Turbo Kid / YMMV - TV Tropes

Alternate Character Interpretation: Was the original Turbo Rider the hero he was portrayed as in the comics? Or just an ordinary guy who died in a Heroic Sacrifice? Or were the circumstances of his final moments different from how Turbo Kid imagines them? It's also possible to speculate on a few darker interpretations: that Turbo Rider went mad and his homicidal mode was responsible for the destruction Turbo Kid grows up in, or that the real Turbo Rider was in hiding when the real catastrophe went down.
Awesome Music: Its soundtrack that consist of 80's tunes, plus the original score by Quebec electronic music duo Le Matos, is pretty rad.
Base-Breaking Character: Apple. Many viewers love her for her Cute and Psycho Genki Girl personality, chemistry with The Kid, and for being a deconstruction of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl via her true identity as a robot designed to emulate that kind of character while others find her antics very annoying and see her as a MPDG played totally straight.
Broken Base:
- The over-the-top, intentionally cheesy Gorn. Some think it's hilarious and adds to the B-Movie parody appeal while others find it unnecessary and distracting from the rest of the movie's charm.
- The ending. Some are satisfied by it and are looking forward to the potential sequel while others hate it for the Sequel Bait as well as the questionable Fridge Logic behind Apple's death considering she's a robot.
Cliché Storm: The song over the opening credits.
Complete Monster: Zeus, a vicious tyrant who fancies himself a grandiose emperor, rules over the post-apocalyptic Wastelands with an iron fist and enjoys brutalizing as many people as possible. Flashbacks show him violently murdering the Kid's parents for refusing to tell him where they got their water, which he considered stealing from him, and leaving the Kid to die in the desert. Years later, Zeus has cemented a monopoly over potable water in the Wastelands, and has his henchmen bring back on a spike the head of anyone who has angered him. His warriors also regularly abduct people in the region and force them into bloody Gladiator Games where the losers are put into a machine that crushes them to death and extracts the water in their body, the real source of Zeus's water. When the heroes manage to win in the arena against his champions, Zeus tries to have them executed anyway and send his men after them when they escape. Zeus later tortures junk dealer Bagu for information, only to slowly disembowel him to death anyway after he learned everything he wanted to know. In the final confrontation against the protagonists, Zeus reveals that he is a robot who killed his own creator, and considers human beings as nothing more than pests to be eradicated.
Crosses the Line Twice: Literally all of the Gorn in the movie. Thanks to their over-the-top nature and purposefully bad effects, it goes from pretty damn gross to pretty Bloody Hilarious.
Expy: The Kid's growth from a meek survivor to a total badass and Apple's color scheme, bubbly attitude, undying love for The Kid and artificial nature make them obvious expies of Simon and Nia.
Heartwarming Moments: The Kid and Apple kiss...in a shower of blood.
Nightmare Fuel: While the violence is almost always Played for Laughs, there are a few notably horrific exceptions:
- That one poor fella who tripped in the middle of the arena battle and gets his own weapon jammed into his eye before getting finished off by the Giant Mook.
- The death of the Giant Mook is also pretty damn brutal considering he stabs Frederick directly in the stump where his hand used be before getting his eye freakin' ripped out of his head. Even Frederick is horrified by the sight, although his reaction is darkly funny, especially considering he gets absolutely drenched in blood.
- The death of the Kid's mother is one of the only deaths in the movie played seriously, as Zeus shoots her in the stomach with a crossbow before bashing her head open with a golf club. All while a younger Kid watches in horror.
- Frederick ripping a mook's jaw off with his robotic arm before jamming it into his eyes during the final fight.
- So basically all the Eye Scream in the movie is pretty damn disturbing.
Tear Jerker: Apple's Heroic Sacrifice.

YMMV / Turbo Kid

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