Turbo Kid

Turbo Kid is a fun little film that mashes a hyper-violent post apocalyptic wasteland with 80's retro-style science fiction. The film revolves around The Kid, a nameless scavenger who lives alone in an underground bunker. He spends his days scavenging, reading comics and trading at the local settlement. One day he meets a robot girl, falls head over heals, and goes to save her after she is kidnapped by leather wearing goons working for an imperious gang-leader. The Kid teams up with a tough-as-nails cowboy and his robot girlfriend to try and survive, and maybe enjoy the scenery and grow up along the way.

Turbo Kid was straight up adorable. The film features a cool 80's soundtrack, a la Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive, in a Mad Max style (or more like The Bed Sitting Room style) post apocalypse setting. The movie was adorable for a couple of reasons: First, all the characters ride around on BMX bikes, which is charming in its own way. These goons with leather gear and masks all riding around on bikes is just too cute! The soundtrack was great (if you fancy bands like College, Com Truise etc.), and the science fiction aspects of its were fun in a campy sort of way.

Don't get me wrong. This was not a masterpiece of a film. It is low budget, campy and over the top in some aspects. Even so, it was a fun, tongue-in-cheek film that mixes fun science fiction arm blasters with gritty and grindhouse style gore. It has a particularly original charm to it, in parts low budget, but with a ton of heart and soul. The whole thing just oozed charm and fun camp. The actors looked like they were having a blast, the soundtrack is great (once again!) and the film itself was shot well and directed straight. This is no big budget blockbuster, but it is fun, enjoyable, and adorable! Worth a watch for sure if you want to try something a little outside the box. It might not blow you away per say, but it just might charm the pants off of you. I am quite glad I was able to watch this one.

The easiest way to put this is that they made a film for 10 year old me but knew I'd be mid 30s when I watched it!

So much fun. Some of the best kills I've ever seen and the most awesome synth soundtrack ever!

When it comes to plot, Turbo Kid isn't exactly the most cerebral. A lot of the runtime focuses on the friendship between The Kid and Apple, and how her happy-go-lucky attitude is a stark contrast to his coy, safe existence. There's some backstory flashbacks inserted every now and then that shows a connection between The Kid and Zeus, and the conflict between them establishes a reason for all the action.

But the plot is fairly superfluous to Turbo Kid's true purpose, and that's 80s nostalgia and homage. The whole thing feels like a post-apocalyptic movie made in the 80s, with nods to the movies of the time wherever you look. My favourite of which is everyone riding around on BMX bikes and chopper-cycles, reminiscent of movies like E.T. and The Goonies, and yet when you think about it, it actually makes perfect sense in a post-apocalyptic world where fuel is probably non-existent.

Another great aspect of the 80s angle is the special effects. There isn't a whole lot of CGI in Turbo Kid, but what CGI we do get is deliberately cheap and obvious. The Kid's arm weapon shoots out bright lights and lasers that look ripped straight out of Highlander, and the nuclear winter clouds are recreated with clever liquid mixtures that are super-imposed in the sky above landscapes, landscapes of which that are super reminiscent of the original Mad Max. The level of blood and gore is typically over-the-top as well, with blood spurting and spraying all over the place whenever someone loses an appendage or gets cut in half (which actually happens a lot, The Kid's weapon literally vaporises people, and Skeletron has a projectile circular saw on his arm). Fight scenes become blood baths, and uses how over-the-top and silly it is to it's advantage. For instance in the final fight scene, a goon ends up wearing a tower of torsos and legs of his comrades in a comedic pile-up.

Of course a massive 80s homage like Turbo Kid wouldn't work without a suitable synthcore score, and in that regard Turbo Kid fails to disappoint. Almost every scene is punctuated by staccato synth bass and electro dance drums pulsing away with twinkly keyboard sounds and arpeggios coursing out the melody. There's even an appearance from John Farnham's Thunder in Your Heart which is about as 80s as synth-rock gets (listened to by the character of a tape walkman, of course).

Now I'd be lying if I didn't say the dialogue and scripting was awful and cheesy as hell, or that a number of the actors overdid their deliveries, but in a way that all just added to the charm of the movie. When you really think about it, dialogue and acting wasn't typically great in a lot of the most iconic movies from the 80s, filled with lines and exchanges that today seem really cliché and cheesy. What would usually be a criticism in any other movie, here just feels like another layer to the homage of 80s classics and B-movies.

Of course when it comes to acting, the standout is Laurence LeBoeuf as the zany, overly optimistic Apple who befriends The Kid. Her smile is infectious and she takes every scene in her stride, becoming the true heart and soul of the entire movie. Munro Chambers certainly does an admirable job as The Kid, following the path of coward-turned-hero naturally and fluidly, and embracing the audience surrogate through this 80s adventure. Aaron Jeffrey seems to have a lot of fun as the cowboy Frederic, delivering every cheesy one-liner with all the panazz and cliché accentuation that the homage deserves, while Michael Ironside likewise seems to have a lot of fun as the villainous Zeus, tearing up and dominating every scene he's in. Edwin Wright as well, despite not having any lines of dialogue at all, turns Skeletron into a figure befitting of nightmares.

Turbo Kid is a deliberately cheesy exploration of an apocalyptic wasteland. It's been coined as a Mad Max love story on BMX bikes, and honestly that's about as accurate a description as you can get. Every scene uses 80s love and appreciation, and it never fails to warm your heart and make you squirm at graphic spurts of blood, sometimes simultaneously. In some respects it is awful, and yet that only adds to it's genuine charm, and often feels like a deliberate choice. You can tell the budget wasn't particularly huge, but that often plays in it's favour. Turbo Kid was a thoroughly enjoyable romp that stands out from many of today's more expensive endeavours. I give it an 8/10, and would recommend to anyone with a fundamental love of 80s movies.

Some films have no pretensions other than to simply entertain their audience. Turbo Kid is such a movie. It plays upon the continual love for the 80's that still shows no signs of abating. Its set in the future of 1997 - well this was the distant future in the 80's I seem to recall – and the world is a post-apocalypse. General lawlessness prevails and life is a survival of the fittest. Enter The Kid, a teenager who lives in a scrap yard surrounded by old 80's toys, he is joined by an ever-optimistic girl called Apple and together they go against a gang of bad guys ruled over by an evil man called Zeus.

This Canadian movie really goes for it on the 80's homage front. We have heroes on BMX bikes and a world not dissimilar to the Mad Max template. We also have a very agreeable 80's styled synth score that emphasises its influences at all times. The two young heroes make for an engaging central couple, with Laurence Leboeuf particularly impressive as the girl Apple. Michael Ironside is also on hand to offer some additional B movie cred and as a star of many 80's genre pics his presence makes additional sense. The story is nonsense of course but it never pretends otherwise. It's more a means to an end to allow us to see lots of over-the-top bloody action violence and colourful characters decked out in a selection of great outfits. It's fast-paced and, most importantly, it never forgets that its principle objective is to entertain. It reminded me a little of another Canadian movie Hobo with a Shotgun (2011) which also was a hyper violent modern recreation of an 80's genre pic with a veteran genre star (in that case Rutger Hauer). Turbo Kid adopts the same approach but dispenses with the more mean-spirited stuff from that one; its focus is squarely on a fun time.

I don't really have any previous knowledge of most of the actors or seen or heard anything prior to watching the movie apart from the trailer.

I won't go into plot details as there are other reviews that did that way better.

What I do want to say though is: set your expectations right!!! If you liked what you saw in the trailer, hey...if you liked the poster and know what "homage" means as a genre then go see it! But if you are not aware of those things....please don't come back here giving ratings of 1 and saying how bad this movie was.

It's one of those artsy movies that you'd better watch on your own in my opinion. The universe is very captivating. The characters are likable and relatable. They are pure and innocent in a way. There is no nudity in the movie. And the gore is 80's style, but you could probably go with a tween or a teen. It's way safer than what Hollywood offers to that audience.

I really enjoyed the movie. If you have open mind, some time and know what to expect it's a nice treat at the beginning of the autumn. If some of those things do not apply to you, then you'd probably skip or leave the cinema.