TL;DR – It takes what could have been a boilerplate story and brings it into overdrive with the roar of an engine that rumbles through the cinema.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid to see this film

Gran Turismo Review –

There have been a lot of adaptations of video games from Sony at the cinema recently, some good, some bad, and occasionally they can be fantastic. But what we are looking at today is a little bit different. Sure, it is based on and named after a video game, Gran Turismo. However, its full release title here in Australia, Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story, should give you a hint that something else is going on here. Something quite interesting.

So to set the scene, Danny Moore (Orlando Bloom) is a marketing manager from Nissan’s England division, and he has found a problem. Young people don’t care about cars anymore. They are the generation of Uber and such. He flies to Tokyo to Nissan head office to suggest a contest to fix that issue. Because game designer Kazunori Yamauchi (Takehiro Hira) from Polyphony Digital has recreated car racing down to the minutest details in his game/simulation Gran Turismo, if they create a competition where the best drivers in the sim get a chance to be a ready race car driver, they could ignite the passions of an entire player base in driving again. Well, one of those players is Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe), a kid from Cardiff, who is trying to forward his passion in life when everyone else just sees it as a game, and well he is here to prove them all wrong.

At first look, this film is a bit of an odd duck. It is a biography of Jann Mardenborough. It is a historical look at a truly wild moment in video games history while also very much being an advertisement for Gran Turismo and a good press day for Nissan. There were times when it reminded me of that awkwardness we got with Air that was exploring a similar kind of situation. But forwarding Jann’s side of things makes it escape the feeling that we are watching one long advertisement. Now it is also clear that they are taking a lot of liberties with the ‘Based on a True Story’ label, including crunching the timeline significantly. Thankfully, that does not derail the film, and you get swept along for the ride. It also helps that the real-life Jann was involved with the production.

I am not a car person by any stretch of the imagination, but this is a film that goes out of its way to help me understand why you would be. The roar of the engines, the screech of the tiers, that whoosh sound the cars make when they are changing gears [which I have been reliably told is from a pressure release]. Having all those sounds reverberate around you and through your chairs as the cars scream down the racetrack is frankly intoxicating. It also helps that the film uses an augmentation so that you always know the situation on the grid. You are not lost in the weeds of all the ins and outs of the racetrack, so you never feel left behind. Which is important as they use drones to scream down the racing track giving you the feeling of flying across the tarmac.   

The next strength is the cast, which takes what is, generally speaking, a pretty boilerplate narrative and elevates it. Orlando Bloom plays the man who is risking his career for the idea, so there is a bit of self-interest, a touch of desperation, but also the drive to see it through. David Harbour plays Jack Salter, who has to keep everyone safe. He is the bear with a tough exterior that you warm up to throughout the film as you learn more about him, and he has more trust in the racers. Which leave us with Archie Madekwe, who is the secret weapon of this film. His performance is very dry throughout, but this is almost a wall that he puts up for his emotions. You feel for the kid and what him to succeed in a world where no one thinks he can, and it makes those moments when the film hits the emotional peaks and troughs land harder.

This is quite a long film, and you do feel that lag as the movie moves from [SPOILER] The Nürburgring second act closer to Le Mans final act sequence [/SPOILER]. However, thankfully the film never drags because there is an electricity to it. Neill Blomkamp knows how to bring stories to life and you see it here, the musical score is fantastic, and we get probably the best use of Enya’s Orinoco Flow. If there was one thing that did stand out as frustrating was the constant reminder that “this is not a game!” My dude we heard you the first ten times, and there were some moments where you felt that they did not wholly trust their audience.

In the end, do we recommend Gran Turismo? Yes, yes, we do. I was honestly surprised just how much I got into this film. There was an emotional component I was not expecting, nor just how powerful a drive that rumble through the seats could provoke. If you liked Gran Turismo, we would recommend to you Eddie the Eagle.     

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you watched Gran Turismo?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day. 


Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Gran Turismo
Directed by – Neill Blomkamp
Screenplay by – Jason Hall & Zach Baylin
Story by – Jason Hall & Alex Tse
Based on – Gran Turismo by PlayStation Studios
Music by – Lorne Balfe & Andrew Kawczynski
Cinematography by – Jacques Jouffret
Edited by – Austyn Daines & Colby Parker Jr.  
Production/Distribution Companies – Columbia Pictures, PlayStation Productions, 2.0 Entertainment, Trigger Street Productions & Sony Pictures
Starring – Archie Madekwe, David Harbour, Orlando Bloom, Takehiro Hira, Darren Barnet, Djimon Hounsou, Geri Halliwell Horner, Daniel Puig, Josha Stradowski, Daniel Puig, Maeve Courtier-Lilley, Pepe Barroso, Niall McShea, Thomas Kretschmann, Akie Kotabe, Harki Bhambra, Emelia Hartford, Lindsay Pattison, Mariano González, Maximilian Mundt, Sang Heon Lee, Théo Christine & Nikhil Parmar   
Rating – Australia: M; Canada: PG; Germany: na; New Zealand: na; United Kingdom: na; United States: PG-13