“It’s like Wes Anderson’s version of Mad Max,” one of my friends said after watching the trailer. Imagine this: the world ended years ago, after a devastating robot-human war. What’s left of humanity is a desert wasteland, with little water to go around and masked bandits pillaging what pockets of civilization remain. Somehow, in all of this, The Kid is still hanging tough, scavenging for issues of his favorite comic book: “Turbo Rider”. Along the way he encounters a grizzly cowboy (Aaron Jeffrey), a bizarre young woman (Laurence Laboeuf), and the evil ruler of the wastelands: Zeus (Michael Ironside). The Kid’s quest is one enormous cliché about discovering the courage in himself, complete with lasers, explosions, fistfights, and one-liners galore. But don’t let that discourage you – the spirit of this movie is what keeps it engaging.
Turbo Kid manages to keep this familiar recipe fresh in a love story to the cheesiest parts of the 80’s. The characters are memorable, the plot is simple, and the humor is unexpectedly tongue-in-cheek. Turbo Kid capitalizes on the nostalgia of neo-technology, back when neon lights, blazing motorcycles, and synth rhythms were the future. The soundtrack is the epitome of this: it’s full of beat machines and flashy sound effects (and it’s fantastically well done – seriously, I even put some of the tracks on my workout playlist). The effects are over-the-top and, as one reviewer put it, the movie feels like a “Saturday morning cartoon turned into an apocalyptic 80s fever-dream.”
Side note: while this movie may appear to be a 12-year-old’s action-figure adventure, it’s not really a kid’s movie. There’s a lot of gore, a lot of raunchy jokes, and a lot of subtle references to VHS tapes and ‘Megaman’. The movie is decidedly low-budget, but directors François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell have made the best of this. The film has received mostly positive reviews and an 85% Metacritic rating – it’s just about the furthest thing from art house cinema, but it’s a lot of fun to watch. In exciting news, earlier this year a sequel was announced to be in the works. So make some popcorn, get some friends, and check out Turbo Kid; it’s not going to change your life, but it’ll definitely put a smile on your face.
You can watch Turbo Kid on Netflix now, and here’s the trailer.
