Turbo is pretty to look at, not terrible, but also nothing new. You could sit through far, far worse movies, especially ones that you are dragged to by children.
But it also doesn’t cover any new ground. This movie is like someone said, “You know what movies are good? Cars. Ratatouille. Wreck-It Ralph. And Talladega Nights.Let’s make a movie about a misfit animal with a secret desire to be something that he’s not, and also he wants to race. So, let’s make him a snail. Nailed it. Next. . . ”
And thus you have Turbo. It’s pretty to look at, not un-fun to watch, but utterly predictable and somewhat uninspired.
The best part of the movie, for me at least, was revealing to my five-year-old Avenger-obsessed son that the lead racing snail was the same guy as Nick Fury and Mace Windu. Unless you count the 3D preview of How to Train Your Dragon 2. THAT was mind-blowing.
Other than the really nice animation, the voice cast here was also excellent. Ryan Reynolds plays the eponymous Turbo whose name is actually Theo. He and his brother (Paul Giamatti) work harvesting tomatoes from a backyard garden. You know, like snails do. And it’s from this brother relationship that the heart of the movie comes from. There’s great parallels with the owners of “Dos Bros Tacos” (Luis Guzman and Michael Pena) with one brother as the dreamer (who finds the snails and decides to race them) and the other the “realist” who is trying to keep his brother from getting hurt. Like I said, this is familiar ground.
And then there’s a loveable band of misfit sidekicks. First, the snail racing crew led by Samuel Jackson and including Snoop Dogg. Oh, and a second band of misfit sidekicks for the humans, including Ken Jeong (Community, The Hangover) as an elderly Asian woman who runs a nail salon? Maybe a little too on-the-nose there, Ken.
Then Bill Hader rounds out the cast as some weird amalgamation of Gusteau from Ratatouille and Jean Girard from Talladega Nights (ironically, all three are French?) who is at first mentor and then rival to our little snail Turbo. And Kurtwood Smith shows up as the grumpy head of the Indy 500 who has to be told that there is no rule that a snail can’t race. . . . sigh. You see what I mean. Predictable.
The one bit that wasn’t completel predictable is also the thing that will keep this movie from aging well. Guess how word gets out about Turbo being a racing snail? A viral video, a la “Double Rainbow” or “Bed Intruder” or “Dead Giveaway” where a kid yells “Whoa!! That snail is fast!” Ugh. Not only is the conceit completely lame, it’s done poorly. Those three earworm songs I mentioned a second ago were all the brainchildren of The Gregory Brothers, and this, by comparison, sounds like it was written by a roomful of suits trying to ape their style and overcome obvious lack of earworm virality by getting Snoop Dogg to rap over it like it was a second-rate Katy Perry song.
So, there are parts that are dumb, but for the most part this movie is a paint-by-numbers digital animation kids movie. But not completely unenjoyable.
However, with much better options currently in theaters for kids (Monsters University, Despicable Me 2), I suggest you save this one for DVD unless you really, really want to see a snail race in the Indy 500.
2 1/2 stars