Turbo

Plot synopsis:
In a suburban San Fernando Valley garden in Los Angeles, 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 winner, Guy Gagné. His obsession with speed and all things fast has made him an outcast in the slow and cautious snail community, and a constant embarrassment to his 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, Turbo wanders onto a freeway to admire the traffic and wishes he was fast on the first star (which is actually an airplane light). Suddenly, he gets into a freak accident when he gets sucked into the supercharger of a drag racer, fusing his DNA with nitrous oxide. The next day, when Theo wakes up, he now possesses incredible speed and accuracy, as well as some characteristics of an actual car. Unfortunately, Turbo'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 by their foreman.
As the siblings quarrel over Turbo's problems, Chet is snatched by a crow, but is pursued and rescued by Turbo at a run down strip mall called Starlight Plaza. There, they are captured by Tito, a "Dos Bros" taco truck driver, and are brought to a snail race held by him and his co-workers. Theo astounds both humans and snails alike and earns the respect of the snails, led by Whiplash, with his crew members Smoove Move, Burn, Skidmark, and White Shadow, who have skills of their own. Inspired by this extraordinary snail, Tito dreams to revive the strip mall with Turbo 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 enter him in the 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 Gagné gives Turbo a chance to show off his speed, astounding the audience and the racers and qualifies for the race. This impossible feat soon becomes a sensation on social media and the CEO gives in to the pressure, egged on by Gagné himself, to let the snail compete. However, the night before the race, Turbo is demoralized by Gagné, 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 more experienced competitors leave him trailing in last place. At a pitstop, Whiplash and his crew give Turbo a vital pep talk, advising him to stop racing like a car. Back in the race, Turbo realizes what they mean and uses his small size to his advantage. With the snail rapidly gaining in the standings, Gagné starts racing dirty and manages to knock Turbo against the circuit wall, damaging his shell and weakening his speed powers.
Eventually, 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 snares most of the competitors in a major pileup. Similarly, Turbo is thrown, waking up from unconsciousness with his shell punctured and his speed gone. Alarmed at seeing Turbo giving up, Chet puts himself into incredible dangers to meet up with Whiplash's crew to get to the racer. Seeing his brother and the crew arrive on crows to encourage him to continue, Turbo resumes the race. Unfortunately, Gagné, refusing to lose, single-mindedly pursues him by dragging his wrecked car attempt to win. At the last second, Chet tells Turbo to tuck and roll into his shell at Gagné's last blow and the force allows him to tumble past the finish line to win. Gagné is then attacked by Kim-Ly before being disqualified for cheating.
At this victory, Starlight Plaza 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 with his new job as the track referee and paramedic. As for Turbo, he becomes happier discovering that his shell has healed, and with that, his superspeed has returned.

Tags: violence

Review:
Making the most of a small budget!. Director Jarrett Lee Conaway does a lot in a surprisingly small amount of time. Choreographed fight scenes with flurries of special FX shots highlighted within, deceivingly big and futuristic sets, and a young cast you barely get to know, but quickly come to love.In Turbo, star Hugo Park (acted well by Justin Chon of Twilight fame) gambles his brother Tobias' (Ilram Choi, a professional stuntman) rent away at a local club, playing a virtual reality game called 'Super Turbo Arena 2'. The game requires gloves and special glasses, it which point, the player's movements are tracked on screen. This movie couldn't have been made at a better time, as video consoles have finally reached a point where movement tracking controllers are a reality. Suddenly, the idea of STA2 seems more possible than ever.This is obviously a movie by a gamer, for gamers, as every minute detail is covered. From the techno music backing the fights, to the announcer's voice, this film is a love letter to "Street Fighter", and many other 3D fighting games.The only time I found myself disappointed was during key scenes near the end, when a final tournament is held, with a prize take of $50,000. I was looking forward to all of the fights leading up to the final tournament battle, but unfortunately, the only one you really get to see is a part-flashback style fight between the protagonist and his nemesis. I was hoping to be wowed by the action, but cutting what should be an important tournament for ALL of the characters in the film was not the best decision.Overall, Turbo nails the atmosphere of Martial Arts video games, and by not overstaying its welcome, it succeeds in drawing you in and keeping you interested. Perhaps this is why so many video game films struggle... you can only do so much with a story you ultimately create yourself (In modern games).. Very impressive genre film despite limits in performances and scale. Turbo is a virtual reality fighting game which can be played online or face to face in organized tournaments. When young Hugo loses his brother's rent money in a fight to bully Shamus Bryce, it also ends his hope to enter a larger tournament. However Ruse Kapri saw him fight and liked his spirit, lending him the money to enter. However what hope does he have against the undefeated Shamus? Well, very little until older brother Tobias, an injured former fighter, steps in to help train him in real life skills to use in the game.This film opens with a scene to grab your attention and make you jump online to check if you really are watching a student film or not. We start with a fight sequence in a computerized world which is a nicely shot walkway over a road but does the trick. It features animation like in Street Fighter or Tekken and it moves very well within the fight but also slipping out into Hugo's house where he stands on a platform wired up so his character repeats his moves. From here we get the detail of the world and we quickly get into sports genre movie territory – essentially this is Karate Kid where a young fighter takes on a bully with training from an older master.Technology wise the film is very impressive indeed and Conaway has not only done great work in the post-production but his direction of action sequences is good in this context, keeping the camera moving to add energy and impact. I would have liked some more extended fight sequences and more elaborate locations, but what I got I liked. The short running time does limit the plot because, like I said, this is Karate kid but it is really compressed and the rush does show. This also hurts the performances a little bit and I would have liked a little more time to develop characters and draw me in. Chon and Choi in particular were good but with limited time Lehre and Hunter were a bit unnatural and caricatured. In the fight sequences stunt performers Choi, Noviello and Tiare do well. The rush and the material does limit the performances though – not all down to the cast. While the use of computer technology and the camera movement is effective, Conaway doesn't quite overcome the challenge of resources in other ways and during the big fight the small room of people watching does feel like a small room of people rather than something bigger, and the real-world set for the final battle is a big "sound-stage" rather than feeling real and atmospheric – minor quibbles though.Turbo is a great little genre film – not "good for a student film" but actually good enough to watch on its own without any context. It has weaknesses in terms of material, performances and scale at some points, but it is still very impressive and, although rushed, is enjoyable and fun.. High adrenaline short film, great production, and funky soundtrack. Hard to believe this is a film school short as the production values are pretty damn high. This film is a genre fusion of augmented reality computer gaming, martial arts and old school classic fight tournaments with some pretty decent performances. Set in a near future, the story features an underground tournament where contestants compete in an augmented reality martial arts game called Turbo. Those of you who are gamers, imagine an augmented reality version of Virtual Fighter (or Streetfighter) with your own life-like avatar, using your whole body as the controls, then throw in a Karate Kid storyline of a bullied boy trying to prove himself and a brother mentor that trains him to fight, and you have a predictable but highly enjoyable short flick. Why its so enjoyable is the movie knows its clichéd like hell but delivers it with style and a little self mocking wink.Non gamers would enjoy this too for its kinetic energy, slick visuals, martial arts, cool soundtrack and good old boo the bad guy, cheer the good guy feel.Being a film school production, I cant really say much bad things about it but I do agree with another reviewer on how fights are edited. Its a pity, the old school pan out long takes are not adopted these days. Having said that, the fights were were still enjoyable despite the fast edits.To top it off the film ends with a superb end credit sequence that most Hollywood movies would envy.