'GRAN TURISMO' MOVIE DRIFTS INTO CLICHES AND VIDEO GAME AESTHETICS

In 2006, a Nissan marketing executive had a truly insane idea to create a competition and an "academy" to turn gamers into race car drivers.

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Darren Cox saw an untapped market of potential car-buyers in Gran Turismo enthusiasts - the popular PlayStation racing simulator that first came on the market in 1997. And in the third year of the "GT Academy," an actual star emerged in a 19-year-old British kid named Jann Mardenborough, who would go on to become a professional driver, just like he dreamed.

It's a fine and lucrative idea for a movie - an inspirational underdog story in which brands like Nissan and PlayStation, a Sony company which also owns the studio behind the movie, can take partial credit for and help underwrite. And it couldn't come at a better time, when F1 is exploding in popularity in the United States thanks in part to the Netflix series "Drive to Survive." But "Gran Turismo" has taken this opportunity and made the cliché version in this year of movies like "Barbie" and "Air," which showed audiences that "brand" movies don't have to be basic. They can be fresh, vibrant, funny and entertaining - even when literally focused on the corporate schlubs just trying to earn their keep.