Turbo Kid (2015)

I have no difficulty believing that Turbo Kid won an Audience Award at the 2015 South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, and several awards or nominations at other film festivals. It's 95 minutes of outrageous gore and belly laughs. Yes, I meant that. Whoever had the fake blood concession undoubtedly made a hefty profit supplying dozens of gallons of the red stuff, and I laughed myself silly at the number of gruesome ways the expendable characters died. But it was all in fun - the mayhem and violence was not too over-the-top explicit (okay, there was the scene with the guy's guts being ripped out by a bicycle), and I had the feeling the actors were having fun with it.

Turbo Kid has a post-apocalyptic setting strongly reminiscent of Mad Max. The world as we know it has been devastated, and the water has become so polluted that safe drinking water has become a treasured commodity. The Kid (Munro Chambers) lives by himself and only goes into a nearby settlement to trade for water with the articles he finds by scavenging. One day he meets Apple (Laurence Leboeuf), a remarkably free-spirited girl, and they become scavenging buddies. When Apple is kidnapped, the Kid goes after her and stumbles across a device that gives him super powers. But even with super powers, he's up against formidable odds as he tries to rescue Apple. The final showdown against the baddies, led by the one-eyed Zeus (Michael Ironside), is truly one of filmdom's great gorefests.

Turbo Kid was no super-low-budget studio backlot knockoff. The production values were quite good, and the acting was first rate, especially young Laurence Leboeuf as Apple, who caught me completely off guard with a surprise revelation. The driving high energy soundtrack complemented the film perfectly.

It's a fun movie to watch, and I really hope there's a sequel.

I was provided the opportunity to prescreen the film.