My Thoughts: TURBO (2013)

I don’t even know how to start talking about this film.

That’s a good idea! Ok, so “Turbo” is Dreamworks Animation’s 2nd animated film of 2013 (after “The Croods”). It’s about a snail who races in the Indy 500.

Sigh…this is going to be harder than I thought, let’s try again!

Theo, voiced by Ryan Reynolds, is a garden snail who is obsessed with racing and spends hours upon hours watching various pre-taped Indy 500 races on a TV in a garage.

He dreams of being fast and racing, but he’s a snail…so you know, he…can’t be fast….or race.

This realization depresses him throughout his life, especially during his work. Oh, what does he do for work? He helps a bunch of other snails take care of a tomato plant.

Yeah, they…take care of a tomato plant because….umm….I guess someone needs to take care of the tomato plant.

Sigh…anyway, one day after an accident at the tomato plant (I can’t believe I just said that), Theo wanders off to a highway to collect his thoughts. But he accidentally gets knocked into traffic and into the engine of a car. While in the engine, the driver lets off some nitrous oxide which somehow or another gives Theo superpowers and makes him become like a car.

Oh no, it’s not that he JUST becomes fast from this freak accident and has his dreams come true, but he literally BECOMES a car! His eyes can become headlights,

his rear end gives off reverse noises and brake lights,

and radio songs can be played through his mouth.

Sigh….we have to keep going. Anyway, Theo is quite happy with his powers, of course. One day, he’s picked up by a Hispanic man named Tito. Tito, voiced by Michael Peña, works with his brother selling tacos from a taco truck. But, in his spare time, he dabbles in snail racing with a few other people whose lives are quite boring.

Once Tito realizes that Theo is the fastest snail ever, he gets an idea to enter him in the Indy 500 since no law prevents this from happening. Tito’s brother quite justly replies with:

And the rest of the movie is about Tito and Theo (now deemed “Turbo”) entering the Indy 500 to race professional human racers.

Do I even need to explain how I felt about this movie? I didn’t like it! The story is stupid; I’m sorry, I can’t take it seriously.

The animation, especially of the humans, is quite ugly to be honest. This Korean lady especially gives me the uncanny valley feeling.

And SOOOO many characters are underdeveloped. Besides Turbo, there are about a half a dozen other snails that have lines of dialogue and are given some level of importance to the film. But, such little time is given to them that we barely know anything about them! And besides Tito, there are a few other humans who are somewhat important in the film, but likewise, we barely know anything about them. Even Turbo’s character is quite underdeveloped and changes sporadically! I’d say that Tito is the only character that has some weight to his existence…but not much!

And the voice acting? Bill Hader voices a racer named Guy Gagné and he surprisingly does an extremely well job. Paul Giamatti voices Turbo’s brother, Chet, and he’s not bad. Michael Peña as Tito isn’t bad either. But, everyone else (Michelle Rodriguez, Snoop Dogg, Maya Rudolph, Samuel L. Jackson, etc.) is bad, underused, overused, or a combination of those.

I don’t know what else to say about this movie. It actually gave way to a Netflix TV series! HOW?!! I don’t know whether this is my LEAST favorite Dreamworks Animation film, but it’s definitely the WORST!