Review of Turbo (2013) by Jeff_Reviews — 21 Jul 2013

"Dreamwork's Turbo" suffers greatly from its already weak premise, unoriginal tale, and unsatisfying group of characters, and still struggles greatly to convey a message. The film greatly struggles with making likable characters from the start, as the protagonist Turbo is hard to like due to his whiny and weakly developed personality.

Turbo's growth through the film is a basic one that doesn't develop as well as it should have, with moments of humor interacting into awkward moments of slight emotional edges. While the humor derives mostly on characters, it isn't that laugh out loud hilarious that you could have gotten from films like "Despicable Me 2" or "Monsters University", and that the fact that this movies tries to be hilarious but evidently fails to show extremely funny humor (example as only a few chuckles were found in my theater in Turbo, as opposed to bawling laughter while in MU and DM2) Along with the humor from the characters, a lot of the supporting characters are not even developed well, aside from Turbo and maybe his human counter part Tito.

The themes are very (seriously) close to those from Pixar films "Ratatouille" and "Cars", and while compared to those, it is fallen back way behind. While the themes from "Ratatouille" and "Cars" are put into emotional depth with characters, you aren't as emotionally attached or even care for the ones in "Turbo".

Starlight Plaza isn't as deeply inspired as Radiator Springs, and Turbo isn't as strong as a character as Remy, which leaves this film nearly impossible to be matched with movies similar to it. The main idea to "Turbo" is that "dreams can come true to everyone", which to the opposite of "Monsters University", but in this case, the message isn't able to influence the audience due to the case of Turbo's situation.

Turbo's ability to get a radio attached inside of him and his physical speed is obviously aimed to reach the younger audience and to get a couple of laughs, but interacts negatively to the message because of the fact that it tells us that the impossible can happen, even though impossible.

The message in "Monsters University" counteracts the one in "Turbo" much better, because it tells us the truth, even though the truth hurts. Turbo's positives are that its wonderfully animated (except the strange looking snails that are obviously prone for kids to like) and that its got some humor in it.

While "Turbo" has its downsides, you may want to watch it on DVD instead of theaters, as "Monsters University" and even "Despicable Me 2" are much better than this film. While "Turbo" may be not as tight and well executed as it could have been, it is most likely that it will be the third best animated film of the summer (not that optimistic on Planes and Smurfs 2).