AutoMatters & More: Review of Gran Turismo

Gran Turismo is an action-packed, incredibly realistic auto racing movie that is based on the true story of teenage video gamer turned professional racecar driver Jann Mardenborough (portrayed on-screen by Archie Madekwe), along with chief engineer and failed former racecar driver Jack Salter (David Harbour), visionary motorsports executive Danny Moore (Orlando Bloom) and the PlayStation Studios video game. This is the story of how a working-class teenager from Britain went from obsessively playing Gran Turismo to competing in that video game to try to win a coveted spot — against 90,000 other video gamers — on Nissan’s GT Academy race team with actual racecars.

I am especially excited to share my review of Gran Turismo with you. As you read this, bear in mind that for most of my adult life (I am 69 now) I competed in motorsports (albeit at the amateur, grassroots level). I loved driving at the limit in competition with other skilled drivers, and I know from first-hand experience the adrenaline rush of what that feels like.

(Courtesy Sony Pictures)

Gran Turismo masterfully captures the very real sense of driving in competition, and elevates that to the level of professional race car drivers. Gran Turismo is, without any doubt, destined to be acknowledged as one of the best auto racing films of all time. I kid you not.

While as a motion picture Gran Turismo is technically very well done and has cool special effects (recurring X-Ray and exploding views of racing cars — on the sim and on actual racetracks), thankfully this film does not suffer from what I call the “Hollywood effect” (taken to one of its worst extremes in the Tom Cruise stock car racing movie “Days of Thunder”). The film speed is not, I repeat NOT undercranked (as far as I can tell), which is a technique that some filmmakers use to artificially speed up the cars to make it look like they are being driven faster than they actually are. This always looks fake, and is sometimes laughable.

(Jan Wagner)

Instead, Gran Turismo comes across as compelling and real — sometimes frighteningly so. The fatal, catastrophic crash that is recreated for the movie actually happened (I will not tell you at which racetrack, so as to not spoil the story).

The placements of the (Sony VENICE 2 with Rialto) movie cameras vividly convey a powerful sense of on-track action and extreme speeds. Along with that is the ever-present awareness that the racing action is happening in real time and that it could all go very wrong in an instant — as it does!

Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe) at the wheel of his Nissan racecar.

(Courtesy Sony Pictures)

Gran Turismo came as close to putting me at the wheel of a racecar as any movie ever has — with the exception of Steve McQueen’s Le Mans. When that movie first came out I saw it at a drive-in theater, while sitting behind the steering wheel of my Datsun 240-Z! I was exhausted at the end of watching Gran Turismo. That is a very good thing!

Some of the stunt driving in Gran Turismo was actually done by Jann Mardenborough himself, who has accumulated an impressive record of competition in motorsports. According to this Wikipedia article (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jann_Mardenborough), Jann’s racing resume includes the British GT Championship, Blancpain Endurance Series, Goodwood Festival of Speed, Formula 3 European Championship, GP3 Series, GP2 Series, FIA World Endurance Championship; Spa 24 Hours; Japanese Super GT, Super Formula and F3 Series; and, of course, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This could easily form the basis for an interesting documentary film.

Nissan racecar at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

(Courtesy Sony Pictures)

To see an official trailer for Gran Turismo and for more information, visit: https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/granturismo. You can also watch it here, on YouTube: //youtu.be/GgKmhDaVo48, and for a cool, behind the scenes video, check out: //youtu.be/5mjd14G9wyE

Kudos to Director Neill Blomkamp, Director of Photography Jacques Jouffret ASC and the rest of the production team. This is one movie that I will be adding to my movie collection.

Before I close, I must warn you about something. After watching Gran Turismo, you might feel compelled to buy a PlayStation 5 and a copy of the latest version of the video game. You might even feel compelled to buy a racing seat and install a really good SIM steering wheel, just like Jann did at the beginning of the movie.

To explore a wide variety of content dating back to 2002, with the most photos and the latest text, visit “AutoMatters & More” at https://automatters.net. Search by title or topic in the Search Bar in the middle of the Home Page, or click on the blue ‘years’ boxes and browse.

Copyright © 2023 by Jan Wagner – AutoMatters & More #804r1