AS HOLLYWOOD originality festers, it seems every blockbuster videogame is being gussied up for the big screen. Yet while Mario, Sonic, Uncharted and the like are easy fodder for even the laziest hack, eyebrows were raised when Sony announced a movie based on its tentpole racing franchise, Gran Turismo, which lands in cinemas this week.
Densely-plotted adventures like The Last of Us require little more than a cut-and-paste for the cameras, but how do you deliver two hours of narrative from a game with no plot or characters, which simply involves steering a digital car around a track?
While it may be utterly authentic, no one wants to sit in the cinema watching someone tune the springs of a 1987 Ford Sierra for two hours.
Rather than being based on the PlayStation behemoth, though, Gran Turismo instead charts Darlington-born Jann Mardenborough's unbelievable rise from gamer to bona-fide racing driver by competing in the GT Academy – an experiment to see if its most passionate fans could cut it as drivers for realsies.
District 9 director Neil Blomkamp is at the wheel, shepherding a cast that includes Stranger Things star and Hollywood's favourite schlub, David Harbour, Orlando Bloom and, erm, Geri Halliwell. Given she hasn't acted in much since Spice World, I'm sure the gig has nothing to do with her being married to Red Bull team principal Christian Horner. Of course, it could have been worse – she could have been doing the soundtrack.
As an eSports drama rather than videogame on the big screen, creative liberties have been taken to inject some zip into its Rocky-on-four-wheels tale, and it all feel rather like an ad for both Gran Turismo and Nissan (Blomkamp owns three R35 GTRs).
As in the game, though, the cars are the stars, and Gran Turismo finds its gear with racing sequences that mercifully rely on practical effects and spectacular drone shots hurtling along real-world asphalt.
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The PlayStation fanbase are treated to over 25 years' worth of Easter eggs, including camera angles, sound effects and graphical overlays lifted from the game, while Sony has released an update to GT7 which adds the Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 '18 – as seen on the big screen – as a freebie.
With Horizon, God of War, Twisted Metal and Ghost of Tsushima all in production, Gran Turismo is the first in a glut of upcoming PlayStation adaptations, offering a Gran day out for fans of either the game or just racing in general – even if you never thought you'd pay good money to see Ginger Spice on the big screen. Again.
