‘He’s going the distance…he’s going for speed!’  Just another snail has a dream, snail gets super-powers, overcomes and triumphs flick?  I don’t think so.  Even though you know the pat storybook ending coming – you’ll still find something different and special about Turbo 3D, and just maybe you’ll be cheering as much as I was in the final act.  Turbo 3D is not about a fast snail and Indy car racing – it’s about brothers and friends being the vital support system in life we need them to be.  It’s about believing in yourself because they believe in you. A-

Ryan Reynolds (Van Wilder) leads a boisterous voice cast as Turbo, the not so simple story of a snail who just wants to go faster.  Encumbered by the lowly day-to-day duties of your variety garden snail, Turbo isn’t content to care for vegetation and wait to be snagged and eaten by the occasional crow, he wants more – he wants to move more, and faster.  When fate delivers the wish squarely on his little shell in the form of unnatural speed, he uses it to parlay his newfound speediness into a place at the Indy 500.

It’s easy to summarily dismiss Turbo 3D as just another adversity bounding animated piece of fare, but I have to say it’s not.  It’s a family story centered on the bond between brothers.  What’s even cooler is it’s carried out on two levels; the brotherly antics of Turbo the snail and Chet (Paul Giamatti of ‘Sideways’) his bossy older sibling, as well as Angelo and Tito the humans who find Turbo and start him on his racing path.  Each brother is dismissive of the others hopes and dreams but ultimately both sets of siblings come to realize that their ‘brother dreamers’ may be odd and in the clouds, but their success is tantamount to the efforts of the other.  Turbo 3D does a great job at that – showing dissident siblings both human and larva and how brotherly love is what’s needed to usher anyone through a tough situation.  The final act (big Indy race) is where it shines.  Not only does the message come through but the race ends in such a pulse-pounding, inner-cheering way that you can’t help but love the film.

This one is going to sneak up on the people (especially adults) to the tune of some big bucks.  The 3D is not what gets you, it’s the brotherly love that wins the pole here.

 

Turbo 3D is rated PG for some mild action and thematic elements.  Running Time: 96 minutes.