Bizarro Moviehouse- The cynical may take a glance at “Turbo” and write it off as yet another Dreamworks movie where the entire premise is an animal doing something that an animal doesn’t usually do. They might lament the old and musty trope of an underdog rising through the ranks to beat the villain--who for the sake of narrative convenience is always the most skilled at whatever event the protagonist is trying to master. An abundance of celebrity voicework will inevitably lead to groaning about easy paychecks and attempts to wallpaper over a bland story with starpower. Sure, tossing out all the of the Indy 500’s notoriously uncompromising regulations and allowing a snail to compete would probably require far more effort to explain than Dreamworks was willing to actually put in. Others might point out that allowing a genetically enhanced snail that can travel at obscene speeds to race with Formula 1 cars is like Superman challenging Spiderman to a contest to see who’s the most bulletproof. Latino writers might note that the only Mexican characters in the entire movie sell tacos for a living. Every single one of these observations is true, and by all rights I should condemn “Turbo” for being as lazy as any movie possibly can be when it comes to messaging and storycrafting.
But I won’t.
There are some movies that, while technically terrible in every way, excel at seizing an uncomfortable truth and bringing it to the forefront of our social consciousness. “Night of the Living Dead” had a miniscule budget, and the undead threat consisted primarily of extras stumbling around in boxer shorts. However, its black male lead was portrayed as a capable and bold problem-solver. White characters were either catatonic or bloviating jackasses. Romero took the entire Hollywood racial paradigm, which nobody wanted to acknowledge, and turned it on its head.
“Turbo” has a message too: Steroids are awesome.
In the golden age of American sports, we marveled as home run records were constantly broken by titanic bat-to-ball connections. Lance Armstrong made America proud year after year with his world-famous cycling performances. Professional wrestlers were titans—performing incredible feats of simulated sportsmanship. We had it all until the whiners in the anti-juicing crowd decided that all the fun should be jettisoned from sports by replacing our favorite players with mere mortals of unoptimized flesh. Since cartoon snails don’t have fingers, middle or otherwise, I’ll be happy to lend my appendage and give these wimps a rightly deserved invitation to sit and spin.
Theo the snail is living a life of drudgery harvesting produce; dreaming all the while of a career in racing. Being an ordinary snail, this is clearly beyond his abilities. However, in a twist of fate, Theo is submerged in a vat of nitrous oxide and gains the exact super powers he needs to achieve his dreams. “Turbo” teaches children that people who play by the rules are doomed to a lifetime of conciliation prizes—a job that pays slightly above minimum wage, a house in a neighborhood that allows you to be quickly profiled as a criminal by your betters, and a spouse and children that disappoint your parents. But if you’re willing to take a dip in that gently glowing vat of get-up-and-go, every joy life has to offer will fall into your hands. Your meaty, rage-clenched hands. “Turbo” celebrates an America that refused to accept anything less than a literal 110% effort. And by God, I think we’ll all be better off for it.
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