AC18: Random Movie Review - Turbo

Last film from DreamWorks Animation I'm looking at this month is yet again them doing something Disney did earlier. So in the year of 2006, Disney and Pixar released Cars and having had a near perfect run up to that point, Cars became the first Pixar film to not win as many awards as Pixar's previous films had done up to that point. And despite this, they went ahead with turning Cars into a franchise which bought us one very bad and supposedly one very good sequel, a spin-off featuring planes and a whole pile of merchandise. Then in 2013, DreamWorks Animation released their version of go kart or Formula 1 racing and threw snails in the mix. A combination of the fastest thing around with the slowest thing around. This should be interesting so let's check it out:

In a suburban garden somewhere in Mexico, we meet Theo (aka Turbo, voiced by the Merc with a Mouth once again, Ryan Reynolds) an ordinary garden snail who one day dreams to become the greatest racer in the Indy 500 just like his idol Guy Gagne (voiced by SNL star, Bill Hader). Unfortunately, this dream has led to him being the outcast of the community he is in which upsets and embarrasses his older brother Chet (voiced by acting legend Paul Giamatti). But one night when he goes to watch the freeway, he gets sucked into the engine of a car and through the power of Deus Ex Machina, he becomes supercharged and can go at incredible speed. But unfortunately for him and Chet, they both get fired from the garden snail business, but later find another place to reside at which ultimately gets Turbo one step closer to achieving his dream.

Turbo is great. Its a great film that while not wholly original, shows that a family friendly animated film about racing can be done when given to the right people. In other words, on this occasion, DreamWorks Animation win over Disney. But if I'm being honest, it isn't that surprising as practically every film like this can beat Cars any day. But back to Turbo, its well animated, well acted and boosts a lot of visual thrills and has a lot of heart too. And it goes to show that the slowest thing can turn into the fastest thing through the power of Deux Ex Machina or actually something more realistic than that. 9/10