Gran Turismo
SONY
To be brutally honest and to the point, for the sake of SONY and Neill Blomkamp, Gran Turismo has to work. Not only is it one of SONY’s strongest critical darlings in the video game industry and a need for Blomkamp to reinvent and rejuvenate his career, but it also comes at a time when the simulation e-sports industry is thriving and with this story being a real life rags to riches story from an e-racer turning professional motorsport driver Jann Mardernborough, Blomkamp, SONY and Gran Turismo don’t have a better chance.
So, do SONY, Blomkamp and Gran Turismo have a success on their hands? The answer is both yes and no. Ultimately, Gran Turismo is conventional, predictable and competent without any real risks found, and to that degree offers a plane sailing experience with little aggregation. However, that then ultimately falls into the matter characterised above with a result of having a docile response from its audience. The biggest concern is that Gran Turismo is a feature that struggles to tell a human story or be a flat out corporate SONY Gran Turismo enterprise product placement and be as stiff and lifeless as some of its video games counterparts.
Where Gran Turismo rests with success for audiences is two-fold. The first being the aesthetics and quality of image (Blomkamp) and the second is the power of the cast and this performance. The story in itself should not be of grave concern, as the plot is both harshly conventional but ultimately a poisoned chalice due to the promotional material and advertising defining itself on the success story of Mardernborough. So let’s start with the imagery, aesthetics and iconography, which not too surprisingly, is arguably the strongest part of this feature.
The issue at hand here is how to elevate the mundane and saturated. In a world of flying cars and adrenaline-pumping cinema, there has to be a new dynamic flair on aesthetic to elevate the image. One such example of this would be Top Gun: Maverick, which nails an intimate but distinctive visual palette of immersion within the confides of the cockpit, while also utilising wide images of the world around the characters, of which is equally as dangerous. So what is more ideal than putting Neil Blomkamp – a staunch unique visionary (to a certain degree) – behind the camera? Well, the result is continually and consistently based and obvious venture, but one that never pulls a false move.
For the most part, Blomkamp utilises an array handheld camera aesthetic – a consistent tactic throughout his work found most notably in District 9 and Elysium – which is terrific for immersion and engagement subconsciously for the viewer to feel in the moment and allows the creation of momentum. Nevertheless, this operandi only works sporadically due to the nature of the beast when the camera needs to leave the inside of the car to further demonstrate the atmosphere and tension of what is at hand: racing.
The result is a difficult balancing of fine tuning and engagement in emotive immersion. Specifically, when the feature is cutting back and forth from reality to simulation, especially with the latter not including any form of humanity and clear indication of CGI, therefore realism and immersion begins to slow its grip and remembering this is a movie takes place; the exact opposite of what Gran Turismo needs. This is certainly felt in the opening simulated driving sequences of what needs to be genuine tension, feeling hollow and underwhelming. Spielberg’s Ready Player One is another feature that faced this issue with video game simulation, and yet betters the above outcome by humanising relationships and character where as Gran Turismo sadly can not fathom such a thing with neither a person or inanimate object, but more on that a little later.
Blomkamp ultimately settles for handheld intensity and sweeping helicopter drone shots for atmosphere: rinse and repeat in obvious and conventional ways but remains immersive nevertheless. Thankfully, in Gran Turismo’s biggest set pieces it’s a feature that visually never lets the viewer down and comes alive when being able to find the correct balance of actuality and CGI simulation. Especially in the intense final race in needing a racing license, which the feature finds flair in going back and forth between simulation and reality which adds texture and flair of narrative to proceedings. Equally as devastating is the much spoiled crash sequence in the trailers which has great gravitas and conviction in the limited sound design and extended sequence of the edit.
For the most part, Blomkamp succeeds behind the camera and, not to dilute the above statements, even if the director has his career on the line, the emotional connection to this feature allows it to be triumphant. Unlike his other outings, Blomkamp is a gun for hire and needs a commercial hit that has to be safe but digestible. To defend Gran Turismo, this is not a place of experimentation on a grandiose platform and has to keep simple for the sake of hitting larger ground with audiences.
So, now begins the torrid tale of what Gran Turismo has in store in both performance and character. To say this is the weakest aspect of production would be an understatement. For starters, the core family dynamic as a force of immersion and engagement is strong but ever so predictable and rudimentary in nature – therefore, somewhat dull. Hinging partly on a conventional and contrived forced poor relationship with the father and a forced relationship with a love interest. Two ever-so-basic and flat aspects of this production that are so integral but equally as uninspired.
The other side of the dynamic is the money and corporate side of this story in that of Orlando Bloom who has around three minutes of on screen anxiety if this plan fails and his career is destroy but then is just dropped and forgotten throughout the production. Thankfully this means that Bloom is never really on screen because, if it hasn’t been clear in the last few years, Bloom does not have leading man chops and his delivery is both excruciatingly awkward and painfully ineffective. The actor is not very charming, nor very funny or charismatic, which this feature needs so desperately to understand what is at stake here not only for Jann but for the bigger picture of simulation racing.
Equally as nonsensical and perhaps one of the worst performance of not only the year but the new decade is the casting and performance of Spice Girl Geri Horner. It can not be said any more bluntly and honestly, but this performance on screen proves she is no actor. Never at one stage elevating the material she has, beyond reading words aloud. Two notable examples are her emotive responses to key material here that go so unpoken and thus create such a vacuum for emotional engaging and connectivity. The first is her response on the phone call to Jann about his trial success giving a response of the effortless “oh really”; the second much worse response is that to a devastating crash scene, which ironically enough is a car crash in its own right with such an overstated and cringeworthy procurement of emotive display.
Thankfully, the food here is that of the always reliable David Harbour, who puts forward a consistently decent performance but one that never goes past a certain degree of grandeur. Always charismatic and engaging, but the character and therefore performance does not have that next level due to the screenplay not allocating further depth aside from expositional dialogue for the audience to understand his quirks and traits – of which a much simpler show-and-don’t-tell cinematic device would have far better results. Sadly, even the smaller and yet integral aspects of production go understated, unheard and, therefore, are ineffective such as the score. Which has been driven out and is replaced with the industry standard contemporary boring pop song, which are spliced in to do a job of emotive engagement, a definitively weak one at that.
It is quite ironic that Blomkamp’s Gran Turismo is a piece that consistently – poorly at that – contextually is trying to convince the idea of its inception of simulation drivers going the next step to actual motorsport racing is going to work. Doing it at such a horrid degree of inclusion and execution it subconsciously leaves the audience wondering the same thing about the feature on a whole. Ultimately it begs the question of where Blomkamp goes from here because as a director for hire; he doesn’t do a necessarily bad job behind the camera at the stand of a simplistic commercial enterprise and with the material he has, but is that the career he will be happy with or find enthusiasm in achieving? Presumably not, considering the content Blomkamp has crafted beforehand, but arguably the director has taken every olive branch imaginable so that avenue of free will and a free path feels done and dusted. While Gran Turismo is not the worst thing he could have achieved, the bells and whistles he has had at his disposal has ultimately let him down more than anything, so perhaps life is in the old dog yet but not at the standard of Gran Turismo.
