Theo/Turbo: Ryan Reynolds
Chet: Paul Giamatti
Tito: Michael Peña
Whiplash: Samuel L. Jackson
Angelo: Luis Guzmán
Guy Gagné: Bill Hader
Smoove Move: Snoop Dogg
Burn: Maya Rudolph
Skidmark: Ben Schwartz
Bobby: Richard Jenkins
Kim Ly: Ken Jeong
Paz: Michelle Rodriguez
White Shadow: Michael Patrick Bell
DreamWorks Animation SKG
presents a film directed by David Soren. Written by Darren Lemke and Robert
Siegel and Soren. Running time: 96 min. Rated PG (for some mild action and
thematic elements).
OK, there’s this huge
monumental absurdly ridiculous detail in the new movie “Turbo” that you must
just accept for all its improbability in order to enjoy the movie. The
filmmakers seem to be acutely aware of the level of suspension of disbelief for
which they are asking here. The idea of a snail competing in the Indianapolis
500 car race is an absolutely incongruous rock to swallow. But then, this is a
family cartoon, not a place where realism is one of the cornerstones of the
genre. So, if you can get past that little nugget of improbability, that’s
about the most amount of work you’re going to have to do for this good-natured,
feel good cartoon.
Theo is a snail. As depicted
here, a snail’s life isn’t all that different from a human factory worker, or
office worker. I suppose we aren’t in as much danger of being scooped up by a
hungry bird on our morning commute. Like everything else in a snail’s life,
that’s just an element of it. It happens.
It is no surprise to
discover that Theo dreams of something greater. He watches Indy car races in
the garage where he shelters every evening just a few yards away from the
tomato garden where he and his brother work every day. His brother, Chet, is a
more sensible snail who spends much of his time defending his brother against
snails who wish Theo would take his dreams of speed and zoom away from their
garden. Even Chet has reached his final nerve for Theo’s unrealistic goals.
After making a fool of
himself at the tomato plant (ha! I just got that), Theo wanders off and ends up
on the hood of a street-racing car in an aqueduct race. While he enjoys the
speed of the race, he’s eventually sucked up into the car’s engine. When the
driver injects nitro into the system, Theo is changed; much the same way a
superhero changes when whatever experiment they’re working on imbues them with
their superpowers. Director David Soren designs this sequence to mirror such
transformation sequences in superhero movies.
When Theo wakes, he finds he
has the power of speed and decides to call himself Turbo. Through a series of
setbacks, he and Chet find themselves hooked up with a band of misfits, both
snail and human. The humans occupy a run down strip mall. Tito and his brother
run a taco stand that doesn’t exactly benefit from Tito’s harebrained schemes.
It’s no surprise that his brother doesn’t support his idea to enter his
newfound snail into the Indy 500.
As you can probably guess they do and it does, eventually.
There is very little
original to be found in this material, but it has all the necessary elements to
make it successful. There is a large cast of characters, who all bring their
unique abilities to making Turbo’s dreams come true. It also allows for a good
amount of recognizable voices, like Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Samuel L.
Jackson, Bill Hader, Snoop Dogg, and Richard Jenkins, among others. Yes, that’s
the guy from “Community” and “The Hangover”, Ken Jeong, voicing the old Asian
woman.
Like any good family film,
“Turbo” contains a message about believing in yourself, or finding your true
self, or being true to who you are, or some such thing that will give the whole
experience poignancy for your kids to bring away from it other than just
watching a snail race around a track and seeing some cars crash. What I liked a
little more about this message was that it had a qualifier to it. You can’t
just be true to yourself. A feat like that requires support, and another
message of the movie is the importance of believing in others. It’s no mistake
the two lead characters are brothers. This is one of the hardest things for
brothers to do. Trust me as a younger brother myself. But if an older brother
can support a younger brother, nothing is more powerful.
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