'Gran Turismo' Spoiler-Free Review
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What if you could parlay your videogame racing talents into becoming a real-life professional racer? That is the premise of the upcoming racing movie, Gran Turismo, which is inspired by the real-life story of Jann Mardenborough, who took his love of the popular PlayStation game franchise, Gran Turismo, first released in 1997, from his UK bedroom into the professional racing world.
As part of a special partnership between Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Polyphony Digital, and Nissan Europe, Jann and other fans of Gran Turismo were able to participate in the GT Academy from 2008-2016 which aimed to train and license the best gamers into professional drivers, among which Mardenborough was one of the more famous graduates of this program.
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Image Source: IMDb
The film follows Mardenborough’s journey through the GT Academy and into the wide world of professional racing, assisted by an underdog racing team led by businessman Danny Moore, played by Pirates of the Caribbean’s Orlando Bloom, who comes up with the idea to help get more people interested in buying cars. There is also Jack Salter, played by Stranger Things’ David Harbour. Mardenborough is portrayed in the film by Archi Madekwe and the real-life Mardenborough acted in some scenes as a stunt double for Madekwe. Mardenborough’s father, Steve, is portrayed by Djimon Hounsou, and his mother, Lesley, is played by former Spice Girl, Geri Halliwell-Horner. The screenplay was written by Jason Hall and Zach Baylin. The film, which is the first of his to carry a PG-13 rating, is directed by Neil Blomkamp. The pulse-pounding electronic score was composed by Lorne Balfe and Andrew Kawczynski.
Thanks to some free tickets being given out by Sony promoters at Gen Con Indy, my wife and I were able to preview the movie this past week. We had already seen previews for the movie while seeing other movies during the last few months and the movie seemed interesting, although we had not seriously thought about seeing it in the theater before receiving the free tickets to it. We went into the film with the expectation that we would probably enjoy it well enough and the film exceeded our expectations, with us coming out of the movie wanting to get the movie on home video and even check out the game itself.
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The movie seemed fairly predictable, following the usual story arc of most sports movies, with successes and failures, rivalries, tragedy, interpersonal drama, and, of course, triumph. The actors largely do a good job in the movie, particularly Harbour, whose persona as Sheriff Jim Hopper from Stranger Things, is largely carried over into this movie, portraying a troubled former race car drive-turned-engineer brought in by Bloom’s businessman, Danny Moore, to help keep the racers at the GT Academy safe. Harbour’s character, Jack Salter, becomes a mentor to the young Mardenborough, who, in turn, helps him face up to his past failures as a racer.
The visuals in the movie are the best parts of the movie, occasionally blending the Gran Turismo videogame graphics with some of the racing scenes The electronic score, along with some well-chosen popular songs, including Salter’s favorite song, Black Sabbath’s Paranoid and Mardenborough’s favorites for helping him relax before racing, such as Kenny G’s Songbird and Enya’s Orinoco Flow make for a good overall soundtrack for the movie. If there are any criticisms of the movie, it would probably only be that it is a bit long (a little over two hours) and could have maybe been trimmed down somewhat, however, it is only a minor issue overall.
Rating: 8/10
The film is currently set to be officially released in theaters on August 25, 2023.
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