Gran Turismo (film)

Gran Turismo
"From gamer to racer"
Genre: Sports Drama Racing Comedy Directed By: Neill Blomkamp Produced By: Doug Belgrad Asad Qizilbash Carter Swan Dana Brunetti Written By/Screenplay: Jason Hall Alex Tse Based On: Gran Turismo Starring: David Harbour Orlando Bloom Archie Madekwe Darren Barnet Geri Halliwell Horner Djimon Hounsou Cinematography: Jacques Jouffret Distributed By: Sony Pictures Releasing Release Date: August 11, 2023 Runtime: 134 minutes Country: United States Language: English Budget: $60 million Box Office: $122 million Franchise: Gran Turismo

Gran Turismo is a 2023 American biographical sports drama film directed by Neill Blomkamp from a screenplay by Jason Hall and Zach Baylin. Produced by Columbia Pictures, PlayStation Productions, and 2.0 Entertainment, it is based on the racing simulation video game series of the same name developed by Polyphony Digital. It tells the true story of Jann Mardenborough, a teenage Gran Turismo player who became a professional racing car driver. The film stars Archie Madekwe as Mardenborough alongside David Harbour, Orlando Bloom, Darren Barnet, Geri Halliwell Horner, and Djimon Hounsou.

Plot

Following a pitch by marketing executive Danny Moore, Nismo, the motorsport division of Nissan, established the GT Academy to recruit skilled players of the racing simulator Gran Turismo and turn them into real racing drivers. Danny recruits former driver-turned-mechanic Jack Salter to train the players. Jack is initially hesitant but accepts after tiring of the arrogance of his team's driver, Nicholas Capa. Meanwhile, Jann Mardenborough, a teenage clothing store employee and gamer from Cardiff, Wales, is an avid player of the simulator and wants to become a racing driver, despite the disapproval of his former footballer father Steve Mardenborough.

One day, Jann learns he is eligible for a qualification race to join the GT Academy after setting a time record for a particular track. The night before his race, Jann is invited by his brother Coby to a party, and the brothers take their father's car. Jann flirts with a young woman named Audrey whom he develops a crush on. The gathering is disbanded after police arrive, and Jann initiates a pursuit after driving away when their friends are pulled over. The brothers escape but are caught returning by their father. Coby starts to worry, but Jann offers to take the blame for him if he admits that he is the better driver. Jann is taken to his father's place of employment the next morning in an attempt to be taught a life lesson, but leaves early to partake in the qualifying race, which he wins, earning a place in GT Academy.

At the academy camp, Jack puts the competitors through their paces in various tests, through which ten competitors are narrowed down to five. During one of the tests, Jann crashes with Jack in the car and claims that the brakes were glazed. This is later proven correct by analysts, to Jack's surprise. The remaining five compete in a final race to determine who will represent Nissan. Jann narrowly wins the race against American competitor Matty Davis, but Danny insists Matty should be chosen as the representative due to his better commercial viability. However, Jann is chosen at Jack's insistence.

Jann is told that if he finishes at least fourth in any one of a series of qualifying races, he will earn a professional license and contract with Nissan. He finishes last in his first professional race in Austria after Nicholas taps him into a spin, and despite gradually improving over the next few races, he does not finish the penultimate race in Spain. He travels to Dubai for his last qualifying race, during which Nicholas takes a corner too fast and crashes. Despite the debris from this crash cracking his windshield, Jann achieves a fourth-place finish and earns his license. He then travels to Tokyo with Danny and Jack to sign his contract and uses his signing bonus to fly Audrey to Tokyo. During this time, they initiate a relationship.

Jann's first race after signing is at the Nürburgring Nordschleife. He starts the race well and maintains a high position until the front of his car lifts into the air at the Flugplatz corner, hitting a barrier and launching into a crowded spectator area. Jann is airlifted to the Nürburgring Medical Center and is informed while in hospital that a spectator was killed in the crash, much to his horror. When Jann is reluctant to return to racing and blames himself for the spectator's death, Jack takes him back to the Nürburgring. He reveals that he was involved in a fatal accident at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which led to a fellow driver dying and subsequently Jack's retirement from driving.

An inquiry clears Jann of any wrongdoing, but professional sentiment begins to turn against sim drivers. In response, Danny decides that a sim driver team needs to compete at Le Mans and finish on the podium to prove their viability.

Danny enlists Matty and fellow GT Academy participant Antonio Cruz to make up the three-driver team alongside Jann. On race day, Jann's father apologizes for not initially being supportive of his passions. Early in the race, Jann is left shaken after Frederik Schulin's car crashes and catches fire, but is encouraged through his first shift by Jack playing "Songbird" and "Orinoco Flow" through the car's communication system, songs which Jann had previously used as motivational music during training. Matty and Antonio complete their first shifts without issue, but the latter is brought in from his last session early due to experiencing cramps. A wheel nut is dropped by mechanic Felix during the pit stop, causing Jann to lose several positions. Deviating from advised racing lines, he uses instead lines he learned from playing Gran Turismo to regain his position, breaking the competition lap record in the process. The final lap sees Jann pitted against Nicholas, with Jann once again narrowly in front on the final straight to earn third place and a podium finish for Nissan.

In the epilogue, the real Jann Mardenborough is shown having competed in over 200 races and served as his stunt double in the film.

Why It Rocks

1. Like The Super Mario Bros. Movie another 2023 tie-in-game movie, the movie is 100% faithful to the franchise.
2. Loads of characters such as Jann Mardenborough, Jack Salter, Steve Mardenborough, Audrey Maeve, etc:
   • Takehiro Hira reprises his role as Kazunori Yamauchi, (the series creator).
   • Sarah from Gran Turismo 7 makes her appearance in the movie with her surname "Eaton" revealed and fully voiced by Selin Cuhadaroglu.
3. The plot is very clever consisting of Jann Mardenborough qualifying to the GT Academy and becoming the champion of Gran Turismo World Series.
4. Memorable cars such as the Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 with its iconic white and red stripe livery, which unfortunately was trashed twice, the Volkswagen Corrado VR6 [Typ 53I] Jann's dad and the Ligier JS PX used in the final race in Circuit De La Sarthe 24h.
5. Funny moments:
   • There's such a student, in a trial of attempting to drive through cones, ends up hitting a bunch, Jack comes to happily "congratulate" him, saying that hitting the cones is extra points. This is also a possible lighthearted reference to the license tests and missions in Gran Turismo 4 and most games after where you are meant to hit them.
   • One that Jann speeds away from cops in a short chase sequence accompanied by visual elements from Gran Turismo as Jann channels the Tetris Effect to hone his driving skills and focus, such as a race track map (of the neighborhood in this case), timing, and positioning, which is Narm Charm in itself. It's elevated further when, once escaping the cops and cheering, a "Congratulations" and "Cop Avoidance" banner appears on the screen with a trophy, as if he had just won a race or achievement in a video game, all presented with a camera angle from the rear of the car to give the perspective of a 3rd-person view in racing games.
6. Some heartwarming scenes like Aubrey's crush and especially the Nürburgring Nordschleife crash in Flugplatz corner which killed a spectator and Mardenborough is sent to the hospital.
7. Good soundtrack.
8. The movie is longer than The Super Mario Bros. Movie lasting for two hours compared to the latter which lasted for just one hour and a half.
9. Amazing voice acting.

Bad Qualities

1. Missed opportunities:
   • Jann would slow down to avoid his crash in Nürburgring Nordschleife in the Flugplatz corner.
2. The movie cannot be family-friendly (considering that Gran Turismo games are for all ages) since it uses profanity.

Reception

Box office

Gran Turismo has grossed $44.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $77.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $122 million.

In the United States and Canada, Gran Turismo was released alongside The Hill, Retribution, and Golda, and was projected to gross $12–15 million from 3,856 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $8.5 million on its first day, including $5.3 million from several preview screenings in the weeks leading up to its release. It went on to debut to $17.4 million, finishing first at the box office, though Warner Bros. claimed its holdover Barbie actually won the weekend with $15.1 million, disputing Sony's inclusion of the $5.3 million from weeks of previews; other studios and trade publications sided with Sony, noting lumping preview screenings into opening day figures is standard practice. The film made $6.6 million in its second weekend (a drop of 64%) and finishing fourth, then grossed $3.5 million in its third weekend.

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 65% of 225 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The website's consensus reads: Gran Turismo's brisk action and feel-good underdog drama are undermined by its loose telling of the fact-based story, but this is still a generally solid racing movie.}} Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 48 out of 100, based on 47 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled at PostTrak gave it a 90% overall positive score.

The racing sequences and Blomkamp's direction, especially during the climactic 24-hour race in France, were praised by most critics, who noted that, while transitioning from its video game origins to a standard race car film, Gran Turismo also serves as a cautionary example of adapting source material that may not align with a cohesive narrative. Owen Gleiberman of Variety said of the film, "There's an innocence to this one, and a surprise authenticity," commenting, "It's like a Fast and Furious movie made without cynicism, and it gets to you", finding the climax "satisfying". Kristen Lopez of TheWrap said, "Gran Turismo works best because it eschews its video game origins quickly before settling into a standard race car film. It's unknown how fans of the game will respond to the movie — no one watching the movie in this critic's theater pointed out any specific game Easter eggs — but on the whole fans of racecar films should be in for a good time."

Conversely, Ryan Gilbey's negative review for the Guardian called the film "a simulation of cinema, with scarcely a human fingerprint anywhere on its chassis." Tim Robey of the Telegraph called the film "a purringly complacent insult to a great video-game". Oli Welsh of Polygon gave the film a negative review, saying that "Gran Turismo could have used this inspiring true story to show how video games open up possibilities and remove barriers in the real world. Instead, it just uses it to score points."

Accolades

The film was nominated for "Best Adaptation" at The Game Awards 2023.

Trivia

• Gran Turismo 7's update at the time period of the movie is 1.26.

External links

• Gran Turismo at the Internet Movie Database
• Gran Turismo on Rotten Tomatoes

Comments

Loading comments...