What no Grand Turismo thread?

I saw the movie yesterday without seeing any trailers or hearing any spoilers.   All I knew was that it was based upon a true story so I knew what the storyline had to be.  (I'm not going to spoil it for you)

It was remarkably good.  Good story/plot line and didn't give you any obvious spots to go to the bathroom so I'm going to suggest going just before the movie begins and no drinks in the theater because it's about 3 hours long.

It had some good driving scenes and some awesome sound tracks.

Go see it at the movie theater, not at home.  You'll like it.

I heard the guy the movie is based on did the stunt driving. Imagine being a stunt double in your own biopic.

I'll admit, I saw the trailers and thought "this looks terrible", but the word of mouth and reviews have been surprisingly good. I'll probably check it out when it hits streaming.

I took my 12 year old son to it last week.  I was pleasantly surprised.  My son liked it as well and said he wanted to go carting afterwards.

I am shock.  That looks like the stupidest movie ever made.

I would say it's a good general movie, as in, most people will like it.  It's well shot and well acted.  I think most will like the racing shown, but I found it a bit frenetic, which seems to be the common style, just too jumpy, quick cutty, for my likes.  It has some interesting presentations that show a lot of association with sim racing presentation, which of course is appropriate in this case.

I really would have liked to to display more race craft in it.  It did a bit, which is more so than most racing movies, but it still fell rather short.

I am sure it has some added drama, but it's not over the top.  I thought one racing incident was made up... but it actually happened, pretty much exactly as presented.

The Academy sim aspects of it was wildly shortcutted (it was a much longer process), but that is OK for keeping it movie length.  I am pretty sure FIA licensing does not work like that?  Some who see's it can comment.

One reviewers criticism was it had overdone product placement / presentation... so... you mean, a movie depicting a program, developed by Nissan marketing, to promote Nissan racing in sim racing and real racing, has a lot of Nissan cars and logo's in it?   Shocking.

I would certainly suggest it in general.  Seems like a great family movie.  If you are looking for the best racing movie ever... not in my opinion.

In reply to Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) :

NO!  Go see it on the big screen with a good sound system!!

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

Until you see it.

Even though all the mainstream reviews I've read have said the movie isn't great, often complaining about the pacing, every gearhead review I've heard so far has been totally positive. I was already planning to see it when I was only expecting some cool action sequences but I'm definitely going to see it in the theatre now.

Went and saw it in the cinema last night, if anyone else wants to you'll need to hurry, time is probably almost up by now. I'd say it's worth seeing in the cinema even for the driving scenes alone, but I'll also try to give it a spoiler-free review.

The first bit of the movie is the part that feels cheesy and packed with product placement. If you made a drinking game of taking a shot every time Gran Turismo is called the most realistic driving simulator in the known universe, it feels like you'd be blackout drunk before Jann ever gets on a track in real life. To be fair they may have had a plausible claim to that for a little while since the first Gran Turismo came out 2 years before Sports Car GT and 8 years before rFactor. Anyway, apparently Neill Blomkamp was trying to maintain a biographical level of adherence to Jann Mardenborough's life but there are some parts here that seem so ridiculous and cheesy that I'd feel the need to double-check them...sometimes truth is stranger than fiction though.

By the time the movie gets into Jann's training with Nissan the cheesiness is drying up and the movie starts to feel more like Rush. At this point you'll start to notice the movie raking in points for technical accuracy, the only standout technical goof I can remember is in this segment of the movie but is actually on the sim racing side of things. Blomkamp probably felt right at home when the racing world offered him a race team of super-rich jerks as antagonists, they're basically budding cyberpunk villains ready for a coat of gold on their cars and pit area as a finishing touch. There's a twist in this part of the story that I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if it was a true-story-accurate detail.

The movie also gets heavy on driving scenes from here, yes many of them are jumpy and frenetic but overall they're mostly well done, a few scenes are obviously CGI'd to the point of looking a bit silly but most will either make you wonder if they're computer generated or you'll never question that they're real, and a lot of them will have you on the edge of your seat.

Overall I'd give it 7/10, pretty good movie overall, kickass driving scenes, somewhat let down by the first act.

Just came up on my streaming service, will watch tonight and report.

Interesting track shots, predictable fantasy based plot, a little too long.  Sorry if I am harsh but racing action on utube has raised the bar for me.

porschenut said:

Interesting track shots, predictable fantasy based plot, a little too long.  Sorry if I am harsh but racing action on utube has raised the bar for me.

What about the plot was 'fantasy based'? By most accounts it's supposed to be a fairly accurate re-telling of a true story

Bringing this back to the top as I just watched it last night. It was decent. It did do a bit of the-I really want to pass someone, time to downshift and floor it nonsense that racing movies love, but overall it was OK. The wreck was surprising and I thought for sure fictional when I watched. It turns out the wreck was accurate, they just messed with the timeline so it could be used for a plot point. I was also amused that at one point, they not only switched cars/classes with zero implied notice or practice, but the nemesis racers had all switched cars and classes as well.  Overall it was a pretty cool story. 

Was on my own today so I watched this.

Overall, 7/10.  A bit cheezy, a bit compressed (yeah, you just totaled our GT-R, so we'll cut you loose at Le Mans in our new Prototype with zero experience or practice), but overall, a decent watch.

But in general I like David Harbour, and I thought he was good in this.  The kid was OK and avoided overplaying the "sullen teen" bit in his interactions with his father (the always-good Djimon Hounsou).

The racing action was pretty effective and stayed juuuust on the good side of the "too videogamey" line.

No need to watch it again, but it wasn't a waste of 3 hours.

Watched it on a longer flight a few weeks ago then couldn't find this thread. Hit the spot 100% to pass the time in a better than anticipated level of enjoyment. I remember watching some of the TV coverage of the GT academy but didn't realize anyone went further than the show. Solid 7 out of 10. For a bit it does seem like a nissan commercial but I'll forgive that as they did sponsor both the challenge and movie.

Better than watching crap reruns on MT channel but not by much.  Personally I am reading a lot more than watching TV lately.

In reply to Duke :

In reality that was about a 3 year gap between his wreck and lemans.  But Jann was ok with that type of time jump because he, amongst others, thought it was important for the story.

I made it through half of Gran Turismo and simply couldn't finish. It was really, really bad: Truly terrible. I thought the acting was bad (save for David Harbour) and the characters were insanely two-dimensional. It was just lame trope after lame trope, and the driving/racing scenes weren't even any good either.

Bah.