'Gran Turismo' review: Where flashy technology meets crusty clichés

Archie Madekwe and David Harbour star in "Gran Turismo." Credit: Columbia Pictures/Gordon Timpen

PLOT A racing video-gamer tries his hand at the real thing.

CAST Archie Madekwe, David Harbour, Orlando Bloom

RATED PG-13 (language and some action)

LENGTH 2:15

WHERE Area theaters

BOTTOM LINE A pastiche of sports-movie cliches, but the revved-up racing scenes will keep you hooked.

After countless hours behind the wheel of a video game, a teenager gets a chance to compete IRL in the sports drama “Gran Turismo.” As a biopic of a digital native, “Gran Turismo” is certainly a movie for our moment — a full-throated celebration of the virtual over what the old folks still call “reality.”

The kid is Jann Mardenborough, from Wales, whose every spare minute and dollar goes into playing Gran Turismo, the game that recreates racing’s greatest tracks and coolest cars in hyper-accurate detail. (Its creator, Kazunori Yamauchi, played by Takehiro Hira, is presented to us as something like a living deity.) Jann, played by Archie Madekwe (“Midsommar”), is emblematic of a new generational divide: He and his father (Djimon Hounsou) do almost nothing together except argue over screen time.

But then Jann earns a spot in the GT Academy, which prepares the game’s best players to compete in real races. Enter Jack Salter, Jann’s reluctant coach — and a fictional character made up of spare parts from other movies. Once a star behind the wheel, now the mechanic under the car, Jack listens to Black Sabbath on an ancient Walkman to drown out his regrets. He’s Robert Duvall from “Days of Thunder,” Dennis Hopper from “Hoosiers,” Paul Newman from “The Color of Money” — and if anyone but the great David Harbour ("Stranger Things") had played this tough-love role, lines like “I’m gonna prove that you don’t have what it takes!” would never fly.

Characters, by and large, are not this movie’s strong suit. Jann is a nice kid, endearingly square (he listens to Enya and Kenny G) but he’s ultimately a blank. A pro racer named Capa (Josha Stradowski) makes for a generic villain: cocky, wealthy, etc. More interesting is the marketing exec Danny Moore played by a slippery Orlando Bloom. The GT Academy is Moore’s brainchild, and he’ll do just about anything for a bit of good press. (Moore is also fictional, but inspired by a real figure.)

What makes “Gran Turismo” worth watching for two-plus hours are the dynamic racing sequences. Director Neill Blomkamp (of the sui generis sci-fi flick “District 9”; he also co-wrote this screenplay) really does put us in the driver’s seat, using zippy camerawork and gaming graphics to help us visualize the physics and geometry of high-speed racing. A breathtaking moment comes at Germany’s Nürburgring track when Jann’s car goes airborne and, horrifyingly, kills a spectator.

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With its mix of flashy technology and crusty clichés, “Gran Turismo” makes for a bumpy but occasionally thrilling viewing experience. Stay for the closing credits, in which the game’s makers, armed with laser scanners, swarm around a gleaming new automobile to create its digital clone. Virtual, reality — what’s the difference?