Gran Turismo

Here's The 4K Lowedown on the advanced screening of "Gran Turismo" (PG-13 - 2023 - Theater) Release date: August 11, 2023

Genre: Drama/Sport

My Score: 8.4 Cast=6 Acting=8 Plot=9 Ending=10 Story=8 Interest=9 Script=8 Cinema=9 Sport=7 Triumph=10

A struggling, working-class gamer, a failed former race car driver, and an idealistic motorsport exec risk it all to take on the most elite sport in the world.

"If you miss a line in the game, you reset...you miss it on the track, you could die." I liked this a lot more than I thought I would. I think you have to at least have knowledge of the game to appreciate the cinematography, but this is not a video game movie. It checked all the boxes for me with the action, racing, and the triumph over adversity. This is definitely worth a watch and was a good change of pace after watching Oppenheimer.

Gran Turismo is a terrifically executed sports movie, fizzing with energy and momentum from start to finish.

It follows the story of Jann Mardenborough, a gamer who always dreamed of becoming a professional racer. Thanks to the Gran Turismo academy he suddenly finds himself with a chance to make his dream a reality. It's a wild story and the fact that it is based on real events is astounding.

Even though the real events are unbelievable, the story beats are all pretty familiar and follow the usual sports movie formula. There's the underdog, the jaded mentor, the belligerent rival, the customary montage. None of this is ground breaking but it is all well presented and packaged up. The fact it is based on real events adds that bit of extra excitement and besides, who doesn't love an underdog story?

The direction from Blomkamp is crisp and clean yet also energetic and chaotic, which makes for a visually engaging film. You really feel the excitement and thrill and danger of the racing, which was crucial to establish and get across, and was handled well.

In terms of performances, Archie Madekwe is a really solid lead, bringing a strong emotional presence and charisma to his character. David Harbour brings his character to life perfectly with a thoroughly engaging performance, and Djimon Hounsou is a scene stealer with some of the more emotional baggage.

I wasn't expecting to like this movie as much as I did, but I was impressed! It has an unbelievable story to tell and it does it very effectively. A lot of it feels quite derivative of the underdog sports film genre, but the great direction and solid performances raise this film up above many of its peers, resulting in a thoroughly entertaining movie.

I'm not a gamer, I have an old version of GT kicking around I may have played last 5+ years ago, but no matter, what an incredible true story this was! I had no clue this actual story happened, and as far as true-events films go, this is right up there with the best. It's a true underdog inspirational story that was cast perfectly, and filmed just as great, with stunning effects, visuals and camera work. The pacing and story-flow was just right, in that the 134 min runtime flew by quickly. Watching it in a 4DX theatre added to the experience for sure. It's a well deserved 8/10 from me. Now I just may have to go find that old GT game and throw it in and go for a spin.

Went into this not knowing the background of this film but came out pleasantly surprised with a great race car driving film but also a great video game film.

If it weren't a true story, the concept would have been cool but definitely not believable and therefore no where near as good as it is.

The racing and the direction taken to display the races was particularly impressive and at no point was it unclear what was going on. The acting was ok to begin with but got better as the film went on, especially with the emotional scenes. For me Harbour was the best actor in Gran turismo.

The script was fine but did it's job well of portraying the stakes in high intensity scenes.

Not really too much to fault as a true story racing film.

What an absolutely fun romp of a movie that was done a great disservice by its advertising campaigns. Unlike its very bad marketing would have you believe this is a great watch with an engaging story, anger inducing antagonists and some amazing acting performances, David Harbour is especially good as Jan's main guy. Orlando Bloom was also very good and Archie Madekwe should Sue the trailer house for displaying his performance as anything other than stellar. The movie has some problems of course, some of the CGI is abysmal and feels like it was a mix of bad CGI and wanting to make it look like a video game at all times, and the end result is really distracting. Also the movie loves to just abandon characters that could really go somewhere. Overall though, it's a great watch and I would highly recommend you ignore the trailers (that give away a weird amount of the plot) and go watch this film.