‘Turbo Kid’ (2015) Might Be The Greatest Movie Ever Made

This might just be my favourite scripted film ever. It’s definitely cracked the top 5, sitting alongside Hackers, Tron, Scott Pilgrim vs The World and the original Star Wars trilogy (this counts as one), which should tell you what sort of ride you’re in for with Turbokid.

Set in an apocalyptic future, and shot like eighties classic, you have to imagine the lovechild of original Mad Max and The Labyrinth as a starting point, then add a lot more gore. Turbokid is oddly childish and deliberately cheesy, but also littered with ever-increasing moments of over-the-top violence, blood and guts. Seriously, blood sprays everywhere at times. Jaws are ripped out, heads smashed, loads of decapitations and the like. The thing is though, that the hyper unrealism of the rest of the movie means these scenes are as nicely comical as they are exceptionally well-done. For those about to watch this keep an eye out for the totem-pole moment, you’ll know it when you see it.

It’s all here – the vengeful kid who gains super powers, a one-eyed villain, water as currency, robots, a badass Australian (who takes inspiration from Clint Eastwood’s The Stranger in High Plains Drifter), the bad guys fighting the good guys one on one and then comically taking out their comrades when someone ducks, and just one-liner after one-liner of movie gold.

Oh, and a backstory that takes about a minute. Movies with a lot more budget could learn much from the makers of this film.

There’s even a fabulous ’70’s soundtrack which, depending on the scene, is either directly influenced by Wendy Carlos or by soundtrack number one’s from pop bands (check the themes from Karate Kid, Rocky or Top Gun for reference).”You’re taking a chance, risking it all, for the thrill of the moment…IT’S THE THUNDER IN YOUR HEART” or something along those lines followed by a power ballad guitar solo, all the while pulling a low level slow-motion air jump on a BMX. It’s great.

Pretty much all the bad guys with their BMX’s, hockey masks, chain fists and the like are worth shouting out, but the real star is a character named Skeletron who is THE most badass bodyguard we’ve ever seen, and that includes Gogo Yubari.

We talk about the throwback elements of this movie but the truth is that it really could only have been made in the modern day. It takes the best elements of boyhood cinematic classics (and even a Nintendo power glove) and puts them in to one space.

Now out on DVD, you need this movie for the collection. Check out the trailers below and then go source it at the main site here, where you’ll find all the information on the geniuses who made it that we haven’t had time to talk about here: http://turbo-kid.com

It’s 1997. In a ruined post-apocalyptic world, the orphaned Kid survives on his own through drought-ridden nuclear winter, traversing the Wasteland on his BMX, scavenging for scraps to trade for a scant supply of water. When his perpetually chipper, pink-haired new best friend Apple is kidnapped by a minion of evil overlord Zeus, the Kid summons the courage of his comic book hero and prepares to deliver turbocharged justice to Zeus, his buzzsaw-handed sidekick Skeletron, and their vicious masked army.

Bolstered by a pitch-perfect synth score, and clever and cheeky period details, co-directors François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell create a raucous retro-futuristic action comedy that pays homage to ’80s movies great and small, while adding their own flair with inventive and exuberant violence and gore (prepare for disemboweling by exercycle). Sci-fi legend Michael Ironside delivers with malevolence and glee as the larger-than-life Zeus, a despicable villain with joie de vivre.