Turbo Kid

The 1980s - the decade that taste forgot - provides unforgettably fertile ground for a lovingly made sci-fi yarn that will go down a bloody storm with home-video horror fans. Orphaned teenager the Kid (Munro Chambers) scavenges the rubble-strewn remains of a post-apocalypse wasteland, while evading the murderous minions of local tyrant Zeus (played with gusto by genre veteran and serial scenery-chewer Michael Ironside). Though obsessed by comic books, the Kid struggles to find the hero inside when the ingenuous antics of Apple (Laurence Laboeuf), an infectiously cheery child-woman in a Day-Glo jump suit, force the pair to get on their BMX bikes and flee for their lives with Zeus's underlings in hot pursuit. The director trio's affection for 80s flicks like BMX Bandits, Mad Max and Escape from New York is plain to see, and their joyfully violent homage delivers the slice-and-dice carnage and buckets of gore (of the DIY, not CGI kind) that recall Peter Jackson in his schlock pomp (Bad Taste, Braindead). Nevertheless, it's produced with such wit, and the relationship between Chambers and Leboeuf (in a brilliant break-out performance) is so delightfully developed, you will be smiling as much as wincing throughout.