Gran Turismo Review

2023 has been the year of video game adaptations. The Last of Us has released critical acclaim and The Super Mario Bros. Movie and the Twisted Metal TV series have been well received by fans. Gran Turismo joins them with a film inspired by the games and real-life events.

Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe) is an avid Gran Turismo player and dreams of becoming a professional racing driver, even though his father (Djimon Hounsou) disapproves. Jann gets his chance to fulfil his dream when Nissen launches the GT Academy, a competition for the best Gran Turismo players to become trained to become real racing drivers. However, Jann has to deal with scepticism from Jack Salter (David Harbour), Nissen’s chief engineer, cocky rivals, and hostility from the racing world.

There has been an increase in video game adaptations in recent years. Big franchises like Pokemon and Sonic the Hedgehog did well at the box office and Netflix have had success with their animated adaptations of Arcane and Cyberpunk. Sony and PlayStation have gotten in on the act with their adaptation of Uncharted which was a perfectly fine adventure film.

The Gran Turismo series are racing games. Players can select a car, customise it and go on a famous racetrack. They rarely have a narrative. The last time a racing game was adapted into a film was Need for Speed and that needed to create its own story about an illegal cross-country race. The Gran Turismo was able to hook its story around Jann Mardenborough’s unexpected rise into motorsports.

Gran Turismo was a sports movie with some video game visuals. Gran Turismo was more like Cool Runnings, Million Dollar Arm, and Moneyball because those films were about someone proposing something radical and they faced resistance from everyone. They are all things about proving the doubters wrong.

Sports films tend to be formulaic. The protagonist often faces challenges before climaxing with sporting triumph or dignified defeat. One of the writers of Gran Turismo was Zach Baylin and his previous credits were King Richard and Creed III. Gran Turismo’s screenplay was so formulaic that it felt like some prompts into a computer and an AI program did the rest. Gran Turismo had many tropes and cliches like Jann having a disapproving parent, needing to do a mad dash to get to his tryout, facing a critical coach, and experiencing an event that could end Jadd’s sporting career.

Gran Turismo was a film that was filled with archetypes and antagonists. As stated, they was a cynical parent who acted as Jadd’s first obstacle. Harbour’s Jack Salter was the gruff coach who had a tragic backstory and was harsh with Jadd but became a mentor, whilst Orlando Bloom’s Danny Moore was the duplicitous corporate figure who acted as an enemy and ally to Jadd. This film had two cocky rival racers and they were hardly subtle characters.

One of the most interesting aspects of Gran Turismo was its choice of direction: Neill Blomkamp. Blomkamp made a name for himself with his debut film District 9. He ended up making District 9 because the Halo movie fell through. District 9 was a fantastic film, but Blomkamp’s filmography has suffered from diminishing returns. The reception has grown colder and his previous film, Demonic was a disaster. Blomkamp had been linked to making entries in the Alien and Robocop franchises which ended up getting cancelled. So, he finally got to make a franchise film.

Gran Turismo was a departure from Blomkamp’s previous work since it was a change of genre. Blomkamp’s previous films were special effects-heavy sci-fi pieces. Gran Turismo relied more on practical effects since the appeal of a racing film is getting close to the action. It felt like Blomkamp was auditioning to direct the next Fast & Furious film. There were some CGI effects to highlight Jadd’s point of view whilst he was racing, but they were modest compared to Blomkamp’s previous efforts. Gran Turismo was at its most visually distinct when trying to replicate the camera angles from the video games. My favourite moment was when Jadd drove around an industrial estate in Cardiff to avoid the police.

Gran Turismo was gun-for-hire work for Blomkamp, the film did have his usual class and anti-authority themes. Jadd was entering into a world where most of the racers grew up wealthy and were able to buy their way into the sport. Jadd was a working-class lad who never had opportunities that other racers had and Salter wanted to stick it to Nicholas Capa (Josha Stradowski), a brat of a racer.

Other video game films like Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and The Super Mario Bros. Movie felt like they were made with a sense of love from the creators and were made for the fans. Gran Turismo felt like it was made just to market the games. This was most blatant when the film opened with text saying Kazunori Yamauchi wanted to make the most accurate racing simulator possible and Moore highlighted the large player base. Gran Turismo was a film highlighting the game’s accuracy and showing people that they could make their hobby into a profession. Moore and Nissen were lucky that all recruits for the GT Academy were slim young people and not 40-something schlubs.

Gran Turismo was a perfectly adequate sports film. Gran Turismo doesn’t match films like Rush and Ford vs. Ferrari, the gold standard of the racing sub-genre, it’s racing and game fans should get some enjoyment from it.