3 out of 5

Directed by: François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell

It’s a shame – and a seeming impossibility – that Turbo Kid would be underwhelming, but there it is.  It is, if I may pitch this, Mad Max done up via Goonies with a surrealistic side helping of Dead Alive cheesey gore.  “The Kid” (Munro Chambers), orphaned, makes his way in the waterless world, trading for batteries for his walkman to listen to 80s-esque tunes while riding his rad BMX and reading comic books about his hero, Turbo Rider.  When he befriends the overly cheery Apple (Laurence Leboeuf) and, after some resistance, comes to appreciate her overly cheery friendship, evil wasteland gangsters intervene, and The Kid has to make like his idol to go up against boss man Zeus (a charmingly scenery-chewing eyepatch-wearing Michael Ironside).  Thankfully he’s got some backup via cowboy Frederic, played by Aaron Jeffrey, whom I’m glad to see get some mileage outside of Wentworth.

Is this not an outline for an awesome movie?  It is.  The cast is fantastic at honoring the innocence of the Goonies style, the filmmakers make great use of limited sets to sell the wasteland vibe, they nail the 80s hopeful-smile vibe, the car-less bike chases are hilariously simple, and the silly gore is SUPER silly and well done over-the-top.  But… it’s all the movie has.  It’s an outline with a ton of potential that gets fulfilled in terms of the feel but not so much the content.  There are a lot of action moments with music, and/or biking moments with music that are too clearly runtime extenders, which could’ve been spent maybe building out the world a bit more – making Apple’s background a bit more substantial, making the Turbo Rider thing a bit more interwoven.  Instead, it feels like our trio of directors / writers just knew they wanted that pitch I gave, and stuffed it with just enough to plot to make it into a movie.  Honestly, while I laughed at the laughy bits, I found myself – as mentioned – underwhelmed for a good portion of this.  The movie itself, in that sense, is really more like 2 stars.  But the effort put into all of the elements is certainly worth rewarding with an extra star.  However, this could’ve either been pared down to a short or, better yet, filled with more story to make it an actual movie.