Theater Review: Turbo

I am so far behind on my reviews again. I had to at least sit down and get this theater review out - especially since the film is dropping on DVD next week.

Anyway, I definitely was not expecting anything when I went to see Turbo. My parents came up to visit and took my son to see it - and I tagged along.

But, I really came away surprised - I really enjoyed it.

Turbo (Ryan Reynolds) is a snail that has the need for speed. He stays up at night watching videos of his favorite race car driver, Guy Gagne (Bill Hader) and dreaming of being a racer himself. For a snail, he might actually be one of the faster ones - but he is still a snail.

During the day, he works in a tomato garden with a lot of other snails, including his brother Chet (Paul Giamatti), who is sort of in charge of the garden crew. On his breaks, instead of eating, Turbo pretends to be fast - and it is beginning to wear on his brother, who wants him to grow up.

Turbo leaves the tomato garden for a walk one night and wishes on a 'star' to be fast, and he gets sucked up into a super charged car - and he gets soaked in nitrous oxide that gets sucked into his DNA. And, you guessed it - Turbo becomes super fast.

So, he goes to show off for the garden crew - and manages to crush most of the garden, which gets himself and his brother fired. As they fought, Chet is scooped up by a crow - and Turbo heads off to rescue him.

Both of them are soon picked up by Tito (Michael Pena) and taken back to a forgotten strip mall where he works with his brother Angelo (Luis Guzman) at a taco stand. Tito likes to race snails, and uses some souped up shells to make the snails faster - however, everyone is blown away but what Turbo can do.

Tito soon comes up with an idea to rescue the taco stand - and the strip mall. He decides to enter Turbo in a race with actual race cars - including racing against his ideal Gagne.

As I said, I went into this not really expecting much - but I found myself pretty entertained. No, it isn't the greatest animated film, heck it probably isn't even the best of the year. But, I was definitely entertained throughout, so it gets my vote of approval.

The interaction between the brothers, both Tito and Angelo, and Chet and Turbo is pretty good. The strip mall crew: Paz (Michelle Rodriguez), Bobby (Richard Jenkins) and Kim-Ly (Ken Jeong) were also pretty fun to watch. Then there were the other snails that get raced: Whiplash (Samuel L. Jackson), Burn (Maya Rudolph), Smoove Move (Snoop Dogg), Skidmark (Ben Schwartz) and White Shadow (Michael Bell) - a lot of laughs during their scenes.

Again, not breaking new ground here with this film - but for a film that I really didn't even think about seeing, I really enjoyed it.

Grade:

Step Brothers

This movie borders on the insane, yet still has that weird undertow that you sort of can follow.

Step Brothers stars Will Ferrell as Brennan Huff and John C. Reilly as Dale Doback. The two are each 40 year olds who still live at home with their single parents.

Huff lives with his mother, Nancy (Mary Steenburgen), and has at least tried to hold down a job in his life - despite recently being fired from PetSmart.

Doback stays with his father, Robert (Richard Jenkins) and from what I can tell tried to go to college, but decided to go into the family business - which is hard to do when your father is a doctor.

At a medical conference, Robert and Nancy meet and of course one thing leads to another. The families merge and become one big "happy" family.

It's pretty obvious at first that Dale and Brennan do not like their new arrangements - and even quarrel nonstop. So much so, that Robert and Nancy give them a small amount of time to find a job and then get out of the house.

At a family dinner, Nancy's other son, Derek (Adam Scott) and his family come to dinner. Derek is the more successful of the brothers - and in a flashback we learn crushed Brennan's dream to become a singer.

As Derek is making fun of both Brennan and Dale, Dale becomes enraged and punches Derek in the face - knocking him out of their treehouse. This not only impresses Brennan, but Derek's wife Alice (Kathryn Hahn) as well - who apparently is no longer into Derek.

It's here that Dale and Brennan find out that they have a ton in common and truly become brothers.

The movie is produced by Judd Apatow, who continues to reign over every comedy ever made (so it seems).

Ferrell and Reilly obviously have chemistry together, as they have been together a number of times - the movie was pretty funny and was pretty easy to watch and follow.

Not a high-end comedy in my opinion, but certainly one I could watch again.

Grade: