Gran Turismo
1/4
Let’s talk video-game movies. These have been notoriously bad, like Warcraft, which was so confusing you needed to be an expert in the game to understand what was going on; Uncharted, which is my favorite video game ever, turned out to be a dismal movie as well.
And while Gran Turismo isn’t as bad as it could have been, there’s still nothing special about it that makes it worth recommending, which is unfortunate as the concept—turning gamers into racers—is quite cool.
Archie Madekwe does a serviceable job in portraying the real-life character of Jann Mardenborough. Madekwe does a fantastic job in showing Mardenborough’s journey from gamer to racer. He also shows great gravitas in navigating dramatic moments. David Harbor does what he can with what he is given in Jack Salter, which is a very generic role.
That’s about all that I liked about the movie; now here are the things I absolutely hated about it. The most glaring thing is its intense fear of doing anything new—this movie has to be the most generic flick I’ve seen this year. A great example of this is its characters. You’ve got the thrill-seeker kid who drops out of high school to follow his dreams of pursuing a dangerous profession and disobeys his parents every chance he gets. We’re also treated to the old race-car driver who burned out after a crash and is now learning to be a better man through training the new kid to be a better driver. If that wasn’t enough, we’re also given the old disapproving father who is overly concerned about his son and wants him to stay in school but learns to accept him for who he is and even learns to find passion for his son’s profession.
We’ve seen these characters 100 different times in other sports movies just like this one. Hey, filmmakers, here’s a novel idea: why don’t you add some originality to your characters instead of ripping off cartoon characters like Lightning McQueen from the Cars franchise?
And while that’s my main pet peeve with this movie, I also think the script was one of the cheesiest scripts I’ve sat through in a long time. I mean, you can guess every word and action a character does or says. The ending and beginning both look like they were ripped out of numerous racing movies; they made me groan and roll my eyes. It’s just a very boring script, which makes for a equally boring movie.
The charming cast and slick direction by Neill Blomkamp can’t save things here, as Gran Turismo fails to take advantage of its cool concept and instead will disappoint both its audience and the gamers that grew up with Gran Turismo in the first place.