Gran Turismo
Year: 2023
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Starring: Orlando Bloom, David Harbour & Archie Madewke
Runtime: 134 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 09/08/23
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Starring: Orlando Bloom, David Harbour & Archie Madewke
Runtime: 134 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 09/08/23
One of the first games I ever remember playing was Gran Turismo 2 on the original PlayStation. My older sister and I would frequently race on it, and whilst I probably spent more time crashing into the side of the track than actually racing her, it’s a franchise I have always kept close to my heart, partly because of my nostalgia for those memories.
‘The Real Droving Simulator’, that’s Gran Turismo’s subheading, and it’s because the games have always strived for unparalleled realism above all else. These are true driving simulators, and franchise developers Polyphony Digital have a passion for all things cars.
It came as a surprise that Sony opted for GT to be translated to film so early in their leap into the multimedia space; and I have to say the trailers didn’t fill me with confidence. Clunky dialogue, stiff acting, and a distinct lack of racing made the Gran Turismo film look like a total car crash. But does it manage to sprint across the finish line in pole position?
Welsh teenager Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe) is one of the best Gran Turismo players in the world. When Nissan Motorsport announces the creation of their GT Academy, spearheaded by marketing executive Danny Moore (Orlando Bloom), Jann is selected to take part, with the grand prize being the opportunity to race professionally for Nissan. Skeptical of putting gamers behind the wheel of real race cars, seasoned professional Jack Salter (David Harbour) is signed on to oversee the academy and ensure its safety.
As Jann rises through the ranks, he discovers that knowing the game will only get him so far, and to really make his mark he must prove he has the nerve to be behind the wheel.
‘The Real Droving Simulator’, that’s Gran Turismo’s subheading, and it’s because the games have always strived for unparalleled realism above all else. These are true driving simulators, and franchise developers Polyphony Digital have a passion for all things cars.
It came as a surprise that Sony opted for GT to be translated to film so early in their leap into the multimedia space; and I have to say the trailers didn’t fill me with confidence. Clunky dialogue, stiff acting, and a distinct lack of racing made the Gran Turismo film look like a total car crash. But does it manage to sprint across the finish line in pole position?
Welsh teenager Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe) is one of the best Gran Turismo players in the world. When Nissan Motorsport announces the creation of their GT Academy, spearheaded by marketing executive Danny Moore (Orlando Bloom), Jann is selected to take part, with the grand prize being the opportunity to race professionally for Nissan. Skeptical of putting gamers behind the wheel of real race cars, seasoned professional Jack Salter (David Harbour) is signed on to oversee the academy and ensure its safety.
As Jann rises through the ranks, he discovers that knowing the game will only get him so far, and to really make his mark he must prove he has the nerve to be behind the wheel.
The first question with any video game adaptation is whether it remains faithful to the source material. Unfortunately, the answer here is no. Gran Turismo is a franchise that has a ceaseless love for motor vehicles, and motor racing; but Gran Turismo the film feels as though it has a surface level interest in any of these things.
The story is based on the true story of the real Jann Mardenborough who competed in the real GT Academy that Nissan really hosted back in 2011. It should be an inspirational story for all aspiring racing drivers, or even just gamers who want to make it professionally, but instead Gran Turismo feels manufactured, completely sterile, and void of any artistic flair. Honestly if I didn’t already know it was a true story, I’d feel like this had been cooked up by a bunch of Sony executives in an afternoon.
The real Mardenborough’s story is inspiring, no doubt about it. But whatever happened in this translation to the big screen it lost almost all of its impact and heart.
It is the most cookie cutter and cliche underdog story I’ve seen in a long time, jam packed with all the conveniences and contrivances you’d expect such as Mardenborough only ever winning races by a split second, but only after having clawed his way from the back of the pack through seemingly impossible means. He suffers a tragedy that makes him question whether he wants to continue down this path but comes to realise it would be more of a tragedy to give up on his calling…and so on and so forth in exactly the manner you’d expect.
It doesn’t help that the dialogue is so badly written. There’s no nuance at all, everyone just says everything in the most perfunctory way possible. The only actor to make it through this horrendous script is Harbour who provides a reasonably good performance, but Madekwe is really bad here. Most of the time I couldn’t hear what he was saying because he was mumbling like a moody teenager, and when I could hear it, I usually wished I hadn’t. He has the emotional range of a teaspoon, and honestly, I had no desire to see Mardenborough win, because almost every other person at the GT Academy was more enjoyable to watch than Madekwe’s performance.
But he’s not even the worst in show here, that goes to Bloom. Watching the trailers for this film I could never tell if the dialogue had been stitched together in a weird way or if Bloom just couldn’t act and the answer is that this is arguably one of the worst performances I have seen of the year in a major Hollywood film. Having recently re-watched the Pirates of the Caribbean films I’m not even sure if Orlando Bloom could ever act and we just gave him a pass because he was dreamy in the mid 00’s, but here in Gran Turismo it’s like he doesn’t even know how to talk like a normal human being.
The story is based on the true story of the real Jann Mardenborough who competed in the real GT Academy that Nissan really hosted back in 2011. It should be an inspirational story for all aspiring racing drivers, or even just gamers who want to make it professionally, but instead Gran Turismo feels manufactured, completely sterile, and void of any artistic flair. Honestly if I didn’t already know it was a true story, I’d feel like this had been cooked up by a bunch of Sony executives in an afternoon.
The real Mardenborough’s story is inspiring, no doubt about it. But whatever happened in this translation to the big screen it lost almost all of its impact and heart.
It is the most cookie cutter and cliche underdog story I’ve seen in a long time, jam packed with all the conveniences and contrivances you’d expect such as Mardenborough only ever winning races by a split second, but only after having clawed his way from the back of the pack through seemingly impossible means. He suffers a tragedy that makes him question whether he wants to continue down this path but comes to realise it would be more of a tragedy to give up on his calling…and so on and so forth in exactly the manner you’d expect.
It doesn’t help that the dialogue is so badly written. There’s no nuance at all, everyone just says everything in the most perfunctory way possible. The only actor to make it through this horrendous script is Harbour who provides a reasonably good performance, but Madekwe is really bad here. Most of the time I couldn’t hear what he was saying because he was mumbling like a moody teenager, and when I could hear it, I usually wished I hadn’t. He has the emotional range of a teaspoon, and honestly, I had no desire to see Mardenborough win, because almost every other person at the GT Academy was more enjoyable to watch than Madekwe’s performance.
But he’s not even the worst in show here, that goes to Bloom. Watching the trailers for this film I could never tell if the dialogue had been stitched together in a weird way or if Bloom just couldn’t act and the answer is that this is arguably one of the worst performances I have seen of the year in a major Hollywood film. Having recently re-watched the Pirates of the Caribbean films I’m not even sure if Orlando Bloom could ever act and we just gave him a pass because he was dreamy in the mid 00’s, but here in Gran Turismo it’s like he doesn’t even know how to talk like a normal human being.
I think I could have gotten past most of this had the racing been good. I had braced myself for a bad story and bad performances from the trailer, but the driving needed to be good. It’s a resounding meh. It starts off pretty dull and stays that way until around midway through the second act when Jann races the Nürburgring in Germany. From here the stakes feel genuinely raised, and the racing finally becomes exhilarating. We’re not talking Ford vs Ferrari levels of excitement here, but I could get into it, and this is where the film felt the truest to the games. Analysing racing lines, tight and fast overtaking, and a feeling like you’re actually there. Post-Nürburgring there’s only one more race, the infamous 24 Hours of Le Mans in France. This was also pretty good, not quite as good as the Nürburgring, but definitely better than what we had earlier on.
The film has the same problem that Michael Bay’s Ambulance did in terms of how director Neill Blomkamp has chosen to shoot the racing sequences, it’s just all drones that do mad loops rather than focusing on the action.
The film does sound good though. You get a great rumble off the engines, and the use of Gran Turismo 7’s soundtrack is well placed. Plus, fans of the games will surely get a kick out of all the sound effects used throughout.
I didn’t have high hopes for Gran Turismo and I would say it about met my expectations. The story, despite being based on a real event, feels manufactured and cliché. The script is poorly written, the performances are not good, apart from Harbour, who’s clearly making the best out of the material he has. The racing is fine, it’s not going to take your breath away, but at least with the races later in the film it does feel as though the DNA of the games has finally seeped through.
This is another case of a sub-par video game movie, which in this day and age sticks out like a sore thumb because they’ve been getting pretty good. Admittedly, making a film out of Gran Turismo was never going to be easy, because there’s no story to work with, and I think the route that writers Jason Hall & Alex Tse took by telling the story of the GT Academy competition was the best thing to do. It’s just done with such a lack of conviction, and it feels almost amateur at times. In the right hands this could have been great, but it’s just not particularly interesting.
The film has the same problem that Michael Bay’s Ambulance did in terms of how director Neill Blomkamp has chosen to shoot the racing sequences, it’s just all drones that do mad loops rather than focusing on the action.
The film does sound good though. You get a great rumble off the engines, and the use of Gran Turismo 7’s soundtrack is well placed. Plus, fans of the games will surely get a kick out of all the sound effects used throughout.
I didn’t have high hopes for Gran Turismo and I would say it about met my expectations. The story, despite being based on a real event, feels manufactured and cliché. The script is poorly written, the performances are not good, apart from Harbour, who’s clearly making the best out of the material he has. The racing is fine, it’s not going to take your breath away, but at least with the races later in the film it does feel as though the DNA of the games has finally seeped through.
This is another case of a sub-par video game movie, which in this day and age sticks out like a sore thumb because they’ve been getting pretty good. Admittedly, making a film out of Gran Turismo was never going to be easy, because there’s no story to work with, and I think the route that writers Jason Hall & Alex Tse took by telling the story of the GT Academy competition was the best thing to do. It’s just done with such a lack of conviction, and it feels almost amateur at times. In the right hands this could have been great, but it’s just not particularly interesting.