Turbo

★★★

Dir: David Soren

(2013)

In this quite strange and slightly cobbled together animation Dream Works have created a kids film as blueprint. The clapped out old car who wants to race in Pixar's Cars, the old crop duster who wants to race in Pixar's Planes, the old toy who has to fight against the new in Pixar's Toy Story; It's a trope of kids films of course, teaching our young whippersnappers that it doesn't matter who you are, the underdog can succeed! Turbo is the story of a simple garden snail with big dreams who is given super powers a la Bruce Banner and his Incredible Hulk and his new-found friends and speed which could allow him to race in the Indianapolis 500.

It is a most ludicrous and literal condensation of this Rabbit and Hare cliché but it is delivered with skill and quite is often audacious in its approach to both story and joke telling. Ryan Reynolds does a fine enough job as the everyman playing Turbo the snail and Paul Giamatti is fantastic as his straight shooting brother content with his job in the tomato patch in a suburban garden. When the little fella gets sucked into a car engine late one night after a bit of soul-searching he quickly discovers he can now slide around at 200mph and he heads out to realise his dream and meet his idol; A french race car driver (the unrecognisable Bill Hader) modelled a little too obviously on Sasha Baron Cohen's turn in Talladega Nights.

These kind of divine powers are a basic hook for many of our favourite children's tales and I can seeing this being a winner for your car obsessed nephews but for the sly adults who enjoy kids films more than the kids do Turbo might be a little slow and obvious. It's always nice to hear Luis Guzman, here playing a taco store owner also with a dreaming younger brother who becomes Turbo's manager of sorts. There's a pack of renegade racing snails as Turbo's support, led by the scathing Samuel L. Jackson which are Turbo's biggest strength and most savage weakness.

An endless parade of underused characters as Turbo's following entourage is perhaps its biggest down fall; I for one want to see a whole film about "The White Shadow"! There are some great moments however; Some of the animation is incredible, including the final racing sequences but this film doesn't have the heart to match the best in the sprawling kids animation realm.