pivotal scene towards the end of the second act—and if you are familiar with Jann’s story you know what I’m talking about (the infamous crash in Nurburging, Germany)—and when you see the crash, it is mere identical to how it happened to a T. But, the aftermath of the crash and how the moment is handled is over-exaggerated and is used only for the sake of causing tension and drama from the media about Mardenborough’s experience of being a gamer turned racer leading up to a scene where Jack Salter provides him motivation to conquer his trauma sharing a story about a similar event leading to Jack quitting racing. This story element is all fine and dandy…but the reality is that, in real life, that crash happened two years after he placed highly in the Le Mans and was pretty experienced in his racing and the criticism wasn’t geared towards him, but the design of the track itself (huh, this kinda reminds of another movie that jumbles the timeline for the sake of pulling the audience’s heartstrings). Even if the film for a majority of it writes a fairly good story on its own, how this moment was executed is ill-judged, manipulative and honestly tasteless, towards those who lost a loved one to that crash.
If there’s a word to describe the effects and camera work in this film, it would be innovative. The movie doesn’t have tons of visual effects, but when there is, it’s so creative. There’s a scene in which Jann is in his room customizing his car and the modifications and car parts being shown from the screen. The composition is done well in effects like those, including moments during the racing portions where you have elements from the games like showing a dotted line for the driver to execute the perfect turn to pass his opponent and a GT heads-up display which may come across as pandering to the fans and the audience to play the game, but in actuality is an interesting design choice that works on its own merits. The effects at times can be a bit dodgy for a couple of instances, one with the risers being full of CGI attendees being noticeable and iffy, and the disassemble transition from his car to his bedroom room as he’s playing looks cool, however, the iffy compositing and unpolished detail reminds you an awful lot of the effects in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, where .
There’s also a ton of creativity that goes on with the movie’s camerawork, and where it primarily excels is the racing segments. It takes advantage of so many tricks and tools to make the racing scenes exciting and sweat-inducing with swooping drones that capture the scale and intensity of those races, to even paying homage to the video game franchise like attached cameras filming in third-person mode for the vehicles as if you were playing the racing title yourself.
Minus a couple of minor and major grievances, is Gran Turismo still a worthwhile experience and a decent movie to see for yourself? I’d say so. There’s several and better racing films out there—even by some of the best directors out there, but for what it’s worth it’s an adequate movie that serves as a swell end to the summer movie season! Keep up the work Neill, eventually you’ll find glory just like you did in 2009.
RATING: 3/5
