My Review of "Gran Turismo"
A paint by numbers sports movie with some pandering to fans of the game.
Gran Turismo is PlayStation's latest full feature movie to come out in 2023. This time it's a biopic based on the exploits of one of their successful experiments back in the day. I'm a big fan of the Gran Turismo game franchise so I had to check this one out to see what it was all about.
The movie starts out with the main character Jann, who the boipic is based on. He's an avid Gran Turismo gamer and has dreams of becoming a race car driver. Unfortunately for him he doesn't live in a life of wealth.
Racing cars is definitely very expensive. His father tries to put him in his place and look at life realistically. This approach to Jann creates a bit of a rift between the two.
Fortunately for Jann he has some sort of uncanny gift of playing the video game. He's pretty much the best at the game and because of that he's been invited to Sony PlayStation's latest contest at the time. They want to find the best person at the game and see if they would do well in real world car racing. The video game is supposed to be based on real car simulation so they wanted to prove how realistic the game was.
As you can expect, racing real cars is nothing like racing in video games. You have so many real dangerous factors that come into play that players don't consider. There's the danger of the car itself, the other drivers and other considerations that are outside of their control.
Jann and the other racers soon find out how difficult it is when they get involved with the rigorous training real race car driving requires. Jann will have to duke it out with other qualifiers for this contest to become a real race car driver. If he makes it he then has to prove that gamers can become real car racers.
The first half of the movie is kind of really slow for me. I know where they're going with the introductions and setup for the movie but it felt a little disjointed. I was hoping that they would put more emphasis into the storyline between Jann and his real father. It feels like it was wasted potential there.
Most of this movie is a paint by numbers sports movie. You have your successes, montage training sequences and then your ultimate downer. Of course our hero has to climb out of their situation to rise above it all.
The last half of it was pretty well done. I felt the connection between the characters but it still felt a little weird. There's a romantic relationship storyline that really didn't need to be in the movie as well. It felt like the studio had their hands in this movie and they did the best that they could with what they were allowed to do.
You'll see a ton of advertisements for Sony and Nissan throughout the movie. It at times can feel like a long commercial. Though at times an entertaining commercial.
The wink wink pandering to fans of the game are kind of hit and miss. I felt like there were certain moments that felt like the makers of the movie have never played the game. Then there's moments like very familiar sound effects, music and video sequences that make you smile a bit because they're definitely from the game.
Overall, I had an okay time but only in the last half of the movie. I didn't feel that's enough to truly recommend this movie. It's too bad too because I kind of had high hopes for this one being a fan of the series. A mediocre movie is just that. No matter how close I am to the subject matter I couldn't see past it. Unfortunately I have to give this movie a 6 out of 10. I can't truly recommend this to anyone but if you watch it you'll probably shrug your shoulders as well.
About the Creator
Brian Anonymous
I have tons of opinions that change constantly. I watch a lot of movies and play video games. There are some articles on my struggles with languages and dance as well.
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