With “Monsters University” still making big bucks in the box office and advertisements for the upcoming “Despicable Me 2” dominating all forms of media, it will be interesting to see how much of a splash “Turbo” can make when it hits theaters two weeks from now. Dreamworks and Twentieth Century Fox certainly have their work cut out for them. They have just released a new trailer for the film and even though most of the footage is similar to the ones that came before, we do get more of a glimpse of the human characters that are in the movie.
The plot of “Turbo” is fairly obvious: a garden snail who dreams of one day being able to go fast is suddenly given the ability to do just that. Somehow, with his newfound ability, the snail (nicknamed “Turbo”) finds himself racing against actual IndyCars in the Indianapolis 500. The most fun aspect of “Turbo” is, perhaps, the diverse cast of voice actors: Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Michael Pena, Snoop Dogg, Maya Rudolph, Samuel L. Jackson, and yes, Ken Jeong… playing yet another obnoxious character.
The most interesting aspect of “Turbo,” however, is the lengths the filmmakers went through to achieve authenticity. An article in the Wall Street Journal reveals that they brought in cinematographer Wally Pfister (“The Dark Knight” trilogy, “Inception”) to help with the look of the film. Pfister took the filmmakers “to a lighting studio in Hollywood to demonstrate how different environments could be lit.” As director David Soren puts it, “When you have a snail at the center of your story who can go 200 miles per hour, you need to ground everything else in a very believable, very real reality.”
Soren, who has worked as a story artist on previous Dreamworks films such as “Shark Tale” and “Over the Hedge,” will finally make his feature film debut with “Turbo.” We’ll see if he rises to the occasion when it comes out on July 17th. You can view the trailer below.