Turbo

I’m all for animated movies, but this summer there are just way too many. The one that seems to have been lost in the shuffle is the Dreamworks effort, Turbo. Ryan Reynolds voices the title character, a snail with dreams of winning the Indianapolis 500. When he gains super speed after swimming in an engine full of nitrous oxide, that far-fetched dream becomes a possibility. Now an animated concept about a snail wanting to be fast sounds fun, but having that snail race against Indy cars at 250 mph is a bit crazy. But they had me playing along by the end.

The voice cast is one of the summer’s best with Reynolds leading Samuel L Jackson, Michael Pena, Paul Giamatti and many others. The story has three very distinct acts. First Turbo is living the dull life working on the tomato plants, he then ends up in the city and meets some new friends and then his time at the racetrack. Unfortunately, the first act is unnecessarily slow. The daily grind that is presented lacks any type of hook and has no comedy, emotion or anything else that would draw in an audience’s interest. But the rest of the film picks up to the standard we have come to expect from Dreamworks animation.

The plot spends a lot of time trying to convince us that the snail could in fact race in the Indy 500. It’s a big waste of time because obviously the fact that he’s a snail and not in a car means he couldn’t. That time should be spent developing some of the other characters through humor. For an animated comedy there is a distinct lack of jokes in a number of scenes. But however they do it, the audience is rooting for Turbo to win the race and it is an emotional finish as the snail perseveres toward his goal… which happens to be winning a race designed for cars… as a snail.

Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score.