'Turbo'
The Bottom Line
A juiced snail strives to win the Indy 500 in a very straight-line, young boy-aimed animated outing.
In delivering a film about a garden snail that dreams of winning the Indy 500, it's as if the makers of Turbo
had been pressed to come up with the most extreme underdog tale they
could think of. Or else animators really are running out of ideas for
original new characters. An attractively designed but narratively
challenged, one-note film that skews younger than the norm for big
animated features these days and has limited appeal for little girls,
this second Fox release (after The Croods) from DreamWorks Animation since the latter left Paramount looks to do mid-range business with family audiences.
“The sooner you accept the dull, miserable nature of your existence, the happier you'll be,” worldly-wise snail Chet (Paul Giamatti) advises his younger brother Turbo (Ryan Reynolds) after yet another day scouring a garden tomato patch. Turbo spends all his downtime watching VHS tapes of professional car races, especially the many won by his hero, Guy Gagne (Bill Hader, amusingly assuming a French-Canadian accent).
Of course, the message of the film, as with so many other kid-inspirational cartoons and other fantasies, is that no dream is too big, you can do anything if you set your mind to it, etc., etc. Unfortunately, the real embedded lesson of Turbo is that, if you're too small or weak or otherwise incapable of greatness, you have a shot to win if you're juiced.
Which is what happens late one night when Turbo, coming upon a Fast & Furious-style drag race in the dry L.A. River bed, gets sucked into an engine. Instead of being toasted, however, the little guy becomes infused with nitrous oxide, enabling him to zoom along the ground seemingly as fast as Superman shoots through the skies. Ahhh, the wonders of chemicals and strength enhancers. Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire would approve.
Of course, Turbo needs a sponsor, which in finds in the form of Van Nuys taco truck driver Tito (Michael Pena), a wild dreamer himself who argues endlessly with his more practical brother Angelo (Luis Guzman) about the merits of promoting their forlorn business—Dos Bros Tacos—with a snail. Joining in is a rainbow coalition of smart-mouthed supporting snails and neighboring business owners voiced by the eminent likes of Samuel L. Jackson, Michelle Rodriguez, Snoop Dogg, Maya Rudolph, Ben Schwartz, Richard Jenkins and Ken Jeong.
The ultimate destination—Indianapolis--is inevitable but it takes a long time to get there, given a script by director David Soren (a dialogue writer on Shark Tale), Darren Lemke (Shrek Forever After, Jack the Giant Slayer) and Robert Siegel (The Wrestler, Big Fan) that is short on invention and long on largely unfunny yacking. Once the gang arrives and begins overcoming the obstacles that might prevent a snail from entering a car race (conveniently unmentioned is the most obvious one, that Turbo lacks four wheels and an engine), the hitherto genial Guy Gagne suddenly becomes a villain, feeling so threatened by the now-mighty mollusk that he goes to all lengths to prevent an eternally humiliating defeat.
In the run-up to the race and then during it, you mostly wonder about how a critter so small it can't be seen on the track (although its blue/white-hot streak can be) will avoid being crunched by the giant tires of the humans' racing machines; indeed, the film's most irreverent merit is that it is periodically honest about the fate of snails by casually showing them getting squashed by humans or gobbled up by animals, especially crows. In the event, Turbo just zips through traffic as if in an obstacle course, the obvious longshot pipsqueak favorite in a field of giants.
Although the dialogue becomes repetitive, the voice performances are all solid and distinctive. But better than that are some of the visuals, particularly in nocturnal scenes around the taco stand, which create both a heightened realistic evocation of shabby San Fernando Valley environs and an echo of classic noir visions of semi-desperate L.A. characters deciding to put all their chips on one roll of the dice. Kudos to the director and the animators on this score, but it should be noted that, just as Roger Deakins was engaged to advise on Rango, ace cinematographer Wally Pfister worked as visual consultant here. Henry Jackman's score is nothing if not propulsive.
Opens: July 17 (20th Century Fox)
Production: DreamWorks Animation SKG
Voice cast: Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Michael Pena, Luis Guzman, Bill Hader, Snoop Dogg, Maya Rudolph, Ben Schwartz, Richard Jenkins, Ken Jeong, Michelle Rodriguez
Director: David Soren
Screenwriters: David Soren, Darren Lemke, Robert Siegel, story by David Soren
Producer: Lisa Stewart
Production designer: Michael Isaak
Editor: James Ryan
Music: Henry Jackman
Visual effects supervisor: Sean Phillips
Visual consultant: Wally Pfister
PG rating, 95 minutes
“The sooner you accept the dull, miserable nature of your existence, the happier you'll be,” worldly-wise snail Chet (Paul Giamatti) advises his younger brother Turbo (Ryan Reynolds) after yet another day scouring a garden tomato patch. Turbo spends all his downtime watching VHS tapes of professional car races, especially the many won by his hero, Guy Gagne (Bill Hader, amusingly assuming a French-Canadian accent).
Of course, the message of the film, as with so many other kid-inspirational cartoons and other fantasies, is that no dream is too big, you can do anything if you set your mind to it, etc., etc. Unfortunately, the real embedded lesson of Turbo is that, if you're too small or weak or otherwise incapable of greatness, you have a shot to win if you're juiced.
Which is what happens late one night when Turbo, coming upon a Fast & Furious-style drag race in the dry L.A. River bed, gets sucked into an engine. Instead of being toasted, however, the little guy becomes infused with nitrous oxide, enabling him to zoom along the ground seemingly as fast as Superman shoots through the skies. Ahhh, the wonders of chemicals and strength enhancers. Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire would approve.
Of course, Turbo needs a sponsor, which in finds in the form of Van Nuys taco truck driver Tito (Michael Pena), a wild dreamer himself who argues endlessly with his more practical brother Angelo (Luis Guzman) about the merits of promoting their forlorn business—Dos Bros Tacos—with a snail. Joining in is a rainbow coalition of smart-mouthed supporting snails and neighboring business owners voiced by the eminent likes of Samuel L. Jackson, Michelle Rodriguez, Snoop Dogg, Maya Rudolph, Ben Schwartz, Richard Jenkins and Ken Jeong.
The ultimate destination—Indianapolis--is inevitable but it takes a long time to get there, given a script by director David Soren (a dialogue writer on Shark Tale), Darren Lemke (Shrek Forever After, Jack the Giant Slayer) and Robert Siegel (The Wrestler, Big Fan) that is short on invention and long on largely unfunny yacking. Once the gang arrives and begins overcoming the obstacles that might prevent a snail from entering a car race (conveniently unmentioned is the most obvious one, that Turbo lacks four wheels and an engine), the hitherto genial Guy Gagne suddenly becomes a villain, feeling so threatened by the now-mighty mollusk that he goes to all lengths to prevent an eternally humiliating defeat.
In the run-up to the race and then during it, you mostly wonder about how a critter so small it can't be seen on the track (although its blue/white-hot streak can be) will avoid being crunched by the giant tires of the humans' racing machines; indeed, the film's most irreverent merit is that it is periodically honest about the fate of snails by casually showing them getting squashed by humans or gobbled up by animals, especially crows. In the event, Turbo just zips through traffic as if in an obstacle course, the obvious longshot pipsqueak favorite in a field of giants.
Although the dialogue becomes repetitive, the voice performances are all solid and distinctive. But better than that are some of the visuals, particularly in nocturnal scenes around the taco stand, which create both a heightened realistic evocation of shabby San Fernando Valley environs and an echo of classic noir visions of semi-desperate L.A. characters deciding to put all their chips on one roll of the dice. Kudos to the director and the animators on this score, but it should be noted that, just as Roger Deakins was engaged to advise on Rango, ace cinematographer Wally Pfister worked as visual consultant here. Henry Jackman's score is nothing if not propulsive.
Opens: July 17 (20th Century Fox)
Production: DreamWorks Animation SKG
Voice cast: Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Michael Pena, Luis Guzman, Bill Hader, Snoop Dogg, Maya Rudolph, Ben Schwartz, Richard Jenkins, Ken Jeong, Michelle Rodriguez
Director: David Soren
Screenwriters: David Soren, Darren Lemke, Robert Siegel, story by David Soren
Producer: Lisa Stewart
Production designer: Michael Isaak
Editor: James Ryan
Music: Henry Jackman
Visual effects supervisor: Sean Phillips
Visual consultant: Wally Pfister
PG rating, 95 minutes
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