After the fast and furious exhilaration of Ron Howard’s Formula 1 drama “Rush,” here comes another movie about F1 racers — with one key difference. “Turbo,” from DreamWorks Animation, sees Ryan Reynolds as the voice of Theo, a lowly garden snail with big dreams of becoming a world-famous F1 driver and the fastest snail in the world. Luckily for him, his dreams may be about to come true, as an all too close encounter with the supercharger of a drag racer leaves him bestowed with special powers. Chief among them: super-speed.
It’s a cool concept: a petrol-headed gastropod gains magical abilities that allow him to enter a Formula 1 tournament. But for a product from the studio that previously brought us “Shrek” and “How to Train Your Dragon,” this isn’t up to the best of DreamWorks’ standards. Though not without a certain good-natured charm, there’s very little wit or invention on display here and not much of interest outside of the central, two-word gag: racing snails. Following the underdog (or undersnail) formula to a tee, it’s a by-the-numbers sports tale and unfortunately isn’t funny or exciting enough to make up for its step-by-step predictability. Younger viewers may find its colourful characters enjoyable, but when Snoop Dogg popped up as a rapping snail called Smoove Move, I kind of gave up.
Rating: 5/10
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