Come on, man. Can’t you stop being annoying for one second?
2013 has not been the best year for animation. The Croods, Epic, Despicable Me 2, amongst others, have done very little to entertain me. They always play it safe, rely on cheap jokes, and never create any sense of real danger. Even Monsters University, which I consider the best animated film of the year so far, was nothing extraordinary. So, maybe the latest from Dreamworks Animation was going to turn that around with Turbo? Sadly, that is not the case. Turbo drifts into that same camp of not trying to go outside of the box.
If you have seen the fairly irritating trailers, you will know that Turbo follows a snail named Theo, nicknamed Turbo and voiced by Ry Rens, wants to go fast, Ricky Bobby fast. Unfortunately for him, biology and nature get in the way. His brother Chet (Paul Giamatti) constantly has to remind him for this and bring him down to believing that Turbo is just going to have to deal with being a slow, insignificant snail. Well, lucky for him, one day when he is cruising down the street, he gets flown around some cars in traffic and lands on a car in a drag race. He is then sucked into the engine, doused with nitrous oxide, and gets the magical ability of being really, really fast. So fast that he can now fulfill his dream of racing in the Indianapolis 500. He teams up with Taco salesman and snail racing enthusiast Tito (Michael Peña), who happens to collect Turbo and his brother.
If you do not know how the rest of this story is going to play out, then you obviously have never been to a movie before. There are obstacles, there is a villain, no one believes in him, a true underdog story. He has a group of wacky snail friends, led by Samuel L. Jackson snail (I am sure the snail has a different name…but he is Samuel L. Jackson), to be the comic relief and the ones to instill Turbo with confidence. Tito has his own brother not believing him parallel. It is about as safe a story as you can get. It does not offend anyone. It is a proven crowd pleaser. Then the movie ends, and you walk out of the theater wondering what you should go eat.
If you have learned anything about me reading my reviews, it will be that I love when movies try new things, or try and figure out a new way to tell something familiar. This movie does none of that. It is so cookie cutter that I could tell you lines characters were going to say before they even said them. Like I said, the movie is so unoffensive that you cannot really get mad at it. You are just bored the whole time. Samuel L. Jackson manages to make you laugh a few times (I believe I laughed a grand total of six times), but that is hardly worth however much you paying for a ticket.
As is the case with all CG animated movies that come out nowadays, the animation is very slick, curvy, and bright. Computer animation has gotten to the point that it is so uniform that talking about how it looks seems innocuous. It is clearly made by people who know how to operate a computer very well. They “shoot” the racing scenes in a way that makes sense. The space between objects is clear, and the geography of everything makes sense, which was something I appreciated. But because everything was so rote leading up to it, I could hardly get excited about the races themselves.
Had this movie been about people and not snails, no one would give it a second look. But a snail doll will probably sell well at Target. The artists create sterile, cute snails that are easily appealing to children. That is the only trick it has up itself. There is a snail that is really fast. The movie is just an underdog story, and not a particularly inventive one at that. If you want to shut you kids up for ninety minutes, then this is a fine thing to go see. But if you want something that will stay with your kids and influence how they watch movies, stay at home and watch WALL•E on Blu-ray. It is entertaining and engaging. Turbo is just colors on the screen with the occasional funny quip from Sam Jackson.
Grade: D+
