| >> | 1592879081408.jpg -(146345B / 142.92KB, 689x1024) Thumbnail displayed, click image for full size. ![]() I (finally) saw Turbo Kid.
Funny how I’m a bigger expert of recent 80s homages than I am of actual 80s movies. Whether they’re minor homages like Super 8, The World’s End, and Ready Player One, or All-Out/borderline violent Grindhouse exploitation throwbacks like Drive, Hobo with a shotgun, Dredd, Kung Fury, Commando Ninja, Mandy, or even to some degree, Annihilation, I’m open to them so long as they’re thoroughly well done. The reason I prefer recent 80s homages over older ones like Napoleon Dynamite, Donnie Darko, and a rare one, Totally Awesome, is because there wasn’t a single 80s movie that was younger than 20-21 by the time the 10s began and people really understood the charm of even the most amateur 80s films enough to be inspired by them. Turbo Kid has been on my radar since the trailer came out, especially since the director of the aforementioned Hobo, Jason Eisener, was attached to produce. And let me tell ya: It’s definitely the cocoon to Mandy’s butterfly if Hobo was the caterpillar, in the sense that it still resembles a more bloated version of the latter despite the fact it’s flourishing to mature into something beautiful and truly fleshed out.
All you need to know is this: There’s these 2 characters, The Kid and a girl named Apple, who are trying to take down a tyrant named Zeus in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with the help of this Aussie cowboy named Frederic. While some nods to the decade are in our face like the rubik’s cube, the music, and costume design, others like the twist denouement and emotional motifs make it feel genuinely 80s if they were filmed with a camera from the future. As I previously mentioned: it’s not for the squeamish. But I see the more over-the-top scenes as aggressive filler for the more inspired moments that really bring these characters to life. It’s as gut-wrenching as it is well made, and this movie has guts in every sense of the word. |
