FROM Dreamworks comes this incredible (in the truest lexicographical sense) and by-and-large heartwarming animated fantasy of a little guy’s perseverance and ultimate triumph against every expectation and obstacle.

Who among us would have imagined that a gastropod could propel itself around a motor-racing track and defeat all those noisy fire-breathing Yank tanks vying for the fame and big bucks waiting at the end of lap 200 ?

In his writing/directing debut, David Soren’s tale of Turbo, a garden snail that like the little railway engine who thought he could and did, has enough charm to offset its American cultural ambit and narrative purview. Kids will probably find it undemanding. Its issues will either skate over the heads of grown-ups with a two-dimensional view of society’s class structure or engage parents prepared to read between its lines while minding their ankle-biters during the vacation.

Australia’s petrol heads may justifiably snort with derision at its treatment of motor racing. The Indianapolis 500 is like a horizontal hamster wheel, its only skill the ability to go faster than legally permissible. The film casts Formula 1 type cars as little Turbo’s opponents. When I last watched film of the Indy, the cars were highly modified sedans with road ancestry. Might it be that our American cousins envy the ability of the rest of the motor-sport world to build cars that can handle tracks bendier than the boredom of the Brickyard ?

At Dendy, Capitol 6, Hoyts and Limelight