Is Gran Turismo Movie Good? | The Basic Underdog Formula

Is the Gran Turismo movie good?

Well, Gran Turismo is a perfectly mediocre film. With a plot and characters that perfectly fit the mold of the basic underdog story, Gran Turismo‘s most unique quality lies in the ways that the editors brought video game-like effects into real-world circumstances.

Every other aspect of the movie, the story, the actors, and the cinematography are nothing to write home about although not bad.  

Gran Turismo Movie Good? | How It Fits The Underdog Formula

Despite his father's disapproval, Jann Mardenborough wants nothing more to do with his time than play the racecar game, Gran Turismo. When the opportunity to race cars in real life presents itself to Jann he defies all odds against professional race car drivers.

**Heads Up There WILL be spoilers in this review. **

Disapproving Figures

Every underdog story has to have people who truly don’t believe in the protagonist’s ability to win. That’s what makes them an underdog in the first place. The fact that the odds are stacked against them.

Jann doesn’t have the skills, the experience, or the training that all of the other racecar drivers have. This leads his parents to fear for him and disapprove of his path.

His coach barely believes in him, having been roped into this experiment against his initial judgment.

Jann’s belief in himself is what pushes him to the heights that he achieves.

By the end of the film, of course, everyone who didn’t believe in Jann has a change of heart. The story fails to go off script from what you’d expect from a classic underdog narrative.

The Encouraging Love Interest

Jann does have a love interest although her presence is very lightly felt throughout the film.

She feels more like a formulaic inclusion in the film rather than a necessary plot moving point.

This love interest acts as a motivator for Jann to do his best as a means to impress this girl that he’s been crushing on.

The progression of their love story is very lackluster. It’s obviously not one of the focal narratives of the film and it’s evident that the creators of this film did not put much thought or effort into fleshing out the depth or details of their romance.

Although the status of their relationship seems pretty undefined at the beginning of the film, it’s easy to guess where they will end up by the movie’s end.

Again, no surprises here.

Big Setback That Must Be Overcome

The climax of the film presents a large, devastating setback for Jann that he must learn to overcome.

This setback is a mental jolt from the very convenient back-to-back wins that Jann kept achieving.

As an audience, we finally see that success rarely comes without a slew of failures. We see a very relatable human moment with Jann having to decide if this journey is still worth it for him.

To no one’s surprise, Jann picks himself back up again to continue the race, his initial naysayers now being the ones to believe in him when his belief in himself is low.

As we approach the end of the movie with the culmination of Jann’s motivators, detractors, successes, and failures, it is no surprise how the story ends.

Exactly what you would expect from an underdog story.

In Conclusion…

Gran Turismo is not a bad movie but it’s not necessarily good either. It’s relatively underwhelming and disengagingly predictable.

Racing gamers may enjoy this movie a bit more due to the engaging way that it includes gaming graphics into the story and makes the audience feel like they’re zooming down the racetrack with the characters.

Overall, I would not pay for this movie, I would honestly wait for streaming. You can zone out for half of the film and still completely understand the whole thing.

Decent, basic, and mediocre, I’m surprised I could scrape up enough words to make a review about this movie.

Rating 5/10

What do you think? Is the Gran Turismo Movie Good? Let me know in the comments below!

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Peace, love, and lots of popcorn,

IMO