Turbo Kid

It felt like a movie that was made by someone who grew up watching movies made in 80s America rather than someone who actually grew up in the 80s or America, let alone 80s America. All the jokes, the dialogue, the payoffs--while covered in a veil that screams 3rd season Knight Rider--all have a very "late 90s-early 00s I love pokemon" core that's nastier than the evil lurking inside a Cadbury's Cream Egg. When it was over, all I could think was, "that's not why Michael Ironside was awesome."

Stretching a low budget far and keeping it interesting via characters and humor; turbo kid does a solid job in the dystopian future genre.

Now let me tell you about the 80s: Everything you love about it didn't happen like the way you thought it happened. I know: I soaked in a full 2 years of it. What's good about Turbo Kid is that it doesn't just rely on the retro pastiche but on my lust for Michael Ironside chewing up the screen.

A comics-obsessed teen in a post apocalyptic wasteland adopts the persona of bike riding hero Turbo Kid to rescue his girlfriend from an evil warlord. An eclectic movie that revels in 80's nostalgia and presents a sweet, innocent romance butted up against scenes of over the top gore and cheesy laser effects. To the film's credit, these rapid tonal shifts never feel jarring or unnatural. Fun bad guys, great music and some sweet BMX jumps. Recommended.

What an absolute joy to watch. Gorgeous to look at in all its B grade 80s glory. If you don't feel anything for Apple than you simply aren't human. Along with "The Voices", one of 2015's finest hidden gems.

Gory to the max!!!

Tries to walk a fine line between a genuine pastiche/love letter to 80s post-apoc movies and being an indie post-ironic take on the genre. Post-ironaclypse maybe? I never found myself buying into it's nudge-nudge-wink pastiche completely, but was never bored or not entertained throughout. Overall, there's a lot to love about the movie and anyone who has even the slightest appreciation for the 80s post-apocalypse genre should give this a watch.

A movie 100% dependent on you being nostalgic for the 80s. Like if a Buzzfeed "20 things only a 80s kid would understand" list had a baby with a Troma movie. The Troma part is pretty okay.

Starts off promising, until SHE enters the picture and makes every scene with her in it extremely annoying. Shame though, cause it has some cool elements, and has a villain wearing a really badass mask.

Stranger Things should take a few notes from this on how not to be so rambunctiously 80s. Michael Ironside hamming it up shows how much fun he had making this film; his best since Total Recall

A B movie needs only a few things to succeed: Bloody torsos, flying saw blades, 80s synth, and Michael Ironside. Surprise, Turbo Kid has all of them.

A decent homage to '80s action that achieves what it tries to do on the backs of its performers and soundtrack. It is ultimately forgettable, however, because it's limited by its lack of attention to detail, which is how homage films (like those of Edgar Wright) are turned into standalone achievements.

Doesn't quite hit all the highs and takes a while to actual get moving but the final half hour or so is amazing.

When B-movies are done right, they can be some of the most enjoyable things you can see, assuming you can handle the over-the-top style. Turbo Kid is a B-movie done so well that I honestly can't think of a movie I've seen this year that was more fun. There isn't a scene that doesn't work, a line that makes you do a double-take, or a kill that isn't incredibly enjoyable - and bloody. Turbo Kid is hilarious, sincere, filled with nostalgia, and an incredible amount of fun. I love it.

Turbo Kid has some good ideas and it certainly has heart. The neo-80s aesthetic reminds me of Kung Fury, another low-budget neo-80s film that came out this year. The direction feels like equal parts Peter Jackson and George Miller. But its sound design needs work, with sound effects and score often coming off as detrimental to the on-screen action. The pacing doesn't feel all there either. The result feels like Iron Sky: a film by filmmakers whose ambition outstrips their means and experience.

It's a fun movie with style for miles. The soundtrack and art direction couldn't be more perfect. All the actors were very likable. Turbo Kid and Apple were especially cute together. The plot on the other hand may not be the most original thing in the world, but who the fuck cares? All the other creative turns in this movie made me smile. Even all of the the low budget cheesy over the top gory deaths. 2nd most charming movie of the year right behind Mistress America.

Shameless nostalgia has infiltrated ALL of cinema. Mainstream films milk brand recognition, while indie films now ostentatiously ape retro filmmaking styles. A lot of those indie films are embarrassing. This one is not. This one is well made, and knows how much cheeky self-awareness is enough. The post-apocalyptic world created is like any Mad Max ripoff, but with remnants of whimsy and childlike innocence, as seen through the perspective of our endearing young heroes.

This had some wonderfully fun and creative ideas at play. Unlike other nostalgia fests, this just uses the 80's style as a decoration for their own gory and at times cute story rather than make the 80's a theme and centerpiece. I'm not gonna say there were any Oscar worthy performances, but I like all the actors. The music was also sweet.

Better than I expected. Won me over even though I have zero interest in 80's references.

As with most of these nostalgia projects, there're at least 5 different tones at work here, half of them ironic. It's not a disaster with this kind of material but I just find it hard to fully enjoy any fun element of it since it maintains a consistent post-modern safe-zone around them. Like it's afraid to fully commit to its schlocky core. Or maybe I'm just not a big fan of self-consciously nostalgic schlock. Tries too hard to be cute at times but overall not entirely unsuccessful at it.

From the producer of Hobo with a Shotgun, this lighthearted Canadian cross between Mad Max and your childhood toybox gambles everything on its overload of crazy, unexpected (and low-budget) visuals such as gallons of spurting blood and a gnome duct-taped to a baseball bat. And by and large, it's a success. Although some of the acting is hammy and the dialogue unmemorable, the story has heart and it's short enough that the impact of the occasionally awesome props and costumes doesn't wear thin.

Turbo Kid is a harmlessly enjoyable 80's B-Movie throwback that is sure to satisfy a niche audience. Even though I wasn't majorly impressed on a personnel level, I can appreciate and admire what this film is trying to do and ultimately it succeeds as a low budget, 80's drenched, dystopian future Sci/FI. The soundtrack is cheesy but appropriate, the practical effects are satisfying, the excessive and dramatic gore is bizarrely enjoyable and Michael Ironside steals the show as the villain.

Filled with some awkwardly paced/edited fight scene's, the cowboy character was miscast & his dialogue was under-written, finally, the plot continuity was quite choppy. Looking past these technical flaws, Turbo Kid reeks of Jason Eisener's retro & super-violence obsessions. Notably, he gets an EP credit & death scene for his efforts. Strange, but good to see a Canada/ New Zealand collaboration. Why no Com Truise on the soundtrack?

Over the top violence is cheesy and over the top.

Turbo Kid looks like it's from the 70's and sounds like it's from the 80's. I liked the synth but the cheap post-apocalyptic wasteland was nothing new. The acting was very mediocre, apart from the doe-eyed, exuberant Apple, played by Leboeuf, who injected sincere fun into all her scenes. The film is fun, with a ridiculous amout of blood and guts and silliness, and a fair few references thrown in for nostalgia sake.

Nice soundtrack and some cool costume designs and makeup but after awhile it feels like a Troma movie

What if early '90s cancon had copious amounts of gore? It's a question that I didn't know anyone wanted to answer. Yet, here we are.

Didn't like it as much as I wanted to. Has just as many unintentional flaws as it does intentional flaws. Video review for more information https://youtu.be/2btnzyA7f64

You can see the whole thing doing a really big effort. Normally a 40/100 it is for boring movies although you can see the whole thing. This one it is a 30/100 I ended up stopping in the final confrontation with Zeus. The only good and enjoyable thing was the Synthwave soundtrack. According to Rottentomatoes, it is into the "100 best science fiction movies", well, from now on I will think twice the Rottentomatoes recommendations.

...

A loving homage to '80s genre films with a charming homebrew spirit, winning performances, a kickass synth score, and buckets of gore. Reminiscent of the early work of Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson in all the best ways. Clearly filmed entirely in a Canadian quarry.

In post-apocalyptic 1997, the Kid (Munro Chambers) fights for survival, acquiring a powerful suit and gaining allies in a friendly robot (Laurence LeBoeuf) and a hard-bitten arm-wrestler (Aaron Jeffery) to take down the villain (Michael Ironside) who killed the Kid's family. Mostly very enjoyable spoof of 80s P-A action films, with loving attention to detail when the budget allows--like the great score. A thin story and slightly dull protagonist hold it back, but Labeouf and Ironside are great.

Mired in 80's speak-and-spell and direct-to-video horror nostalgia, Turbo Kid makes great horror/sci-fi/comedy entertainment. Even the bad guys are kinda likeable.

Starts off well with some laughs right at the start and I quite liked the music, though it's slightly slow to really get going in earnest. Surprisingly competent in its composition -- to a great enough degree to avoid being so-bad-it's-good, even (which may actually harm the rewatchability since there's not much that's outrageously horrible in a particularly novel way; I may very well view it again at some point, but I won't be too surprised if I then revise my score downward).

The origin story of Turbo Man.

Turbo Kid mixes grindhouse violence with sprinkles of 80's culture. I'll admit that it's one of my guilty pleasures of 2015. That retro 80's soundtrack is catchy and the violence is hilariously over the top. Even with its low budget the special effects manage to look great. Yeah sure, it's predictable and the plot is a little thin but Turbo Kid has plenty of heart. If you love gory B-movies and you grew up in the 80's, Turbo Kid might hold a special place in your heart. 3.5 STARS

Left me cold, apparently this is a masterpiece and I'm the odd one. I felt the same way about this as I did about Kung Fury

Turbo Kid (2015) is a 80s flashback movie, post-apocalyptic action kid style! While I prefer Kung Fury (2015) for it's incredible cheesiness, Turbo Kid has it's own share of 80s cheesiness. Awesome slasher gore for laughs too! While I never got totally into this world, there is plenty to love here.

It would've been easy (lazy) to simply go for parody here, but Turbo Kid honors the enthusiastic imagination of its influences more than mocks them. What results isn't just a pastiche, but rather a stand-alone great entry into eccentric pop exploitation films. The delivery on some of the visual gags is off key, but Turbo Kid's heart is the reason it can stick around. We need more films like this, with the confidence to be fun without succumbing to embarrassed irony. Also Leboeuf is my new waifu.

Great score. Great gore.

Despite the pop-culture zeitgeist's current over-saturation with homages to the 80's, 'Turbo Kid' stands out as both a more subdued while still over-the-top B-grade love letter; its references and cartoonish violence are balanced by sincerely engaging leads that keep the picture from riding purely on nostalgic charm.

Cute kids adventure....with lots of gore!

Stupid and goofy yet completely watchable.

A solid enough sci-fi b-movie whose limitations are more than budgetary. It's rough in the realm of effects, dialog, acting, and some wholly uninspired, borderline inept directing and camerawork. But the charm here, and there is some charm, comes from the loving tribute to sci-fi flicks of yore, and one kick ass synthwave soundtrack.

This is how you do 1980s nostalgia right. Great soundtrack, likable characters, tons of gore and Michael Ironside as the villain. Also wisely doesn't overstay its welcome.

It manages to be funny, kind of sweet, and ridiculously gory at the same time.

<3

Hey ... it's 1997 and there's been an apocalypse and this kid blah blah blah. I'm really pretty sick of these films that think that painstakingly recreating the tropes of past genre cinema is an end in itself. The idea kind of works for the length of a short film, but here you're stuck for an hour and a half with a film that just wants to be a Cannon film. It's not like someone is making their own film in the spirit of ones they love, they're just recreating the past.

7+ highly recommended