Around the half-hour point, the titular snail (Ryan Reynolds)—obsessed with auto racing and newly imbued with super-speed—finds himself captured by taco truck operator Tito (Michael Peña) and forced to participate in a sad little snail race against the gastropods representing Tito’s fellow proprietors in a sad little San Fernando Valley strip mall. My mind drifted, imagining a movie that followed those down-on-their-luck entrepreneurs—anything, in fact, besides yet another animated feature with fast-paced set pieces, tart-tongued supporting characters and a persecuted outcast. Instead, we chuckle at a couple of the jokes, we nod in recognition at the familiar voices—Samuel L. Jackson, Paul Giamatti, Bill Hader, Ken Jeong, Michelle Rodiguez—and we pass the time with kids who are fed amiable mediocrity wrapped up in a narrative all about daring to be more than an amiable mediocrity.
By
Scott Renshaw