Gran Turismo

Neill Blomkamp's career started with a bang back with District 9 and has sadly not found himself in the best of projects as each film gradually became less and less memorable. Elysium had some cool ideas but was bogged down with some heavy-handed messaging and a formulaic story. I never saw Chappie which I gather was the right move and then Blomkamp had another shot at sci-fi with a low-budget title called Demonic which seemed to be mauled by critics and those who saw it. This was the man who was on track to direct a Halo film but sadly that didn't work out but then in 2023 he was given the keys to direct Gran Turismo, another video game adaptation, but would this suit his talents or was he just a studio hire? 

Based on a true story, Gran Turismo follows gamer, Jann Mardenborough, who enjoys sim racing but his father wishes he pursued something real with potential to help him move forward in life. Meanwhile, a Nissan marketing executive is trying to raise the company's profile and suggests taking sim racers from the Gran Turismo game and put them in real cars. Jann shows potential and soon finds himself under the wing of a grizzled ex-racer, played by David Harbour no less, and they set themselves on winning races together in a sport that has little respect for gamers. 

Gran Turismo is quite the formulaic film but sometimes that's not a bad thing if the story is told well and Blomkamp brings together a talented cast to make for a fairly solid experience. Rising star Archie Madekwe takes the lead role well even if there isn't a whole lot of material to work with at the start which moves a long a little too slowly but when a turn in the story happens, the whole film shifts gears and became a whole lot more engaging. Harbour is perfectly cast as the seasoned trainer and it is his relationship with Madekwe that keeps this alive. 

The racing scenes are also fun to watch with plenty of visual effects that try to mimic the game but I wouldn't say there's any here that quite have the same thrill as Rush or Le Mans '66. The running time also exceeds the two hour mark and I feel we could have lost some scenes at the start to keep the pacing alive when it didn't need to be so long.

Gran Turismo isn't quite the return to form for Blomkamp but it's still a fairly entertaining racing flick that will provide a few hours of entertainment that is more geared towards casual fans than the hardcore racers. Time will tell whether the big-budged F1 film will deliver but gear-heads should still get some mileage out of this.