If
there’s a trend that has emerged as the grand tradition of the American CG
feature, it’s that of the unlikely underdog transcending his nature. Little
cleaning robots can alter the fate of humanity. An ant can shine as an individual. The evil mastermind can become a pleasant family man. So it’s
probably not a huge surprise to anyone that eventually, a film was going to
come out about a snail being able to go really, really, really fast.
This
is probably the most babyish of all the films made by Dreamworks Animation, who
post-Shrek have tended to go for vaguely subversive and hip (Shark
Tale, Monsters vs Aliens) or – my personal preferences – relatively epic
and serious (How to Train Your Dragon, Rise of the Guardians). They
probably need to veer towards the latter to finally shake off the
Pixar-derivative tag, with this film having a whiff of A-Bug’s-Life-Meets-Cars about it. But there’s always a different flavour to the Dreamworks comedies
that is a bit cheekier than anything from Pixar and less timeless and
universal. And it’s in this frame of reference that Turbo succeeds – in being
something a little by-the-numbers and uninspired, but very silly and very
enjoyable.
Ordinary
garden snail Theo is unhappy. Though he works loyally in the tomato patch with
the other snails – where death by crow is a sad everyday occurrence – at nights
he watches videos of championship car racing and dreams of going fast. After a
particularly bad day, he goes to watch the cars at the freeway and ends up
managing to fall into the engine of a souped-up car during a street race. He is
quite literally turbo-charged as he is caught by a flooding of nitrous oxide,
which in an origin story worthy of Stan Lee for being half-baked and
preposterous, this makes him not only able to travel at the speeds of a race
car, but to gain other car features as well, like a radio, headlamp eyes and
even a reversing beep.
When
his brother Chet is taken by the crows, Theo chases after them and rescues him.
However, he is caught by a portly Mexican who enters him into a snail race
outside his run-down taco stand. When he witnesses the absurd speed of Theo –
now wanting to be known as ‘Turbo’ – Tito the cuddly Mexican realises that
Turbo could be the key to revitalising their business. Theo himself, though, he
has grander plans than a tourist attraction, and just might be able to convince
Tito to get him entered into the Indianapolis
500, where he can meet his heroes.
A
very classic underdog story, there’s a lot about Turbo that is very
obvious storytelling, but for me one big qualm at the centre. It seems strange
for me that the film goes from ‘let’s enter a snail into the Indy 500 to get
publicity for our taco stand’ to ‘Turbo must win or the whole thing is
meaningless.’ Let’s face it, they got a snail into a major car race. There’s a
montage depicting how Turbo goes viral online that’s crucial to the rest of the
plot, which even includes a pastiche of Autotune the News-style Youtube
compositions, which the composer must have had a whole lot of fun putting
together. Surely that’s enough to make the taco stand incredibly famous? I can
cope with the usual cartoon questions of ‘why isn’t the entire world wanting to
experiment on/reproduce/analyse this incredible phenomenon? Doesn’t the way the
snails are so obviously sapient change every human being’s outlook on other
life on Earth?’ and suchlike, but that moral heart of the film, that the hero
must actually win rather than just participating and perhaps more
importantly that the unworthy rival must lose…that doesn’t sit well.
There’s
not much to say technically. Obviously, a huge amount of work went into Turbo,
but it’s the same animation we are constantly seeing in CG animations these
days. They’ve done a lot of work making such an unappealing creature as a snail
look like a friendly cartoon character, with hints at chins in the shapes of
the bodies, but these aren’t the first cute snails we’ve ever seen. Ryan
Reynolds and Paul Giamatti are a spirited duo, and there’s no doubt that it’s a
strange thrill to hear Samuel L. Jackson and Snoop Dogg collaborating as – of all
things – a couple of badass snails, though it certainly feeds the notion that
those two will do any roles these days.
It
probably won’t surprise or particularly delight anybody, but Turbo will
entertain enough for it to be worthwhile giving it a try. As for the spin-off
series…can’t say I feel much inclined to watch that any time soon.
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