NOW IN THEATERS! The trailers for director Neill Blomkamp’s Gran Turismo are just horrible. They make the film, written by Jason Hall, Zach Baylin, and Alex Tse, look like The Last Starfighter: a video gamer wins a Playstation Gran Turismo tournament and now gets to drive real racecars. Yep. This is all real. Fortunately, the movie is far better than the simplistic logline.
Gran Turismo is about Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe), a young teen who spends all his time playing Gran Turismo. His father, Steven (Djimon Hounsou), and brother, Coby (Daniel Puig), would like him to be a footballer. Seeing that his son is squandering his life away, Steve gets him a job for a day working the trainyard to show him where his life is headed if he continues playing video games.
“…teaching the best Gran Turismo gamers worldwide to train and ultimately compete on the professional racing circuit.”
Meanwhile, Nissan marketing exec Danny Moore (Orlando Bloom) comes up with a brilliant marketing plan by teaching the best Gran Turismo gamers worldwide to train and ultimately compete on the professional racing circuit. The best would assemble at the GT Academy and be filmed as a reality show. For legitimacy and safety, the only professional racer willing to mentor these new drivers is washed-up racer Jack Salter (David Harbour). The reluctant man agrees because he needs the job but will walk if he thinks the program might endanger these young gamers.
Soon, invitations go out to the best gamers, and one from each country will have an opportunity to compete for the only slot at immortality. Of course, Jann is there to represent England. It doesn’t take a scholar to figure out that he’ll ultimately win the competition in the first act. But does Jann have what it takes to not only compete with the best but earn the license required to even roll out onto the track?
"…one of those positive, inspiring films that we haven't seen for quite some time."
