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| Part 2 (with SPOILERZ!) by Mischief Maker 04/28/2016, 3:14pm PDT | ||||
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| This is part 2 of my review and analysis of my favorite movie of 2015, Turbo kid. This part contains MASSIVE SPOILERS, so if you haven't seen the film for the love of all that is holy, close this window and watch the movie on Netflix Instant or Vimeo or the many other steaming services that carry it before reading.
I want to talk about the character of Apple, her story arc, and the amazing performance by Laurence Leboeuf. There's not a single review of this movie I've read where they haven't fallen in love with the character and I don't think it's hyperbole to say that without her this would have merely been a top shelf genre spoof instead of a Sundance selection. The script gets the credit for the humor, but Laurence Leboeuf deserves the lion's share of the credit for her portrayal because that character could have very easily been annoying. Let me also state for the record, because I didn't emphasize it enough in part 1, that without Apple, Turbo Kid would be best remembered for its amazing soundtrack by Le Matos. I like it better than Drive's soundtrack, it's so good. SPOILERS AHEAD! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! Let me go on a short digression about the movie Alien. One of the things I like the most about the film is its twist on the old mad scientist character. In the classic "The Thing from Another World" the main movie scientist is so fascinated by the killer alien that he thwarts attempts to kill it long past the point of suicidal recklessness. In Alien a similarly suicidal act is performed by the science officer Ash when he allows a crewmember with a face hugger on his face back into the ship against quarantine regulation and the orders of Ripley. It seems like an idiot plot moment, and Ripley harangues him for that decision the entire film. But when it turns out that Ash was secretly a robot programmed to get the alien back to Earth, even at the cost of his life and the lives of the crew, not only does that idiot plot hole get a satisfactory excuse, it raises the stakes because Ripley learns that even the ship's main computer and the corporation that programmed it are against her. Turbo Kid at its most basic is a satire of movie tropes and one of the most enduring tropes is the "Manic Pixie Dreamgirl." Essentially the MPD is a beautiful and vivacious woman who inserts herself into the life of a depressed shut-in man and through sheer force of personality brings him out of his shell. There are many criticisms of the trope, like the fact that the MPD never goes through any character growth of her own, but the most damning is the question, "why is this amazing woman throwing herself at this boring mess of a man? Turbo Kid's answer with Manic Pixie Dreamgirl Apple is simple: she chases the kid because she's a robot and that's what she's programmed to do! But like Alien, her being a robot not only excuses the plot device, it deepens the story. The directors get to have their cake and eat it too because once she succeeds at her MPD purpose by bringing the kid out of his shell they get to shift gears and have her go through two additional arcs: a love story and a pinocchio story. It also doesn't hurt that Laurence Leboeuf already looks like an impossibly perfect android in real life: 
When you watch the movie for a second time knowing she's a robot, you'll catch that there's a real forced undercurrent to her friendliness toward the kid at the beginning, like she's just following her programming. If the kid suddenly died she'd probably shrug off his death the same way she did her last best friend. 
But over the course of the movie, especially after the pool party, Leboeuf's performance visibly shifts from less manic to warmer and more vulnerable as she starts falling for the kid for real. It's kind of heartbreaking after he finds out she's a robot and is initially repulsed when she later says with shyness, "no one wants to remind a human that his best friend is a robot." That vulnerability makes the kid more likable for sticking with her, and at the end when they finally have their kiss under the gore-soaked umbrella it feels earned unlike most manic pixie dreamgirl stories. 
The final arc is a pinocchio story. The first time I watched Turbo Kid I was incredibly let down when Apple died, in part because all my attention was on the kid's story and he'd been fighting this whole movie to save her. But the second time I watched it was still sad, but with more of my attention on her character this time I could see that it was the logical conclusion of her story. During the playground scene, if you pause while the kid is reading his comic book, there's a panel he doesn't read aloud where Turbo Rider says, "Killing robots is not murder because they have no souls!" (I did say my fixation on this movie was unhealthy!) You could argue that's true of Apple at the start of the story when she's talking to the body of her last best friend and later shows zero remorse for his passing. Even when she's standing in the pool waiting to be murdered, she starts innocently cheering for Zeus along with the crowd like she's programmed to do. 
This all changes after she gets shot and the kid makes her realize her own mortality. While she denies that anything's wrong with her and remains playful and positive, she becomes visibly less smiley and more thoughtful. What's more, she starts making moral decisions on her own, defying her programming when she tells Skeletron she doesn't like him and castigating Zeus later on. As the kid explained, the stars in the sky are souls. When Apple finishes the transition from a robot who snaps the friendship bracelet off the mummified corpse of her last best friend and slaps in onto the wrist of the first passerby into someone willing to sacrifice her life for the one she loves, she finishes the journey into developing her own soul and is able to become a star after she dies. 
Wow did I just realize what a silly effort it was doing a character analysis for such a wacky movie. Oh well, it brought me back to my childhood, can you blame me for having a puppydog crush on the love interest? I also love how on-the-nose the lyrics are for Apple's song: |
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Turbo Kid review and analysis (Part 1) by 04/26/2016, 6:50am PDT  Fixed the image tags! by 04/26/2016, 7:22am PDT Part 2 (with SPOILERZ!) by 04/28/2016, 3:14pm PDT Article's ready to go when you are, ICJ! by 04/28/2016, 3:35pm PDT Thank you, will post ASAP. NT by 05/01/2016, 11:14pm PDT Tell you what, leave out part 2. by 05/02/2016, 4:30am PDT ICJ, I'll make this even easier for you: FINAL DRAFT by 05/02/2016, 6:41am PDT Thanks for recommendation, it was great by 04/29/2016, 7:37pm PDT Good old Albert Pyun never met a script with cyborgs he didn't like. NT by 04/30/2016, 9:11am PDT Yes, this movie is pitch-perfect and great. Thanks. NT by 05/04/2016, 3:43pm PDT Thanks again, MM. NT by 05/05/2016, 9:04am PDT De Nada. NT by 05/05/2016, 9:55pm PDT Epilogue: by 05/14/2016, 2:42pm PDT The official Twitter for them account hit "favorite" on your review, BTW. NT by 05/15/2016, 11:58am PDT Yaaay! NT by 05/15/2016, 1:27pm PDT |
