Director: David Soren
Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Pena, Luis Guzman, Bill Hader
Turbo (Reynolds) is a race-obsessed snail. He dreams of the Indy 500 and feels that speed is locked within him. However, his need for speed (ahem) means that he recklessly puts himself in danger and this behavior causes the other snails to throw him and his brother Chet (Giamatti) out of their clan. After a freak accident, Turbo gets infused with Nitrus Oxide and realizes that he can finally achieve his dream. With the help of the owner of a Taco stand he makes it to the Indy 500, but then Turbo has to deal with the reigning champion as well as the prejudices that go with him being a snail.
I was initially interested in Turbo because it’s basically a superhero origin story, but with a snail. However, the movie didn’t really get going until the last half hour or so when he finally made it to the race. I liked the character and the theme that ‘no dream is too big and no dreamer too small,’ but most of the jokes didn’t land and I felt the first hour was mediocre.
But then the race began and the film’s quality increased dramatically. There was tension, drama and I was caught up in the emotion of the moment. Although it does raise a few questions. Since the authorities let him race would they let, say, the Flash race, or were they counting Turbo’s shell as his car? I also wonder what would have happened had anyone squished him. Would it have counted as murder or would it have been brushed off as an accident as it was just a snail, and would they have got their entry fee back? One other thing I didn’t really get was that the people who entered Turbo in the race did so to get publicity for their little shopping centre, yet they all wore plain white t-shirts with ‘Turbo’ written on them. Surely it made more sense for them to wear t-shirts with the names of their shops, especially since we saw one of them have a t-shirt for his Taco stand earlier!
So it’s quite a flawed movie in parts and it didn’t grab me in the way I was hoping. It’s fairly amusing but it’s only the last half hour that’s really worth watching, the rest is quite forgettable.