Grand Turismo: Lap after Lap after Lap

Based on the unbelievable, inspiring true story of a team of underdogs – a struggling, working-class gamer, a failed former race car driver, and an idealistic motorsport exec – who risk it all to take on the most elite sport in the world.

Review:

Racing movies only have to get the cars, the speed, the race and crashes right. Gran Turismo, an adaptation of the Play Station video game, has to do even less- it only has to play the simulations to make the fans happy. The characters, in most of these movies, are kind of a wipeout.

The story of Jan Mardenborough’s leap from sim driver to actual race car driver is mostly true. He placed mainly middle of the pack in most of his races with an occasional top ten finish. At Lemans, the movie shows him winning the event, when he actually placed third.

Mardenborough’s character (Archie Madekwe) in Gran Turismo is dumbed down to an acceptable form of vanilla race car driver cliches. It’s both a prove yourself to the world and your parents drama. Fall asleep during the drama and relationship stuff. You’re not missing anything. Make sure you wake-up for the well done racing action and simulations. Mardenborough’s was the stunt driver.

The director Neil Blomkamp, slums through this one. He does just enough to keep the characters going until the next race. Then, he just lets the second unit and the CGI team do their thing. They essentially produce a highlight reel for the game. It’s thrilling but if you played the game, you’d seen it a 100 times and maybe played it better.