[Review] Gran Turismo (6.5/10)

 
Title - Gran Turismo
Production - Playstation / 2.0 Entertainment, Epic Films
Starring - David Harbour, Archie Madekwe, Orland Bloom, Djimon Hounsou, Takehiro Hira, Darren Barnet, Josha Stradowski, Maeve Courtier-Lilley, Jamie Kenna, Gerri Halliwell Horner
Writer - Jason Hall, Zach Baylin, Alex Tse
Director - Neill Blomkamp
Release - 17 August 2023

Wait, that first face in the poster, is not Archie Madekwe...?

There's a certain style of cinematographer Jacques Jouffret that fits very well in presenting the scenes as something that has truth in them - in this case it really grounded the movie that's about a game that's based on real life; well, loosely anyway.

But where Neill Blomkamp, and I'm guessing it's his VFX company, came in with all of those great racing shots that, honestly, took up plenty of screentime and was plenty satisfying to watch, since we came in for a racing movie and that's what we got. 

I thought Archie Madekwe was a great choice as the "new guy". He has the look, he's tall enough to look awkward and they even made fun of it, and his acting was so good that I sometimes forget that this wasn't a reality TV.

But the real hero here was David Harbour. He is such a fine actor that he knew what to bring into a scene through his performance to make a certain shot work. Many a time he was just shouting into his headset from the sidelines and, even with the quick cuts, I never once thought this was acting.

Orlando Bloom also had a great performance here. Somehow this was the role that suited him the best ever since Legolas from Lord Of The Rings. And Djimon Hounsoun as well gave such a tender performance that I didn't recognize him.

But then one has to wonder why Spice Girl Geri Halliwell Horner was cast. Every time she's onscreen you can see her "acting" and took me out of the movie. I will admit I didn't realize it was the Spice Girl until the credits rolled.

Also, the weakest factor in this movie was the writing. Not enough drama was centered around Madekwe's character's family. They shoehorned in a love interest that was barely there and every time it was about the love interest the movie slowed to a crawl. 

And even with insufficient attention on certain parts of the movie, the runtime was more than two hours long. It was, at best, 30 minutes too long and I could really feel it while sitting there.

I would have left the final race concept to a sequel. I thought the story progressed too fast to reach this point and didn't make any logic. We saw Madekwe's character grew (and another sign of a good actor was that you could see his character change even in just two hours), and yet we are to believe that bringing in two inexperienced racers was realistic?