Review: “Gran Turismo” ★★
Since the late '90s the "Gran Turismo" racing games for Play Station have grossed billions of dollars rivaling some movie franchises at the box office, Neill Blookamp (the director of District 9 and Chapie) delivers a commercial film based on the true story of Jann Mardenborough a "Gran Turismo" enthusiast who became a professional racing driver by signing a contract with the automotive brand Nissan.
Mardenborough's leap from the video game, which is more of a pixelated simulator project to professional circuit racing competitions was an effective advertisement for Gran Turismo to something more than a game, but Jann's transition was not all smooth for director Neill Blookamp's challenge, Jann (Archie Madekwe) a teenager from Cardiff (Wales) faces an apprenticeship on the racetrack, the story of this driver is also the story of a young man proving his worth to his family and other skeptics.
The film begins by resembling video game levels as Jann races around the world to get his contract with Nissan, in the early sequences we see how Jann's father (Djimon Honsou) talks to him about how in the world of video games there is no future and takes him to a railroad yard, Jann eventually wins a contest held by Nissan to recruit their promising "Gran Turismo" players - His mother played by Geri Halliwell Horner, is a bit more encouraging, eventually Jann wins a position in the company's racing academy overseen by a tough engineer, Jack (David Harbour) and a virtuoso marketer, Danny (Orlando Bloom). Once again Jann exceeds expectations and beats out a more TV-ready competitor for the chance to compete professionally.
In his next race as Mardenborough's real-life driver did in 2015, there is no shortage of training and competition, what follows is a formulaic sports story, against all odds, that touches on all genres and clichés (on-track rivalries, raiding outsiders, tensions between private lines and public personas, ecstatic highs, tragic lows, and inevitable third-act resurrections) while conversing a spark of invention, thanks to the peculiar virtual/physical dichotomies of Mardenborough's story about this central paradox, Blookamp visually blurs the line between simulated and "real" racing throughout when young Jann is playing in his room and the graphics conjure a virtual vehicle around him turning his house into a racetrack. Later, when he hits the road, the real world is reimagined as a game replete with flashing graphics ("2nd place," "Goal reached!") glitches and familiar console views reminiscent of the clever visual loops in Jon S. Baird's recent Tetris film.
At first glance the story Based on Jann a young Cardiff Wales is a story of a video gamer turned racing driver, which may seem like a left turn for a filmmaker whose career has been built on fantasy and adventure and how his video game prowess is positioning him on the best racing circuits. While the narrative roots may be "real" this is essentially The Last Starfighter with fast cars, rather than spaceships. Unsurprisingly, Speed Racer (the manga/anime hit that the Wachowskis adapted to the screen in 2008) gets a cheeky name revision. To what seems a bit unoriginal, however, for "Gran Turismo" fans it's a good time to dust off that steering wheel and get back into the simulator.
