I’ve had the hardest time trying to come up with something to write about Turbo. I enjoyed it, yet it’s a small effort, using similarly themed ideas from the past, giving them something of a new spin and doing so relatively successfully. Yes, as I’m sure many will point out, to a degree it’s Cars with snails. I also see Fast and Furious, animated for the young ones and prime to satisfy a large demo. But overall it’s safe with a generous amount of laughs, and a plot satisfied with reaching middle-of-the-road status.
With ever-so-humble beginnings, the story begins with Turbo (voiced by Ryan Reynolds), a garden snail fond of Formula-1 racing who dreams of competing with the best. His role model is the famous Guy Gagné (voiced by Bill Hader) whom he admires in the glow of a garage television neighboring the garden where he and his fellow gastropods work on a daily basis.
The life of a snail is rather monotonous, days spent collecting and sorting all variety of tomatoes and avoiding the crows that seem to snatch at least one of their crew every morning is only so rewarding… at least for Turbo.
Turbo dreams of speed. He believes in the words his idol preaches from the winner’s circle, “No dream is too big and no dreamer too small.” Confident, almost to a fault, he believes he one day will be fast enough to… Well, I’m not exactly sure what he thinks he’ll be fast enough to do, but you better believe he knows one day he’ll be fast and given the nature of the story it just so happens he’ll one day find himself in the starting blocks at the Indianapolis 500.
Yes, Turbo is a movie that asks us to accept a snail will compete in “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing”. But I guess if we’re able to accept a snail can talk and subsequently survive ingesting nitrous-oxide and come out the other side with the ability to pick up radio waves through his eye balls and travel at more than 220 miles an hour, the whole “participating in the Indy 500” thing doesn’t sound so preposterous.
The film uses a difference of opinion between Turbo and his “safety first” brother Chet (voiced by Paul Giamatti) as the narrative tension for the duration and it ultimately resolves itself in traditional fashion. The humans get a little time as well thanks to the taco stand employee (voiced by Michael Peña) who takes Turbo under his wing despite his brother’s (voiced by Luis Guzmán) nay-saying. Neither is a particularly captivating or original plot line, and I really wish the humans had largely been left out of the story as the relationship between the taco stand brothers is redundant and the Gagné plot becomes incredibly overwrought by the end.
Where the film truly excels is in the group of racing snails Turbo finds himself in league with beginning with Whiplash, the fast-talking leader of the group voiced by Samuel L. Jackson whose consistent one-liners provide the majority of the film’s comedic beats. The rest of the gang includes Smoove Move (voiced by Snoop Dogg), Burn (voiced by Maya Rudolph), Skidmark (voiced by Ben Schwartz) and White Shadow (voiced by Mike Bell). Each has their “thing” with Burn’s attraction to Chet and her goal to call him her “Boo” as one of the cuter punch lines, but that’s just it… Turbo is cute, little more.
With some unexpected musical cues such as an “Eye of the Tiger” remix featuring 2Pac, Ken Jeong voicing a woman, crows getting their comeuppance and a couple of goofy little gags such as the snails using their eyes as hands, there isn’t much to really complain about when it comes to Turbo. It’s a film that works. Kids will be satisfied and parents should enjoy their time in the theater well enough. Just don’t expect an animated film for the ages, because you’re not going to get it.
