Companion Viewing
"Mad Max" (1979)
"Road Warrior" (1981)
"Hardware" (1990)
"Hobo with a Shotgun" (2011)
If you found “Turbo Kid” (last screening Wednesday night at the Digital Gym Cinema) on a VHS tape in someone’s garage you’d probably swear it was a movie from the 1980s. To enhance that feeling, the film opens by designating 1997 as the future.
“Turbo Kid” is a delightfully and deliberately retro action film. It delivers a pop culture cocktail that mixes the kid elements of Japanese TV shows like “Power Rangers” with the splatter gore of early Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson with a splash of BMX bike action for added flavor.
The feature’s adapted and expanded from the short film “T for Turbo” submitted for the “ABCs of Death” anthology series. At the center of this grungy futuristic tale is The Kid (a likable Munro Chambers), an orphan who forages around the wasteland for whatever he can find but he’s mostly interested in toys, pink flamingos, and anything that could be used as a weapon. Like Starlord in “Guardians of the Galaxy,” he also likes his cassette tapes of retro pop music. He’s also enamored with a comic called “Turbo Rider.”
The Kid fancies himself a loner like the iconic heroes he worships from comics and movies. But it’s more posturing than reality. So when the relentlessly cheerful Apple (a blithely grinning and surprisingly endearing Laurence LeBoeuf) tries to befriend him he pretends he doesn’t need anyone, especially not a girl. The contrast between The Kid and his fantasy of himself is made clear when he meets a real rebel and loner, a cowboy named Frederic (Aaron Jeffrey).
And then of course there’s the villain of the piece, a one-eyed baddie named Zeus, who rules the wasteland and tries to control the precious water supply. Zeus is played with gruff gusto by cult favorite Michael Ironside of “Scanners” and “Starship Troopers” fame. He doesn’t so much chew up the scenery as he savors his villainous lines as if he were sipping a fine wine. Lines like, “Kill them, bring me back their heads on pikes” or “we like to do things with a little more joie de vivre.”
A film like this is only as good as its villain, and Ironside raises the bar.
There’s not a lot of plot in “Turbo Kid” but then the film doesn’t need it. It completely captures the retro feel of the 1980s films it’s trying to imitate and then adds an odd layer of goofy sweetness. At times it goes for a laugh at the expense of its characters and that’s too bad but it takes such delight in celebrating the cheesiness of '80s action (but with amped up gore effects) that’s it’s hard to be too critical of it.
Some companion viewing for this would be genuine '80s action films like “Mad Max” and “Hardware” (that’s technically a 1990 release but very much in this '80s action vein), and retro styled films like “Dead Hooker in a Trunk” and “Hobo with a Shotgun.” The latter was made by Jason Eisener who also happens to serve as one of the executive producers on “Turbo Kid.” And all three of these glorious retro films hail from Canada.
“Turbo Kid” serves up a joyous pastiche. Listen to my podcast review where you can hear clips from the film, on my new KPBS Cinema Junkie podcast.
