Turbo Kid Movie Review

Turbo Kid (2015)

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Written by: François Simard, Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell
Directed by: François Simard, Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell
Starring: Munro Chambers , Laurence Leboeuf , Michael Ironside
Rated: --
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Plot
In a world where it's 1997 and acid rain has destroyed the Earth, one kid will ride his bike to hero-dom as he saves his robot best friend and overthrows an evil dictator to become Turbo Kid.

Verdict
This movie is as campy as it sounds. The movie is the punch line. It's not a good movie, but it's not supposed to be. It's a parody of '80s, sci-fi, b-movies. As a parody it does a brilliant job of pulling out all of the tropes common to the genre. It's funny, but only in a knowing nod sort of way. The action and drama is cartoon-ish and contrived by design.
It depends.

Review
It pushes the nostalgia hard. Even the production credits that open the film are distinctly '80s. This movie nails the joke from plot, design, music, and everything in between. I really like the synth music. The goal of creating a campy b-movie in 2015 was accomplished, but it's still just a novelty.
The effects are bad, but that's the point. The best punch line may be that everyone rides bicycles. It's realistic as gas would go bad, most (all) movies ignore this to avoid the complication.

Turbo Kid - A bicycle riding, turbo gloved, kid super hero.

How the kid becomes the Turbo Kid is incredibly contrived, but that's also the point. The creators went to great lengths to make a bad movie, but I still have to knock it. A bad movie is a bad movie, though this falls into so bad it's good territory.

Also included are the solemn, wise cracking hero, scenery chewing villain, and mute henchman.

It's gory to the point of comedy, though some scenes might make you wince. The main villain's plan was quite clever. He's created a juicer to extract water from human bodies, which is how he supplies the land with water. Due to the acid rain, water is scarce.

You need to have seen sci-fi movies from the '80s to really appreciate this. I kept thinking about the equally tropey Van Damme movie Cyborg (1989).