Turbo Information

Turbo is a 2013 American 3D computer-animated sports comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is based on an original idea by David Soren, who also directed the film. The film features an ordinary garden snail whose dream to become the fastest snail in the world comes true. The film was released on July 17, 2013.

Along with Ryan Reynolds, who stars as the eponymous character, the film also features Paul Giamatti, Michael Peña, Snoop Dogg, Maya Rudolph, Michelle Rodriguez and Samuel L. Jackson.

The film will be followed by a television series, titled Turbo: F.A.S.T. (Fast Action Stunt Team), which will air on Netflix in December 2013.

Plot

In Venice, California, Theo, a.k.a Turbo, is a garden snail who dreams of being the greatest racer in the world, just like his hero, 5-time Indianapolis 500 champ, Guy Gagné. His obsession with speed and all things fast has made him an oddity and an outsider in the slow and cautious snail community, and a constant embarrassment to his cautious older brother, Chet. Turbo desperately wishes he could escape the slow-paced life he's living, but his one chance to live proves a near fatal disaster when he tries to recover a prize tomato and needs to be rescued by Chet.

Demoralized, Theo wanders onto a freeway to admire the traffic and wishes on the very first star (which is actually an airplane light), "I wish...I wish I was fast". Suddenly, he gets into a freak accident when he gets sucked into the supercharger of a drag racer, fusing his DNA with nitrous oxide on a street race. The next day, when Theo wakes up from unconsciousness, his incident the night before finds himself vested with the power of incredible speed and accuracy, as well as some of the characteristics of an actual car, such as eyes that light up like headlights, and a shell that blinks red like taillights and makes car sounds and music from a radio.

Unfortunately, Theo's first attempt to show this power off ends with him crashing a Big Wheel tricycle into the garden, getting himself and Chet fired from the garden crew. As the siblings quarrel, Chet is snatched by a crow, but is pursued and rescued by Theo at a run down strip mall where they are then captured by Tito, a "Dos Bros" taco truck driver and is brought to race with other snails. Theo astounds both human and snail alike with his speed and earns the respect of the snails, led by Whiplash, with his crew Smoove Move, Burn, Skidmark, and White Shadow, who have impressive skills of their own.

Inspired by this extraordinary snail, Tito dreams to revive the strip mall with Theo as an attraction, and eventually with the help of the snails who manage to divert and strand a tour bus and drum up impressive business. At this success, Theo convinces Tito to try to enter the snail in Indianapolis 500 as a competitor. While Tito's brother, Angelo, still declines to support him, the neighbors agree to put up the entrance fee and accompany them to Indianapolis. Once there, Tito is refused entry into the race, but a chance meeting with Guy Gagne gives Turbo a chance to show off his speed which astounds the race track at the snail qualifying for the race.

This impossible feat soon becomes a sensation on social media and the owner of the race gives in to the pressure, egged on by Gagne himself, to let the snail compete. However, the night before the race, Turbo is demoralized when his hero, Gagne, sneers at his attempt to race while Chet confesses that he cannot bear to see his brother endanger himself. Undeterred, Turbo enters the race the next day, but the dangerous racetrack and the far more experienced competition leaves him trailing in last place.

At a pitstop, Whiplash and his crew give Turbo a vital pep talk, advising him to race like a snail. Back in the race, Turbo realizes what they mean and uses his small size to maximum advantage with maneuvers around and under the competition that no human racer can emulate. With the snail rapidly gaining in the standings, Gagné races dirty and tries to kill the snail while Turbo finds to his alarm that his speed power is starting to fade. Finally, in the final stretch with Turbo in the lead, Gagné tries a desperate maneuver to beat the snail and gets into a major crash that snarls all the competitors in a major pileup. Similarly, Turbo is thrown, waking up once again from unconsciousness with a cracked shell and finds, to his despair, that his speed is gone.

Alarmed at seeing Turbo giving up and retreating into his shell barely a few feet from the finish line, Chet puts himself into incredible dangers to meet up with Whiplash's crew to get to the racer. Seeing his brother and friends arrive riding crows to encourage him to continue, Turbo resumes the race. Unfortunately, Gagne singlemindedly pursues him by dragging his wrecked car after the snail and attempts to crush him. At the last second, Chet tells Turbo to tuck and roll into his shell at Gagne's last blow and the force allows him to tumble past the finish line to win.

At this victory, the strip mall becomes a major attraction with all the businesses becoming spectacular successes including extremely elaborate snail races with Whiplash's crew getting special propulsion aids for their shells, while Chet is content as the track referee. As for Turbo, he becomes happier discovering that his shell has healed, and with that, his superspeed has returned.

Voice cast

• Ryan Reynolds as Theo aka Turbo, a garden snail who dreams of becoming a racer and the next Indy 500 champion.
• Paul Giamatti as Chet, Turbo's brother
• Michael Peña as Tito Lopez, a "Dos Bros" taco truck driver who finds and befriends Turbo.
• Snoop Dogg as Smoove Move, a snail
• Maya Rudolph as Burn, a snail
• Michelle Rodriguez as Paz, a car mechanic
• Samuel L. Jackson as Whiplash, the leader of the Starlight Plaza Snail crew.
• Luis Guzmán as Angelo Lopez, Tito's brother and a "Dos Bros" taco truck driver.
• Bill Hader as Guy Gagné, a French-Canadian Indy 500 champion
• Richard Jenkins as Bobby, a shopkeeper who makes custom snail shells.
• Ken Jeong as Kim-Ly, a manicurist
• Ben Schwartz as Skidmark, Whiplash's "feisty #2".
• Kurtwood Smith as Indy CEO
• Michael Bell as White Shadow
• Dario Franchitti as Scottish Anchor, Male Tourist
• Will Power as Australian Anchor
• Mario Andretti as an Indianapolis Motor Speedway traffic director
• Paul Page as a booth announcer

Production

Turbo was directed by first-time director, David Soren, who also came up with the idea for the film. It all started when DreamWorks Animation organized a competition for all employees to pitch a one page idea. The night before, Soren conceptualized Fast & Furious with snails, and won the competition. The studio bought the idea, and let it "simmer" for more than five years. When Soren and his family moved into a new home with a backyard infested with snails, he pushed for the idea and "got it back on the fast track." Soren explained why he chose snails: "For me, it was less about trying to make a racing movie and more about finding an underdog that I could really latch onto. I think that a snail is inherently an underdog. It's smashed, eaten by people, the butt of slow jokes around the world. It just seemed loaded with obstacles. Obviously, the opposite of slow is fast, and that's where racing came into the picture." For the racing side of the film, Soren was inspired by his six-year-old son's fascination with race cars.

DreamWorks Animation partnered with Hulman & Company, parent company of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Indy Racing League, LLC (the organisation that sanctions the IZOD IndyCar Series) to make the racing as authentic as possible. Dario Franchitti, four-time IZOD IndyCar Series champion, was a technical consultant on the film, giving advice how Turbo should navigate the speed and competition through the eyes of a snail.

Release

Turbo had its world premiere on June 24, 2013, at the CineEurope film distributors' trade fair in Barcelona, Spain. It was theatrically released in the United States on July 17, 2013. Turbo was originally scheduled for a July 19, 2013, release, but DreamWorks Animation moved the release up by two days.

Reception

Critical response

Turbo received mixed to positive reviews from critics. The site's consensus reads: "" Another review aggregation website Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 59 out of 100 based on 26 reviews. The film earned an "A" from general audiences polled by CinemaScore, and an "A+" from audiences under age 18.

Peter Debruge of Variety gave the film a positive review, saying "Co-writer/director David Soren's story offers little that even the average 6-year-old couldn't imagine, though the film's considerable charm comes through via its characters and sense of humor." Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B, saying "While there's no denying that the film is a harmless, wholesome, and heart-warming ride crafted with polish and skill, it's also so predictable that you'll see every twist in the story driving down Fifth Avenue." Lou Lumenick of the New York Post gave the film three out of four stars, saying "Let's just say there are no surprises here, and that's not necessarily a bad thing in a film that's aimed mostly at the under-10 set. Mercifully, the characters and the comedy are just sophisticated enough to keep their minders from drifting off." Bill Goodykoontz of The Arizona Republic gave the film three out of five stars, saying "There's certainly no harm in seeing "Turbo." Competent, pretty funny in places, awfully nice to look at, that sort of thing. There's just not a lot of excitement, though." Rafer Guzman of Newsday gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying "Turbo" has just enough heart to make it to the winner's circle." Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying "This good-natured but generic animated tale of a puny garden snail with huge dreams has some appealing characters, a few laughs and then devolves into a predictable Tortoise and the Hare spinoff.' A.O. Scott The New York Times gave the film three out of five stars, saying "Even in the absence of originality, there is fun to be had, thanks to some loopy, clever jokes and a lively celebrity voice cast." Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times gave the film three and a half stars out of five, saying "Honestly, they pretty much had me at "racing snails." Linda Barnard of the Toronto Star gave the film two out of four stars, saying "Turbo's colourful trek to product placement-littered Indianapolis is as rote as it gets, but little viewers won't care about predictability." David Hiltbrand of The Philadelphia Inquirer gave the film two out of four stars, saying "Let's face it: Kids aren't a very demanding audience. If there's color, movement, and a high quotient of silliness, they're happy." Peter Hartlaub of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film a negative review, saying "After the originality of the hero, the filmmakers borrow too heavily from other movies; the similarities to "Ratatouille" and "Cars" are almost distracting."

Moira MacDonald of The Seattle Times gave the film three out of four stars, saying "Ultimately, "Turbo" nicely lives up to its diminutive hero's credo of, "No dream is too big, and no dreamer too small" - a pleasant thought, for people of all sizes." Joe Neumaier of New York Daily News gave the film three out of five stars, saying "Families who have already raced to "Monsters University" and "Despicable Me 2" will find "Turbo" an acceptable third-place finisher. A sort-of escargot-meets-"Cars" adventure, it has some sharp vocal turns and remains fun even when its inventiveness runs out of gas." Jen Chaney of The Washington Post gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying "Turbo" is a derivative but nevertheless good-hearted movie that's peppered with enough clever touches to engage adults as well as moviegoers of the smaller, squirmier variety." Tom Russo of The Boston Globe gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying "While Disney seems to actively court entertainment headlines every time it gives us a new princess of color, here there's no fuss, just a fully realized cartoon world that happens to be made up of the places and diverse faces found around an urban strip mall." Colin Covert of the Star Tribune gave the film three out four stars, saying "Turbo" isn't a perfect cartoon, but it's so likable that, like its humble hero, you have to root for it." Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter called the film "An attractively designed but narratively challenged, one-note film." David Fear of Time Out gave the film two out of five stars, saying "All Turbo does is give Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Samuel L. Jackson and Snoop Dogg the easiest paychecks they'll ever make, and its corporate overlords the chance to sell a few toys." Nell Minow of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a B+, saying "The movie gets a bit slow, with too much time spent on the human characters, who are dreary and underwritten, compared to the big dreams of the little snail. But the film picks up when the racing snails come back onscreen, thanks to the adorable character design, with expressive use of those googly eyes, and especially to the voice talent." A.A. Dowd of The A.V. Club gave the film a B", saying "For all its chronic familiarity, the movie has its minor pleasures, many of them visual. Though at this point it's basically a given that a new studio-animated movie will look good, Turbo often looks downright exceptional."

Box office

As of August 11, 2013, Turbo has grossed $75,020,000 in North America, $60,700,000 and in other countries, for a worldwide total of $135,720,000.

In North America, on its opening day the film earned 5.8 million in 3,552 theaters. The film opened to #3 in its first weekend, with $21,312,625, behind The Conjuring and Despicable Me 2, having the third lowest all-time opening for a DreamWorks Animation computer-animated film, or adjusted for inflation and 3D prices, the lowest ever for a DWA CG film. Turbo's domestic performance was a disappointment for DreamWorks Animation, which had expectation for their films to be "$150 million, $200 million grossing movies." Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks Animation's CEO, attributed less than expected gross to the bad date, to the oversaturated marketplace, having in the summer of 2013 100% more animated films than before, and to "the difficulty of breaking through the clutter with an original title."

Soundtrack

Turbo: Music From The Motion Picture is the soundtrack of the film. Henry Jackman composed the original music for the film, which was released on July 16, 2013 by Relativity Music Group. The soundtrack with an additional 11 songs was released on the Deluxe Edition. Snoop Dogg, who voiced one of the characters in the film, also contributed to the soundtrack with an original song titled Let the Bass Go, which was played over the closing credits. According to Dogg, the song is "something upbeat that everyone in the house can enjoy. I'm on my old-school rap style there: we took sounds from the Eighties like an 808 bass to give it that 'Planet Rock' and 'Going Back to Cali' feel. It was about paying homage, while at the same time taking the movie to the next level."

Track listing

Video game

A video game based on the film, entitled Super Stunt Squad, was released on July 16, 2013 on Wii U, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. Published by D3 Publisher, the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U versions were developed by Monkey Bar Games. The Wii, Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo DS versions were developed by Torus Games. In the game, a crew of characters has to perform stunts in order to build up their skills and win challenges.

Television series

A television series, titled Turbo: F.A.S.T. (Fast Action Stunt Team), will debut exclusively on Netflix in December 2013. As the first original Netflix series for children, it will be available in United States and in the 40 countries where Netflix offers its service. Consisting of 56 11-minute episodes, the series will follow Turbo and his crew on their worldwide exploits while mastering new stunts and competing with villains. It will be produced by Titmouse. Reid Scott will voice Turbo in the series.