Turbo
In this animated feature, Ryan Reynolds hides his million dollar face
to provide the voice of Theo – a garden snail in Los Angeles who
calls himself Turbo. Even though he is speed challenged, the slow poke
with a shell dreams of being a race car driver just like his idol Guy
Gagne (Bill Hader).
All day and all night, Turbo imagines he is on the track at the Indy
500, which annoys his older, more conservative and safety conscious
brother, Chet (Paul Giamatti). While Turbo wants to speed off into the
sunset, Chet is perfectly happy working in the tomato garden and
avoiding any of the many dangers around him and the rest of the snails.
Through a series of convoluted events, Turbo ends up in the middle of a
drag race, and gets sucked into the engine of the car where he is
exposed to the nitrous oxide racers use to go super fast. Much like
being bitten by a radioactive spider makes you into Spiderman, the
nitrous oxide has given Turbo the ability to go 200 or more miles per
hour, which, in an even more convoluted series of events, may take him
all the way to Indianapolis for the big race (and not in the luxury
boxes as escargot).
Will Turbo achieve his dream?
Turbo isn’t a great movie, but it is
entertaining enough to put a smile on most faces, and give you a chance
to giggle (an especially demented gag reminds us that crows and snails
are not the best of friends, and gives the adults a shred of hope that
something in this movie may be for them).
As written by Darren Lemke, Robert Siegel, and David Soren, no one in
the audience, especially the small children (who are most likely to be
bugging Mom and Dad to the point of insanity to buy a ticket), will
ever feel like the material is over their heads. Turbo has a clunky,
simple story where transitions and twists are abrupt and just serve to
propel us into the next section regardless of meaning or making sense,
but we are talking about a snail that races against Indy cars at 200
miles an hour, so you can’t say you were expecting subtlety,
nuance or realism. In that sense, it may be more real than anything you
have seen on Keeping Up With The Kardashians.
However, Turbo does play strongly on the theme of reaching to
achieve your dreams in the face of those who are willing to tell you it
can never happen. It’s a nice thought for kids in the crowd, and,
possibly, a touch inspirational for the adults who have let their
dreams die in the cloud of compromise and real life problems.
Plus, you can’t help but find the snail crew funny. Along the
way, Turbo and Chet meet some other snails, led by Samuel L. Jackson
and Maya Rudolph, who also love to race and get involved in some silly
antics designed to make every kid in the crowd want to buy all of the
Turbo toys, which should just be sold at the ticket window to save Mom
and Dad some time and the gas needed to make a trip to Toys R Us (or
maybe Toys R Us or Wal-Mart will start their own movie theaters so you
can see the movie, buy the toys and buy the cheap candy you are going
to sneak into the theater with anyway. I have said too much).
Turbo is the kind of summer distraction that
is harmless, so why not go for it.
Turbo is rated PG for some mild action and thematic elements.
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