This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn’t exist.
It’s impossible not to chuckle a little bit in a movie theater, when you see PlayStation as one of the producers of a movie. That’s just straight up silly and kinda stupid. What’s shockingly not silly and kinda stupid is Gran Turismo, a straightforward sports movie that slowly wins you over as it goes on. And that’s even with Orlando Bloom’s ludicrous anti-Legolas haircut, a more difficult problem to overcome than you think.
Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story (ok, that’s a hella stupid subtitle) pilfers the incredible real life fable of Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe). In 2012, Mardenborough was living in Wales, ruling the online interwebs playing Gran Turismo on PlayStation while his stern soccer obsessed dad Steve (Djimon Hounsou) hopes he gets out of the house and stops playing silly indoor games like Jann’s brother. Stuck with no hope to live his dream building or racing cars, Jann gets thrown a line from Nissan and PlayStation. Danny Moore (Orlando Bloom) convinced a bunch of Nissan execs to give the top online Gran Turismo player a shot at racing real cars. Jann gets selected as a finalist, and starts practicing and learning under the tutelage of former racer Jack Salter (David Harbour), pretty dubious about this whole marketing gimmick.
After a decade of faltering after a stellar first film, Neill Blomkamp gets back to basics with Gran Turismo. Adapting a video game can be pretty tough trying to appeal to movie and video game fans simultaneously. But with very little “lore” to worry about (like the mediocre Assassin’s Creed), Blomkamp really just has to make sure all the racing sequences are exciting. Thankfully, he succeeds. He smartly fuses gameplay with real life racing (like Jann’s story) to give the racing sequences a little extra heft and make it easier to follow what’s going on for a racing novice like me. Jann’s current place will freeze frame above his car for a second before continuing, only to shift into the car for some real life strategizing, then some hybrid game/movie effect magic to execute an inside pass outside of the expected route of the drivers. Most importantly, when bad things happen, the sound design really makes you feel the crunching and crashing to remind the audience that we’ve left the game and we’re firmly in a consequence filled real world.
Blomkamp also got luck with his actors, who wholly commit to something they could have easily phoned in. I continue to be impressed with David Harbour’s movie career after Stranger Things. Even if the movie’s bad, he really gives his all, and his Jack follows in a long line of past their prime trainers with haunted pasts helping the hero win. Orlando Bloom and Djimon Hounsou don’t get a lot to do, but they really give more than what’s written on the page. Even Josha Stradowski and Darren Barnet give their WASPy b*tchy good looks to playing Jann’s rivals in the most cruel elitist way possible. This commitment really supports Archie Madekwe focus on all the heavy lifting he has to do as the fresh faced hero, making us really root for Jann and especially feel for him when things go very bad.
With Mario making a billion dollars, we’re only gonna get more video game adaptations. Generally I’d be dreading the prospect, as the 1990s Mortal Kombat was the best of the bunch for WAY too long. However, movies like Gran Turismo make me hope the quality might be on the upswing. As I say that, we’re now due for some sh*tty Jason Statham Duke Nukem game out next year. My bad y’all.