Turbo Kid is an original – action, adventure, comedy – film that came out last year. It had a limited release, and then came out on blu-ray before the end of the year. I saw it with my brother and best friend at the first screening we could go to. We all followed the film ever since my brother showed us the trailer a couple months before release, and we were all ecstatic that we could go see this glorious film in theatres.
If you’re a fan of over the top, hilarious action/adventure films. Post apocalyptic films, in the same breath as mad max. This film is definitely for you!
Turbo Kid takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where a comic book fan dons the persona of his favourite hero to save his enthusiastic friend and fight tyrannical overlord. You’re thinking, i’ve seen stuff like this before, you probably have, but you haven’t seen it pulled off like this. The over the top violence and the great and hilarious cast make this film something special.
The film was based on a short film that was used in The ABCs of Death(2012), the short film was called simply T is for Turbo. It was awesome, and I was super happy to see that this movie was actually made. And on top of all that awesome, Its Canadian, shot in areas of Quebec.
T is for Turbo and Turbo Kid were written and directed by 3 directors, I’ve never heard the names of before. Francois Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell. For not hearing of any of these directors before, this was a brilliant introduction to their style. They have a keen eye for the over the top-ness of the film. They have a brilliant love for the more retro style of filming, it looked very throw back to the 80’s, even in the soundtrack!!! which I will discuss further. But the directors were able to throw it back to the grind house era of film making, minus the ridiculous filter over the camera. This does the same and instead of the filter, we have over the top violence. When I say over the top, I mean like hilariously over the top, sometime gets stabbed or blown up, and their body parts explode and blood goes all over the place. So yeah if you can’t handle over the top violence, this movie is clearly not for you.
The actors in this movie playing the protagonist – The Kid and Apple, i’ve never heard of until this movie. But I thought the actor who played The Kid (Munro Chambers) did an excellent job, he was extremely believable and just a lot of fun to watch. He really carried the movie well, and could’ve easily been a dumb character and over the top, but he was brilliant. But the real star of this movie goes to the female actor who played Apple (Laurence Leboeuf). She was just super cute and she did such an amazing job playing Apple. She delivered some of the best lines and her facial reactions and sometimes over reactions were brilliant. She was funny, sweet, kind hearted, but she ended up being a complete and udder badass, and easily my favourite character in the movie.
The antagonist of the movie Zeus, was played by the only actor I knew the name of prior to seeing this movie – Michael Ironside. Michael Ironside I think is a great and underrated actor, he’s been in so much but people really don’t know his name. His filmography includes such films as Scanners (1981), Top Gun (1986), Total Recall (1990), Starship Troopers (1997), The Machinist (2004). He also is pretty famous in the video game world, as he voiced Sam Fisher in the Splinter Cell Franchise (Splinter Cell(2002) – Splinter Cell Conviction (2010), until he was replaced in Blacklist… which I still think was a mistake. Ironside is Sam Fisher). Thats a story for another day. I thought he did a great job playing the tyrannical overlord, and I feel with the vast filmography he had, the role of Zeus was WAY up his alley.
My favourite part of the movie, other than the great comedy and one liners, was definitely the soundtrack. The soundtrack was MIND BLOWINGLY awesome. It was all like 70s/80s electronic music. Synthesizers and all. It was just lovely and brilliant, it fit the tone of the movie extremely well, like so much so that it was a character in and of itself. The movie would have been great on its own, but it was with the fantastic soundtrack that it went to the next level of awesome. I actually went out day one to HMV to pick up the soundtrack, and I still listen to it constantly. I went through a phase when I first got it, that it would be the only thing I would listen to. Its just amazing. I can’t say enough good things about it.
My only negative about the film was that there were some scenes/parts that seemed to drag on and on. The pace kinda got a little slow, but it was all building to a brilliant conclusion that was just a lot of fun to watch.
All in all, I give Turbo Kid, which was one of my favourite films of last year and still extremely rewatchable now, a 4/5. Its just a ride, and a lot of fun. Mad Max on a BMX, gotta love it.
Until next time!
-Andrew