Film Review: Turbo

Turbo. Rated G. 96 minutes. Directed by David Soren. Screenplay by Darren Lemke, Robert D Siegel and David Soren.

Verdict: An absolute winner for the whole family.

A cute little snail called Theo (voiced by Ryan Reynolds) who dreams of breaking out of his ordinary little garden-variety existence and winning the Indianapolis 500? What’s not to like? As it turns out, absolutely nothing – as Theo takes on his hero, the vain French-Canadian Indy 500 champion Guy Gagné (Bill Hader), in a supremely entertaining race to the finish line.

Lemke, Siegel and Soren’s screenplay boasts some hilarious moments (a crow’s rather unfortunate demise becomes excellent pay-back), but also wins points for holding fast to its motivational “No dream is too big, and no dreamer too small” through-line. The world of the film refreshingly departs from a typically white, middle-America and takes us into a poverty-stricken mall, where Tito (Michael Peña), a taco truck driver and his taco-making brother Angelo (Luis Guzmán) are struggling to make a living.

Together with the other tenants including manicurist Kim-Ly (brilliantly voiced by The Hangover’s Ken Jeong), mechanic Paz (Michelle Rodriguez), and hobby-shop owner Bobby (Richard Jenkins) who makes custom snail shells for their motley collection of snails, Tito shares Theo’s ambition to be more than anyone else believes is possible. What makes Turbo so engaging is its delightful assortment of original and charmingly idiosyncratic characters – all perfectly voiced by a uniformly excellent voice cast.

Soren, making his feature-length debut, delivers the story to the screen with immense skill and an obvious passion for the journey of his loveable characters, while also making an impression as the snail who can’t ‘tuck’ back into his shell. But if I had to pick a favourite character, it would be the ubiquitous snail White Shadow (Michael Bell), who for some inexplicable reason, made me laugh more than I have laughed in a movie all year.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: The Croods

The Croods. Rated PG (mild themes). 98 minutes. Written and directed by Kirk De Micco and Chris Sanders.

Verdict: A visually dazzling adventure about the importance of learning from one another.

While live action filmmakers are often preoccupied with futuristic worlds riddled with explosive conflict and war-mongering, animators have been equally preoccupied with the distant past. From The Flinstones (1960–1966) to the Ice Age films (2002–2012), there is something liberating about imagining pre-historic possibilities – perhaps that the imperative for the results to be as ‘life-like’ as possible is eliminated. What we get instead, are pure flights of fantasy and imagination – hallmarks of the great, animated adventures of recent times.

Film Review: Buried

Buried. Rated MA15+. 95 minutes. Directed by Rodrigo Cortés. Screenplay by Chris Sparling.

Like The Premature Burial (1962) and The Vanishing (1988), Spanish-born Cortés (The Contestant) plays with one the horror genre’s greatest trump cards: being buried alive. What he also does, courtesy of an punishing, rock ‘n’ roll screenplay from Mr Sparling, is shine a spotlight on the subject of foreigners being taken hostage in Iraq – and the desperate efforts by the US Department of State’s Hostage Working Group to free them.

Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) is a US contractor working as a truck driver in Iraq. When his convoy is attacked by insurgents, he wakes to find himself buried alive in a crate with a mobile telephone, a cigarette lighter, a torch, a hip-flask, a pen and flick-knife.

Depending entirely on how impressed you are by the concept of a film shot entirely in a wooden crate starring only one actor, Buried may possibly elicit one response: ‘an actor in a box with some props – so what?’. But Sparling’s screenplay, Cortés’s rivetting direction and editing, Reynolds’s dazzling star turn and Eduard Grau’s (A Single Man) cinematography, all combine brilliantly to ensure that Buried is rarely less than an entirely engrossing experience.

Conroy’s only contact with the outside world is through the mobile phone, with Robert Paterson as Hostage Working Group representative ‘Dan Brenner’, in particular, providing excellent support to Reynolds’ desperate and ill-fated victim of circumstance.

Peversely, the day after I saw this film, the UK’s The Guardian newspaper reported that aid-worker Linda Norgrove – a 36-year-old British hostage being held in Afghanistan – was killed as Nato troops were trying to rescue her. What, only the night before, had been a marvellously escapist, cinematic tour de force, suddenly became a compelling ‘anti-war film’ – a powerful statement about the horrific possibilities that confront civilians working in conflict-stricken war zones. Hostage-taking, either to influence the outcomes for countries that send in their armed forces or companies that send in their workers, remains a potent consequence of both criminally- and politically-motivated opportunism.

The review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.