Reviewing Turbo 3D from Dreamworks Animation and 20th Century Fox featuring the voices of Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Samuel L. Jackson, Snoop Dogg, Michelle Rodriguez and more.
I have to admit that I wasn't really psyched to see Turbo. But imagine me being quite happy that I was wrong with my initial outlook at the movie as it was actually tons of fun to watch. The film follows the life of Theo aka Turbo (Ryan Reynolds) who dreams to go fast and gets his wish after a freak accident grants him the power of speed. Together with his brother Chet (Paul Giamatti) and his ragtag crew of snails, Turbo goes on to the Indy 500 and win it as well. The 3D for the movie works great. In fact, it's one of the better movies that utilized 3D technology. That or I just like all the dashing and chasing that's going on here in the movie. Anyway, the movie is chockful of key scenes and the thing about the promotional materials that appeared for Turbo is the fact they never gave away any of this. I loved the theme here about reaching for your star, being a shooting star for others and more importantly being a brother/ buddy to the people who are dear to you. There's a lot of great moment there that left a sole tear in my eye where Chet risks his life in order to be there with his brother. So much feels on that particular scene. Everybody can relate in that, I was just caught off guard that I got to see that in a movie about a speedster snail.
Voice casting/ usage was hit or miss. Reynolds as Turbo was just OK. Paul Giamatti as Chet was great because we see him play with a wide range of emotions for the OCD snail. That plus I can already hear him go full Samuel L. Jackson and Snoop Doog owned their respective roles here. Maya Rudolph as Burn was great. Bill Hader's take on champion racer Guy Gagne' was weak. I dunno, I still prefer Sacha Baron Cohen's take as French driver Jean Girard. The animated feature is enjoyable and is a total hoot to watch with the entire family. In fact there's something for everybody in "Turbo 3D". The racing and action sequences will fit for Dads and big brothers, then there's the humor bit and emotional bit for the moms and sisters. Overall, I totally loved "Turbo 3D" and you'd be a snail if you missed out on seeing this visually and emotionally satisfying animated featured. "Turbo 3D" opens July 19 from 20th Century Fox and Dreamworks Animation.
“Turbo” (in 3D and 2D) is a heart-stopping action adventure with lively characters starring the voices of Ryan Reynolds as Theo/Turbo, Paul Giamatti as Chet, Samuel L. Jackson as Whiplash, Snoop Dogg as Smoove Move, Maya Rudolph as Burn, Ben Schwartz as Skidmark, Mike Bell as White Shadow, Michael Peña as Tito, Luis Guzman as Angelo, Bill Hader as Guy Gagne, Ken Jeong as Kim Ly and Michelle Rodriguez as Paz.
The family film from DreamWorks Animation centers on the engaging crew of snails starting with a garden snail named Turbo who leaves his snail community behind to begin his journey to fulfill his dream of becoming a racer in the Indy 500. Swept from a freeway overpass onto the hood of a sports car, and is then propelled into the muscle car’s air intake valve, Turbo is then charged with explosive nitrous oxide, altering his molecular structure. The freak accident infuses Turbo with incredible speed – he can reach 200 miles per hour – and he now blazes across the streets of Los Angeles like a neon bullet.
Along the way, Turbo and his brother Chet meet new snails who help achieve his dream of joining the Indy 500 race. Check out “Turbo’s Snail Crew” clip here - http://youtu.be/7OOCo1phfxo CHET Turbo’s cautious, protective and supportive brother voiced by multi award winning actor Paul Giamatti. Chet is a snail who is a stick-in-the-mud and do-everything-by-the-rules kind of guy. His philosophy is: “Do not try to leave your shell or do anything risky. ’I am not a risk-taker. I am ‘Mr. Safety’.” WHIPLASH
The charismatic leader and reigning champ of the Racing Snails voiced by Samuel L. Jackson. A warm jovial guy who treats his crew like family who helps Turbo realize his dream. Whiplash has great inspiring abilities. He's able to rally people around him and to make them think that they're capable of doing things that they ordinarily wouldn't be able to do. SMOOVE MOVE
The Zen-like, laid back racing snail voiced by multi-platinum artist, actor and entertainment icon Snoop Dogg. A super-cool-low-rider with a blinged-out shell whose motto is derived from what his mamma taught him “Don’t mess with what you’ve been blessed with. I’m S-to-the-M-to-the-double- O-V-E! Wouldn’t change that for the world! Preach.” BURN
Burn is the only female in the crew voiced by SNL icon Maya Rudolph. A toughie who doesn’t have trouble holding her own amidst the testosterone-fueled, speed-worshipping teammates. Sly and sassy and always chewing gum, Burn hides her soft side under a hard outer shell (adorned with shooting flames). SKIDMARK
Skidmark or Number 13, this master of skids is voiced by Ben Schwartz. Sentimental and gravity-defiant, his shell is souped-up like a dragster prone to make long skidding noises. WHITE SHADOW
White Shadow resembles an intriguing cross between Jabba the Hut and Evel Knievel voiced by Mike Bell (a former DreamWorks Animation storyboard artist who initially done the temp voice but the short-term gig became a co-starring voice role due to the perfect voice initially rendered). Full of false bravado and real laughs, White Shadow considers himself to be “fast, like a shadow” – ignoring the fact that shadows aren’t inherently fast. White Shadow prefers to be mysterious and his dream is to have a burrito named after him to be called White Shadorrito.
Meet Turbo (voiced by Ryan Reynolds), an underdog snail who dreams to overdrive just like his idol who races in the Indy 500. At the start, Turbo is somewhat of an outcast in the snail community, which is less about big dreams and more about punching a time clock at their place of employment.
Training tirelessly all his life, he miraculously gained speed at an opportune time he met a crew of streetwise, tricked-out es-car-goes. Learning that no one can make it on their own in the fast lane. He and his newfound pals help each other achieve their impossible dream of racing in the Indy 500. "Turbo," says director and co-screenwriter David Soren, is a mash-up of superhero and racing film genres, but “at its heart, TURBO really is an underdog story. The character Turbo has all the hallmarks of an underdog. You expect nothing of snails, whose lives are stacked with obstacles, like being really, really slow. But once you dig into it, a snail is the perfect character to have at the center of an underdog story.” But turning an everyday, garden snail into a mighty mollusk who travels at super-speed? “Turbo’s dream of becoming something that’s completely in opposition to its nature is ripe for conflict, surprises and a satisfying payoff” when the dream becomes reality,” says Soren. Soren came up with the idea for "Turbo" almost a decade ago. He described it to DreamWorks Animation management at one of the company’s “pitch program” conclaves, at which DreamWorks employees can pitch their ideas for possible future projects. “At the time it was a very complex idea – the ‘Fast and Furious with Snails,’” he remembers.
As he developed the idea, Soren was inspired by events and people very close to home. His primary muse, he notes, “was my young son, who since before he could talk has been obsessed with toy cars and racing, and could identify virtually any car on the street by its make and model.” Soren also found motivation in his own front yard, which had a “snail problem” that was eating away at his tomato plants. “This marriage of the slow [the snails] and speed [his son’s preoccupation] was the catalyst that led me to the bones of the story centered on a snail who dreams of racing glory.” Luckily,the requisite comedic and dramatic acting chops, and bigger-than-life persona, are embodied by Ryan Reynolds, whom Soren describes as “the perfect match” for Turbo. “It all really sounded amazing, and I fell in love with its classic underdog story, which TURBO takes to a new level,” Reynolds continues. “It takes a unique if not insane perspective to bring a snail to life in this way. What I love most about Turbo is his tenacity and refusal to give up on his dream. In fact, it doesn’t even occur to him to give up. Talent is a collision between hard work and luck, and that’s what Turbo is.” "Turbo" also features a stellar voice cast including Samuel L. Jackson, Paul Giamatti, Michael Pena, Luis Guzman, Bill Hader, Snoop Dogg, Maya Rudolph and Ben Schwartz. "Turbo" (3D) opens July 19 in theaters nationwide from DreamWorks Animation and 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.
Audiences love to root for courageous dreamers who pursue their goals when the odds are stacked firmly against them. It’s a tradition that has stood the test of time and one that has a powerful appeal for filmmaker David Soren, who tells the story of an unusual underdog – or under snail –in the animated 3Dfilm, “Turbo.”
Voiced by Ryan Reynolds, Turbo dreams of being fast, fast enough to compete against champions in one of the world’s toughest car races. Defying logic, physics, nature and critics (including his own brother) the small snail sets out on a thrilling adventure. Director David Soren describes Turbo in the new movie from DreamWorks Animation, as the ultimate underdog’, for obvious reasons. “ Turbo is a snail and snails are constantly faced with challenges. They are smushed, salted and stepped on; they're eaten in some parts of the world,” says Soren who set his story in Southern California where he lives with his family. The filmmaker became fascinated with the snails he observed in his own front yard. “Mother Nature has dealt them a bad hand,” he says. “When it seems impossible for a character to have any chance of success, that's exactly what makes a great underdog story. And that’s what it is like for Turbo.” Turbo dreams of escaping the mundane confines of his sluggish community. Frustrated with life in the slow lane, he has a fantasy of racing glory and an adrenaline-fueled life that’s a far cry from the yard where he lives with his cautious brother Chet (Paul Giamatti). Frustrated by his own physical limitations, Turbo wants to move at high speed and is inspired by his hero, a French Canadian racing driver.
Starring the voices of Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Snoop Dogg, Maya Rudolph, Ben Schwartz and Samuel L. Jackson, “Turbo” is a fast-paced, action-packed 3D comedy and is set to have audiences around the world root for a super-charged snail to use his incredible powers to win the ultimate race against his idols so that he can prove once and for all that no dream is too big and no dreamer is too small.
Ryan Reynolds lends his voice in the animated 3D movies "The Croods" and "Turbo" coming out this year from DreamWorks Animation wherein both his roles set in motion the greatest changes in the midst of momentous journeys captured in groundbreaking 3D images.
Starring Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener and Cloris Leachman, "The Croods" is a comedy adventure that takes us back to a previously undiscovered era in the history of our planet known as the Croodaceous, when nature was still a work-in-progress… full of never-before- seen creatures and landscapes. Reynolds voices Guy who comes across the Croods family whose patriarch named Grug (Cage) along with his wife Ugga (Keener), daughter Eep (Stone) and the rest of the brood when the earth's core started to move them around out of safety and into a new world.
Dreamworks is set to change the pace in racing when it finally releases “Turbo” in theaters worldwide on July 19 starring the voices of Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Snoop Dogg, Maya Rudolph, Ben Schwartz and Samuel L. Jackson.
In “Turbo,” a snail named Theo (voiced by Reynolds) dreams of being the greatest racer in the world making him an oddity in the slow and cautious community he belongs. An impossible dream of an ordinary snail comes true when luck struck him with an incredible speed one fateful day. With his dream suddenly within reach, Theo aka Turbo embarks on a journey after being transported to a rundown strip mall where visitors bet on races featuring snails and meets a ragtag of street-smart snails headed by Whiplash (Samuel L. Jackson), Smoove Move (Snoop Dogg), Burn (Maya Rudolph) and Skidmark (Ben Schwartz).
