Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

It's weird thinking that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been around in some form or fashion for thirty years. Even with the recent surge of 1980s nostalgia, I still can't quite wrap my head around seeing kids playing with toys and watching cartoons from a franchise that I was enjoying when I was a kid. I will admit, though, that when I'd heard Warner Bros. Pictures and Nickelodeon would be teaming up to create a brand new live-action Ninja Turtles movie to commemorate the franchise's thirtieth anniversary, I was very, very excited. And then I heard that Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes would be producing it, and all that excitement went away. But I just had to see it anyway, just to see how it would turn out. And this might sound like a copout answer, but ultimately, the movie is what it is.

For some time now, New York City has been terrorized by a criminal organization known as the Foot Clan. Local news reporter April O'Neil (Megan Fox) has spent quite a bit of that time trying to find something on the gang, hoping to break away from the lame puff pieces she's been stuck doing for months. While chasing a lead, she witnesses a shadowy figure interrupting a Foot Clan raid on the docks and knocking out everyone there. Her story about a mysterious vigilante is laughed out of the newsroom, only making April more determined to get to the bottom of what happened.

The Foot Clan, meanwhile, swears revenge on the vigilante that embarrassed them. To accomplish this, they take a number of hostages, with April coincidentally among them, at a subway station in an attempt to lure the vigilante out. The situation is broken up by not one, but four assailants, whom April follows out to some nearby rooftops. But she is shocked to discover that the four crimefighters are not human, but giant bipedal turtles.

Introducing themselves as Leonardo (Pete Ploszek, with the voice of Johnny Knoxville), Michelangelo (Noel Fisher), Donatello (Jeremy Howard), and Raphael (Alan Ritchson), the four karate-trained turtles bring her to their lair in the sewers beneath the city. April is immediately recognized by their sensei, a mutated rat named Splinter (Danny Woodburn, with the voice of Tony Shaloub). Her late father, a scientist, was instrumental in creating the mutagen that led to Splinter and the turtles arriving at their current anthropomorphic state, and Splinter remembers April as the little girl who saved the five animals from the lab fire that killed her father fifteen years earlier.

But little do they know that they're similarly tied to wealthy pharmaceutical manufacturer Eric Sachs (William Fichtner). A past associate of April's father, Sachs presents himself to the public as a charitable, philanthropic businessman. However, he's been secretly bankrolling the Foot Clan, and has a financial stake in their master plan to destroy New York City. And of course, it's up to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to save the day.

I desperately wanted to love this movie. I'd hoped that it would make me proud to be a Ninja Turtles fan. I wanted something that I could watch with new fans and share in the fun and excitement with them. But that's not what this movie is. It's a depressing movie because it has very little of the heart or charm that made me fall in love with the Ninja Turtles so long ago. It has its fun moments, but I honestly cannot call this new interpretation of the franchise a good movie.

The movie was directed by Jonathan Liebesman, whose body of work thus far hasn't been very impressive. In watching the movie, I came to think that Liebesman perhaps took some inspiration from Michael Bay's work on the Transformers movies. It feels constructed the same way, with similar cinematography, editing, and visual style. (This movie is thankfully an hour shorter than Bay's Transformers: Age of Extinction.) Liebesman here is almost a game of cinematic connect-the-dots, going from Point A to Point B to Point C without doing much to make the movie feel lively. There are some truly cool moments (the fight between Splinter and Shredder halfway through the movie stands out as one of the true highlights, in my opinion), but for the most part, Liebesman doesn't do much to make the movie anything other than dull.

But then again, the screenplay doesn't provide him with much of a blueprint to go from. While there are some cute gags and subtle references to the franchise's history for long-time fans to catch, the script fails to really provide much of anything worthwhile. Writers Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec, and Evan Daugherty have practically stumbled right of the gate with this one. The story is convoluted and just plain stupid, the villains aren't intimidating, April O'Neil is a hollow placeholder for a character (and feels like a female version of Shia LaBeouf's character from the first three Transformers movies at times to boot), and the Ninja Turtles themselves rarely rise above the basest concepts of their characters. They don't have any personalities, just clichés sitting in where their personalities would be. It's the kind of script that comes across like Applebaum, Nemec, and Daugherty slapped it together at the last minute with as little effort as possible. Three different people worked on writing this movie and this is the best they could do?

Even the movie's post=production conversion into 3D is mediocre. There are some moments that look fantastic, especially the climactic rooftop battle between the Ninja Turtles and Shredder, but the 3D effects are mostly hit or miss. I've seen a few movies this summer that were converted into 3D and still looked really good, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is not one of them. It's another typical example of a 3D conversion that could have stood having a lot more effort put into it if it even had to be done at all.

And then there's the cast, who aren't bad but still not particularly impressive. Nobody will ever accuse Megan Fox of being a good actress, but she gives what I'd call on eof her best performances here. She's committed to the role and proves herself likable even if her talents are limited and the character is poorly written. And if Fox's character is similar to the lead character from the Transformers movies, then Will Arnett is playing one similar to the comic relief from the Transformers movies. Arnett starts out kinda funny, but the joke gets old fast and he's really annoying by the end of the movie.

While their characters are unfortunately flat, the actors playing Splinter and the Ninja Turtles are really good. They try their damnedest to infuse a little personality into their roles, and actually make them enjoyable. It just hurts to see that they're given almost nothing to work with. And they're also outshined by William Fichtner. I haven't seen Fichtner in many movies, but I've enjoyed his work every time I have and this time proves no exception. It's not his best work, and the character is poorly written as well, but Fichtner was still able to leave a positive impression, and I can't complain about that.

I must confess that I entered the movie a little biased. I fully expected it to suck, and that the Ninja Turtles I grew up with would outshine the ones from this movie any day. And while I cannot say that I completely hated the movie, I can't say I completely liked it either. It's the kind of movie that only really works if you have absolutely zero expectations whatsoever, and even then I'd say that would be pushing it. Watching it actually gave me flashbacks to the year 1993 and the last time someone made a live-action Ninja Turtles movie. And in those twenty years, Hollywood apparently failed to learn the lessons taught by that movie. So here's hoping that in the event that they do indeed make a sequel to this reboot, they'll actually make a good movie. Because honestly, I'm going to be really upset if the Ninja Turtles break my heart again.

Final Rating: **

TMNT (2007)

I consider myself to be very much a child of the '80s, or more specifically, a lover of '80s pop culture. I think the only pop culture phenomena I didn't get into were the Transformers and G.I. Joe. Look up in my attic, and you'll see toys representing the Ghostbusters, He-Man, and Super Friends, along with a handful of Thundercats and even MASK toys. Also up there are toys based on my favorite reptilian superhero quartet, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I've spoken in three other reviews that I totally bought into Turtlemania in the late '80s, and although I was sad to see their reign over America's children end, I can't say that I didn't see it coming. Yeah, there were a few attempts to resurrect the Ninja Turtles, like that forgettable live-action show in 1997 and the Saturday morning cartoon that Fox began airing in 2003. But truth be told, I never really got into either of them. Because of that, I was beginning to think that maybe I'd put actually aside some childish things after all.

That is, until I heard that an animated sequel to the live-action movie trilogy was going to be produced. I knew that it was a movie I had to see. But for years, it went through developmental hell. John Woo was attached to direct at one point, and there was talk of making a movie that would balance live-action actors with computer-generated characters. However, the choice was made to go with a fully CG-animated film that — with the title abbreviated to merely TMNT — finally hit theaters on March 23, 2007, just one week shy of the original movie's seventeenth anniversary. And on that day, there was much rejoicing from yours truly.

In the years since they triumphantly defeated Shredder and the Foot Clan, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have put their glory days as a crime-fighting quartet behind them and have gone on to different things. Donatello (Mitchell Whitfield) started his own one-turtle tech support company; Michelangelo (Mikey Kelley) is "Cowabunga Carl," a costumed performer for children's birthday parties; and Raphael (Nolan North) has become an aggressive Batman-like masked vigilante known as "The Nightwatcher."

The fourth Turtle, Leonardo (James Arnold Taylor), has recently returned to the sewers of New York City after a year in a Central American jungle, where he was sent on a soul-searching mission by Master Splinter (Mako) with the intention of making him a stronger leader. Leonardo's return is greeted warmly by Donatello and Michelangelo, but he quickly finds himself butting heads with a resentful Raphael.

However, the hostility between Leonardo and Raphael isn't all that the Turtles have to worry about. Having left her life as a television reporter behind, April O'Neil (Sarah Michelle Gellar) has gotten into the archaeology business, with live-in boyfriend — and hockey-masked vigilante — Casey Jones (Chris Evans) handling the transportation and delivery of the artifacts she discovers. April has recently been hired to track down a collection of four ancient stone statues for billionaire industrialist Max Winters (Patrick Stewart), who has big plans for them. Very, very big plans.

Three thousand years ago, Winters was once known as Yoatl, a warrior king that sought to conquer the world. He had learned of a constellation named "the Stars of Kikan," which align every three thousand years, creating a portal whose energy would grant immortality to whomever opened it. Yoatl did open that portal and became immortal, but the consequences were dire; his army was turned to stone, and thirteen monsters were unleashed upon our world.

With the Stars of Kikan once again nearing alignment, the man now known as Max Winters prepares to break the curse of immortality that has plagued him for so long. As he readies to once again open the portal, he calls upon the remnants of the Foot Clan and their leader, Karai (Ziyi Zhang), to search for the thirteen monsters so he may return them to their dimension. He also successfully revives his four stone generals — Aguila (Kevin Michael Richardson), Gato (Fred Tatasciore), Santino (John DiMaggio), and Serpiente (Paula Mattioli) — and charges them with capturing the monsters.

But once the four generals realize that Winters will be taking away their immortality along with his own by sending the monsters back, they go into business for themselves. As things come to a climax, the Ninja Turtles must get past their sibling rivalries and stop the portal from releasing even more monsters into our plane of existence (and thus causing, for all intents and purposes, the apocalypse).

While it might not be a movie of Pixar-like proportions, TMNT is a wonderful little movie that doesn't let its shortcomings get in the way of its ability to entertain its audience. Yes, I just might be a little bit biased because I'm a fan of the Ninja Turtles, but their cinematic resurrection is a lot of fun to watch. The animation is fluid, the action is tight, and the voice acting is well-done. And though I thought the plot needed a little work, everything comes together to create a charming movie that I believe both kids and adults could enjoy.

As someone whose childhood was spent in front of the television watching their animated adventures, in the toy stores buying their action figures and playsets, and at the arcade pumping quarters into their video games, I have to say that I was in no way, shape, or form let down or disappointed by TMNT. It's everything I could have possibly hoped for. TMNT is the kind of cartoon that I'd have loved as a child, and the kind that the part of me who refuses to grow up still loves to this day.

Writer/director Kevin Munroe has done a fantastic job in putting this movie together. Munroe and Hong Kong animation studio Imagi have crafted a movie that looks nothing short of spectacular, like the characters have been taken straight out of the original comic books. I've read online that some people weren't into the movie's particular style of animation because it was more cartoony and stylized than the ultra-realistic CGI in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, but I think that it works just fine for the Ninja Turtles. I point specifically to the epic showdown in the rain between Leonardo and Raphael. The character design in this scene looks particularly fantastic, wonderfully accented by the individually animated drops of rain. The work of Munroe and Imagi is gorgeous, and it's almost enough to make that worth the price of admission alone.

It's enhanced by the amazing music composed by Klaus Badelt, a score that properly and excellently evokes all the right emotions for each scene. It's marvelous music that really works even outside of the movie. Munroe also takes the opportunity to sneak in references to the franchise's past. Props from the three live-action movies — Shredder's helmet, the broken canister of ooze from Turtles II, the time scepter from Turtles III — all appear; a veiled reference to the Triceratons from the comics appears in the background of one scene; Michelangelo's "Cowabunga Carl" costume resembles the appearance of the Turtles in the '80s cartoon. It's these little things that make the movie just as special for the longtime, diehard fans as it would be for people just now getting into the Turtles. You almost have the movie more than once to catch everything.

Munroe's script is also acceptable, but the plot is unfortunately muddled. There's the feud between Leonardo and Raphael, Max Winters and the four generals, the Foot Clan, and the thirteen monsters (that are pretty much overblown MacGuffins). It's kinda tough to follow what's going on even if you're paying extra-close attention, and when you can make heads or tails of it, some parts feel kinda hollow. I appreciate his attempt to tell a story without going back to the all-too-familiar Shredder well, but I got the impression that Munroe just slapped something together in order to get the franchise off and rolling again.

And could the setup for the sequel have been any more obvious? They might has well have just said, "You guys are gonna fight Shredder in the next sequel, and it's gonna be awesome." If you're going to beat subtlety into the ground, why not finish it off all together?

However, there is some good in Munroe's script. The jokes are really funny for the most part, the verbal references to the past iterations of the Ninja Turtles are a lot of fun, and the way he has written the characters really pulls you in if you allow yourself to care about them. He also brings the long-smoldering rivalry between Leonardo and Raphael to the forefront and handles it well, though it almost comes at the expense of making Donatello and Michelangelo background characters. I'd also would have liked seeing more screen time for Karai, but I guess the mystery behind her can be built upon in future movies.

Lastly is the cast, one of the movie's most crucial ingredients. Veteran voice actors James Arnold Taylor, Nolan North, Mitchell Whitfield, and Mikey Kelley all bring a lot to the table as the Ninja Turtles. All of them are great, with Taylor and North handling the pathos, Whitfield handling the exposition, and Kelley doing the comic relief thing with gusto. The rest of the cast is composed of actors who gained fame with live-action work, all of whom are wonderful. Mako, who sadly passed away eight months before the movie's theatrical release, is fantastic as Master Splinter, bringing a sense of wisdom, fatherly warmth, and humor that the character needs.

Patrick Stewart is also fine as Max Winters, though not a whole lot is asked of him. He does have a great voice, though; I'm surprised he doesn't get more voice work than he does. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Chris Evans hand in sweet, amiable performances as April O'Neil and Casey Jones, and Ziyi Zhang is well-suited as Karai, contributing a performance that adds to her character's mysterious nature. Even the cameos by Laurence Fishburne and Kevin Smith are awesome.

Is TMNT a perfect movie? No, I can't say that it is. But it is a lot of fun, and that's really all that someone like me can ask for. It's an entertaining movie, taking a property and making it as kid-friendly as ever, yet letting it grow up and mature with the audience that fell in love with the Ninja Turtles twenty years ago. If the movie's intentions were to satiate old fans, create new ones, and reinvigorate a brand name that had become something almost resembling a relic of days gone by, then TMNT just might be a success. It reminded me why I became a fan of the Ninja Turtles to begin with, and most importantly, why being a kid in the '80s was so much fun. So I'll give TMNT three and a half stars (leaning towards four) and a loud, proud "cowabunga." 

Final Rating: ***½

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)

Anyone who grew up at the end of the 1980s will more than likely remember the cultural phenomenon sparked by an insanely successful cartoon starring a quartet of anthropomorphic tortoises known as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You couldn't go anywhere in the late-'80s without seeing something related to the Ninja Turtles, because they were absolutely everywhere. And as the 1980s gave way to the 1990s, the Turtles were translated from their animated form into a pair of successful live-action movies released by New Line Cinema.

But as the '90s rolled on, the popularity of the Ninja Turtles began to fade, as all big trends eventually do. However, New Line must not have gotten that memo, because in the waning days of Turtlemania, they released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. The movie performed modestly at the box office and did double its budget, but it was nowhere near the quality of the previous two films in the series. The Ninja Turtles were slowly disappearing from the public consciousness, and this movie's weakness was quite possibly a catalyst for it. Let's see where it went wrong, shall we?

In an abandoned subway station beneath the streets of New York City, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles train under the watchful eye of their master Splinter (the voice of James Murray). Just as their latest training session ends, April O'Neil (Paige Turco) arrives with bags full of goodies she picked up at a local flea market. She gives Leonardo (the voice of Brian Tochi) a book about historical samurai swords; Michelangelo (the voice of Robbie Rist) receives an ugly lampshade that, if this were A Christmas Story, would probably be considered a major award; Donatello (the voice of Corey Feldman) is given an antique radio, and Raphael (the voice of Tim Kelleher) gets a fedora. Her gift for Splinter is an ancient Japanese scepter. But before April can give it to him, a brilliant flash of light from the scepter causes April to vanish and be replaced by a Japanese man.

We learn that this stranger's name is Kenshin (Henry Hayashi), and that he's from feudal Japan circa 1603. (Yes, I know the poster at the top of the review says 1593. But the movie itself says 1603, so I'm assuming the guy in New Line's marketing department made a typo that nobody caught.) In his own time, Kenshin is facing punishment for disgracing his estranged father — and the local daimyo — Lord Norinaga (Sab Shimono). Norinaga has been engaged in a war against those who resist him, a war that Kenshin disapproves of. However, Norinaga is facing pressure from a shady British tradesman named Walker (Stuart Wilson), who seems to instigate Norinaga and push him to accept a shipment of guns and cannons.

Back in the twentieth century, the Turtles quickly deduce that the scepter is actually something of a time machine, and due to the oh-so-wonderful laws of physics, April has replaced Kenshin in his time. And being the science whiz he is, Donatello also figures that if they're going to bring April back to the future, they've got about sixty hours before the window of opportunity closes for good and they're all stranded in the past. So they've got to get to work.

With Casey Jones (Elias Koteas) hanging around entertain Kenshin and their four replacements, the Turtles hitch a ride to the seventeenth century. They arrive to find themselves on horseback, with Michelangelo not really getting the hang of it and ending up unconscious in the middle of the woods before a group of the anti-Norinaga rebels kidnap him and steal the scepter.

As night falls, the other three are forced to search for April without Michelangelo. Disguised as honor guards, they sneak their way into Lord Norinaga's castle and follow Walker's sidekick Niles (John Aylward) to the dungeon. There they discover April, who Norinaga blamed for Kenshin's mysterious disappearance and had imprisoned for witchcraft. The Turtles stage a jailbreak and free both April and a prisoner named Whit (Elias Koteas in a dual role), then head into the forest.

But they aren't able to bask in the forest's tranquility for long, as they're ambushed by more rebels that mistakenly believe the Turtles are members of Norinaga's honor guard. The rebel leader, Mitsu (Vivian Wu), unmasks Donatello and is taken aback because he is like "the other one."

Realizing that they have Michelangelo, the three Turtles happily agree to return to their village. But once they arrive, they discover Walker and his henchmen torching the village in search of the scepter. The reunited Turtles fight them off and rescue a young boy named Yoshi (Travis A. Moon) from inside a burning building, which convinces the grateful villagers to let them stay. But things aren't exactly worth celebrating, as they also learn that the scepter has gone missing. The Turtles must find a way to return home before it's too late, as well as find a way out of the war they have found themselves in the middle of.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III is something of an enigma. The movie certainly isn't for fans of the comics, and I'm not sure it's for fans of the cartoon either. I'm not really sure who the movie's target demographic is. I was a devoted Ninja Turtle fan on the precipice of my eleventh birthday when Turtles III was released, and I still didn't believe the movie was anywhere near as good or as entertaining as the previous two movies or the cartoon. It seems most moviegoers knew it too, since although it doubled its budget, the movie only pulled in 54 percent of what Turtles II made at the domestic box office, and only 31 percent of what the original film made domestically.

The movie's disappointing success is probably because Turtles III seems like one final effort to make a few bucks off a phenomenon that was on its last legs. The popularity of the Turtles was beginning to wane and at the time of the third movie's release, the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers were about five months away from stealing away the last of their limelight. I mean, Turtles III was so disappointing that I'd say it was pretty much the death knell for Turtlemania as the children of the '80s knew it.

Not everything about the movie is bad, I'll give it that much. The set designers and wardrobe department did a great job, the action is decent, a handful of the jokes are actually funny, and the casting department makes up for some of Turtles II's flaws by bringing back Corey Feldman and Elias Koteas and letting the Turtles use their weapons for a change. But everything else about it... meh.

The screenplay written by Stuart Gillard is one of the movie's bigger faults, I'd say. The idea of taking the Ninja Turtles out of their element isn't a bad idea, but it isn't accomplished well. There's not a whole lot that actually resembles the spirit or charm of the first two movies. The Turtles are the type of characters where everything is done with an irreverent smirk, but aside from a few corny pop culture references, everything not set in modern-day New York City is depicted as being almost as serious as a heart attack. I mean, I don't think anybody was expecting to see the Turtles dropped into a turf war involving the leader of a feudal society and a gun-peddling sleazebag.

Most of Gillard's jokes don't exactly work either. There are a few bits that I liked, such as the scenes with Casey teaching Norinaga's honor guard about television, hockey, and nightclubs, but a lot of the humor is goofy to the point of cheesiness. I mean, working in a lame Wayne's World reference? Yeah, Wayne's World was a big hit a year before Turtles III came out, but I really don't think the crowd that watches Saturday Night Live or saw Wayne's World is the same crowd that would be seeing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. I have this notion that Gillard was sitting in his office writing the script, thinking to himself, "Let's have the Turtles say 'schwing' when they find April showing a little leg. That'll be hilarious!" Well, guess what? The only amusement it draws is the giggling that is usually followed by the phrase, "That's so lame." And to tell the truth, a hefty majority of the jokes in the movie are like that.

You know, the second movie moved the franchise closer to the same silly nature of the cartoon. They may have ditched Casey Jones, but the Vanilla Ice cameo and the Bebop and Rocksteady wannabes really said that if the first movie was for fans of the comics, Turtles II was for fans of the animated series. Why Gillard couldn't have written a movie that continued that, I have no idea. A more comedic, fantasy-oriented slant would have at least fit some franchise expectations, but the plot seems like the decision was made to drop the Turtles into The Last Samurai.

I certainly don't fault Gillard for at least trying to do something different with the Turtles, but I'd have much rather seen the Turtles fight Baxter Stockman or Krang. I mean, who would you rather see as a villain sparring with four anthropomorphic turtles: a mutant half-man/half-housefly and a talking brain from Dimension X that drives around in a tank that looks like the Death Star, or a 17th-century Japanese warlord and the guy that leads the British version of the National Rifle Association? No, I don't know if they could have done a convincing Krang or Technodrome on a 20 million dollar budget, but David Cronenberg did The Fly for 15 million dollars, so I'm sure they could have had Baxter Stockman as a villain. But nope, we instead get this lame time travel story. I guess you could say I'm not exactly a fan of the plot.

I will give credit to Gillard for his decent work as a director, though. His work isn't groundbreaking, nothing that would have earned him any award nominations. But Gillard and cinematographer David Gurfinkel handle things well enough, with the action sequences being where they do their best work. It doesn't save the movie from being thoroughly mediocre at best, but hey, at least Gillard makes the movie look decent.

At least it helps that the movie has the benefit of another strong music score composed by John Du Prez. If there's one constant in the live-action Turtles trilogy, it's been Du Prez and his fantastic music. His music for Turtles III naturally has a very East Asian feel at times, while maintaining a style similar to his music for the first two films at other times.

The cast is also acceptable, but there aren't really too many standout players. Brian Tochi, Corey Feldman, Robbie Rist, and Tim Kellehner all do a decent job voicing the Turtles, but James Murray isn't nearly half as good as Kevin Clash's work as Splinter from the previous movies. Paige Turco reprises her role from Turtles II, but it appears that she's returning to a different character, one that seems to have been changed from the mother figure she was previously to almost being one of the boys. Turco does look like she's having a lot of fun, playing the role well despite the lame writing. Stuart Wilson, Sab Shimono, and Vivian Wu are all acceptable if not almost forgettable, and Harry Hayashi and Travis A. Moon are complete non-factors.

The true standout actor in the movie is Elias Koteas. Koteas is given next to nothing to do with the "Whit" character, but his scenes with the honor guard — played by Mak Takano, Steven Getson Akahoshi, Kent Kim, and Ken Kensei — are the best parts of the whole thing. Why they didn't bring him back for Turtles II, I have no idea, because both Koteas and the character are great. You know, if it were up to me, I'd have completely forgone the idea of doing a third Turtles movie and done a Casey Jones spin-off instead. That would have been a lot more fun than this mediocre waste of time.

But if I had to choose what I thought was the absolute worst part of the movie, it would be the ungodly atrocious effects designed by All Effects Company. The producers must not have been able to convince Jim Henson's Creature Shop to come back, which is a shame. The bodies of the four turtles wouldn't be completely horrible if it weren't for the unrealistic rubbery skin and weird spots that weren't there in the first two movies, but the faces look like someone decided to create four oversized reptilian Furbys and put them in a movie. I mean, there's even some instances where the Turtles speak, and their mouths don't move at all. That could more than likely be blamed on the sound editors, but it's still lame. And how about that hideous animatronic Splinter? It looks more like something you'd see at Chuck E. Cheese's instead of something that looks, you know, believable. 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III is a very good example of how an attempt to keep a dying franchise afloat can go horribly wrong. I mean, I'm sure that even the most devoted Ninja Turtles fan has a hard time watching this tragic misfire. I don't even know if I can wrap this thing up properly, because I'm so astounded that this movie is what it is. There are a couple of entertaining things about Turtles III, but not enough to avoid being outweighed by the bad. I'm going to give it two stars, and a recommendation only to those people who absolutely have to see anything and everything related to the Ninja Turtles. And after watching this again, I can't say I'm surprised that it took Hollywood fourteen years to release another Ninja Turtles movie. 

Final Rating: **

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)

Anyone who considers themselves a child of the '80s is sure to remember a quartet of anthropomorphic tortoises known as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Though the Ninja Turtles had the humblest of beginnings, originating as a comic book independently published by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in 1984, the fearsome foursome would become a mainstream juggernaut later in the decade when they joined CBS's block of Saturday morning cartoons in 1987. After that, the Turtles were everywhere. Action figures, clothes, breakfast cereal, Hostess fruit pies, and even toothpaste all bore the logo of, as their theme song called them, the "heroes in a half shell."

And eventually, they even got their own movie. Hitting theaters in the spring of 1990, the live-action Ninja Turtles movie was a smashing success, and prompted distributor New Line Cinema to strike while the iron was hot and release a sequel just one year later. And while it's not exactly as good as the first movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze still makes an excellent attempt to maintain all the fun of the original.

The Ninja Turtles — Leonardo (the voice of Brian Tochi), Michelangelo (the voice of Robbie Rist), Donatello (the voice of Adam Carl), and Raphael (the voice of Laurie Faso) — and their master Splinter (the voice of Kevin Clash) are in search of a new home, staying at the apartment of their one human friend, April O'Neil (Paige Turco), in the interim. I'm not really sure if it's a good idea for April to let them crash at her place, since the last time that happened, it led to a giant war that resulted in the whole building going up in flames. Was I the only one who learned anything from the first movie?

In any respect, the Turtles are still on cloud nine after their incredible defeat of the Foot Clan. Unfortunately, their battle is not quite over. Shredder (François Chau, with David McCharen's voice) has somehow survived his apparent death at the end of the first movie, and swears revenge as he reorganizes the Foot Clan and formulates a new plan of attack.

He kidnaps scientist Jordan Perry (David Warner) and forces him to use the last known canister of the radioactive ooze that created the Ninja Turtles to form two new beasts: a giant snapping turtle and wolf named Tokka and Rahzar (both voiced by Frank Welker). The Turtles are quickly forced into action, teaming with Perry and a pizza delivery boy named Keno (Ernie Reyes, Jr.) as they search for a way to save New York City from the rampaging monsters that Shredder has unleashed.

Well, nobody ever accused the movie of being Shakespeare. One could probably even argue that if the original movie drew the majority of its inspiration from Eastman and Laird's comics, then the sequel was greatly inspired by the cartoon. The movie truly does feel like a live-action, feature-length episode of the cartoon. Sure, there's no Krang, and Bebop and Rocksteady have been replaced with Tokka and Rahzar, but the movie definitely has the same childlike demeanor as the cartoon. I mean, a Vanilla Ice cameo would never have worked in the first movie. But here, while it's still silly beyond words, it works on some surreal level.

The screenplay penned by Todd W. Langen feels like something that was just slapped together in order to get out there for the crew to film. The movie was written, produced, edited, and released exactly twelve months after its predecessor, presumably to capitalize on the success of the first movie before kids moved on to the next fad. This sort of speed can work for some movie franchises, like the Saw series, but Langen's script seems rushed and is full of things that just don't make a whole lot of sense. Shredder going out like a punk in a totally anticlimactic ending? Weak Bebop and Rocksteady wannabes instead of the real thing? The way-too-awesome Casey Jones being replaced by the way-too-lame Keno? Come on now.

Langen's script also panders way too hard to kids, as the Turtles rely far too much on quirky catchphrases instead of more witty humor, as well as a lack of any real violence. The fight scenes have been seriously toned down, almost becoming cartoony in nature. The Turtles barely even use their trademark weapons at all, with only Donatello being the only one to really get any sort of use out of his weapon.

However, the direction by Michael Pressman isn't that bad. Unfortunately, it's also incredibly generic. Considering that the movie's target demographic doesn't really care about epic cinematography or any of the other intricacies of filmmaking, I guess Pressman didn't really feel pressured to try anything more than the bare minimum in order to get the job done.

I know I shouldn't really be expecting a whole lot, since this is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II we're talking about. But even if Pressman was just doing things simply and get it over with so they get the movie out as quick as possible, you'd think Pressman would at least try a little harder.

It does help, though, that the movie once again boasts a fine music score composed by John Du Prez. I thought highly of his music for the first movie, and his music for Turtles II is no different. It's exciting and entertaining, doing what every good soundtrack should do by enhancing the visuals.

But I will say that I liked the cast a lot. The voice actors behind the Turtles and Splinter all do a great job, though I am bummed that Corey Feldman couldn't return as Donatello. David McCharen was once again fantastic as the voice of Shredder, and although he doesn't have too much dialogue, Frank Welker is entertaining as Tokka and Rahzar.

Among the on-screen actors, Paige Turco replaces Judith Hoag here and I don't have any problems with the change. The role of April is more motherly here than in the previous movie, and Turco plays it with a warm, affable demeanor that makes both her and the character more endearing. David Warner is acceptable, although I don't believe this is a movie that he keeps on his résumé, and Ernie Reyes is fun, but he and his character are absolutely no substitute for Elias Koteas's Casey Jones.

And as in the previous movie, Jim Henson's Creature Shop has designed four fantastic Turtle costumes. The costumes are fantastic, looking even better than the Creature Shop's costumes from a year earlier. The lip-synching is well-done, and the costumes appear lifelike and believable. I wish I could say the same for Tokka and Rahzar's costumes, though. They look good, very good, but there's no life behind their eyes. Their eyes don't move, they don't blink, their mouths don't move much when they talk. I got the impression that the Creature Shop didn't get to finish the animatronics in Tokka and Rahzar's faces before the movie went into production, which pretty much renders them expensive Halloween costumes. But other than that, the Creature Shop did a great job.

Most sequels out there just don't cut the mustard when held up against the movie that came before it. And unfortunately, Turtles II isn't as good as the first one. That doesn't mean it's a bad movie. I actually like it a lot, even the much-maligned Vanilla Ice cameo. I only really have two problems with the movie: the general feeling of a rushed production, and the all-too-short battle with Shredder at the end of the movie. In the first movie, it took the Turtles several minutes and a garbage truck to defeat Shredder. But in Turtles II, an eight-foot-tall mutated Super-Shredder is given ninety seconds of screen time, and he goes out like a complete wuss without anything even resembling a fight. The Turtles fighting Super-Shredder would have made for an amazing finale if it had been done right, but I guess there's not a lot that can be done to change that nearly two decades after the fact.

But when you get right down to it, the truth of the matter is this: this is a movie that is hard to take seriously. And that whole subtitle "The Secret of the Ooze" is just plain silly, especially since there's no secret at all. It's hard to be surprised when learning that the turtles were created by radioactive slime when that was mentioned in the first movie too. But to wrap this thing up, this movie is a simple one, seeming more like an 88-minute epilogue than a true sequel. In spite of its inadequacies, I enjoyed the movie, so I'll give Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze three stars. That's more than I can say for the third Ninja Turtles movie. 

Final Rating: ***

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

There was no greater time to be young or young at heart than on a Saturday morning in the 1980s. While the concept of Saturday morning cartoons had been around since the 1960s, many of the most fondly remembered cartoons of my generation were from the 1980s. Shows like Masters of the Universe, Transformers, G.I. Joe, and The Real Ghostbusters made the decade of excess memorable for nostalgic cartoon fans such as myself. However, many of these cartoons were accompanied by such massive and popular toy lines that it was hard to tell whether the toys were a marketing device for the show, or if the show was a marketing device for the toys.

One such cartoon was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Based on the gritty underground comic book created in 1984 by Mirage Comics founders Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, the lighthearted cartoon made its debut in the winter of 1987 and immediately became a mainstream cultural sensation. And what a sensation it was. Ninja Turtles merchandise flooded the marketplace, from the successful action figures and toys to products like breakfast cereal, clothing, Hostess fruit pies, video games, and a second line of kid-friendly comic books published by Archie Comics.

The Turtles were everywhere, so invading the lives of my generation that if a group of six-year-old kids formed a Ninja Turtle religion in the late-'80s, I wouldn't have been surprised. The phenomenon became so huge, that it only made sense for someone to produce a movie in order to capitalize on the popularity of the Ninja Turtles. Drawing inspiration from both the cartoon and Eastman and Laird's original comics, New Line Cinema's live-action cinematic adaptation hit theaters on March 30, 1990. Great comic/cartoon tie-in, or shameful attempt to make money? I'll tell you at the end.

New York City has fallen under the grip of a crime wave. No, this crime wave has nothing to do with a drug trafficking ring, murders, assorted violence, the Mafia, or gang warfare on the scale of The Warriors, or anything fun like that. It's just lots and lots of burglaries. From petty thefts to grand larcenies, more and more robberies perpetrated by unseen thieves are being committed. Yeah, it might just be a bunch of minor misdemeanors, but those can really pile up if there's a mighty crapload of them all at the same time.

The police refuse to talk about these crimes, but television news reporter April O'Neil (Judith Hoag) theorizes that they're possibly being committed by the same group of people. After filing a report about the crime wave for the evening news, April actually comes across some of these unseen thieves as they rob a production truck in a dark corner of the parking lot. They see her too, and none of them have any qualms about mugging a defenseless woman. Luckily for April, a street light above them shatters, and unluckily for her attackers, something knocks them all out just before the police arrive.

We follow April's saviors into the sewers, where we discover that they are a quartet of anthropomorphic tortoises trained in martial arts, each named after Renaissance artists and each carrying their own signature weapon. There's the sword-wielding samurai Leonardo (the voice of Brian Tochi); intellectual Donatello (the voice of Corey Feldman), armed with a bo staff; nunchucku-twirling practical joker Michelangelo (the voice of Robbie Rist); and sai-using Raphael (the voice of Kenn Troum), a sarcastic loner with a quick temper. The four return the subterranean den they call their home, as they prepare for a victory feast with their adoptive father, a wise mutant rat named Splinter (the voice of Kevin Clash).

Raphael and Leonardo get into an argument soon after arriving home, and Raphael storms out so he can cool off. He ends up in Central Park, where a fight with two purse snatchers leads Raphael to another brawl with Casey Jones (Elias Koates), a masked vigilante armed with an arsenal of sports equipment. Casey wins after cracking him with a cricket bat, further enraging Raphael by calling him a freak as he runs off. And that just doesn't jive with Raphael. He chases Casey a few blocks, but returns home defeated after his quarry evades him.

A day or two passes, and April returns to work, digging deeper into the cause of the crime wave. Doing so has not only draws the ire of the police department's grossly ineffective chief (Raymond Serra), but runs her afoul of a secretive, ancient band of ninjas known as the Foot Clan. A group of masked Foot members accost her in a subway terminal, warning her to keep her mouth shut before knocking her unconscious. But luckily for April, Raphael steps in and wards them off. He scoops her up and not knowing where else to go, takes her to his humble abode. She eventually awakens and is understandably freaked out, but calms down long enough for Splinter to explain how he and his four reptilian "sons" came to be. The Turtles escort April back to her apartment, but return to discover that the Foot has discovered their home and kidnapped Splinter.

The four emotionally crushed Turtles return to the safe haven of April's apartment, while Splinter is taken to the Foot's headquarters. Their headquarters is a secluded warehouse reminiscent of Pinocchio's Pleasure Island, a den of sin and vice that seems to have drawn the attention of every no-good sleazebag punk kid in New York City. It is there that the Foot Clan is slowly building an army of teenage ninja warriors, led by a criminal mastermind known as "The Shredder" (James Saito).

One of these teenagers is Danny Pennington (Michael Terney), the son of April's boss. Shredder has proclaimed the Turtles as the Foot's equivalent of Public Enemy #1, and having seen them hiding out at April's apartment, Danny tells Shredder exactly where to find them. Oh, that's just great. That no-good little weasel completely sold the Turtles out. I didn't like you before, but it's safe to say that you just made my list, pal. And another thing, Danny: stealing wallets from yuppies, wearing Sex Pistols shirts, and hanging out with an evil ninja clan doesn't make you hip. It just makes you even more of a tool.

Morning comes, and Shredder's chief lieutenant Tatsu (Toshishiro Obata) leads a veritable army of Foot soldiers to April's apartment and launch a surprise attack on the Turtles. Even with Casey joining the fracas after seeing it from a nearby rooftop, the Foot grossly outnumber our heroes, who are forced to fall back as the building burns down around them. They retreat to April's childhood home in the country, where the defeated Turtles regroup and prepare themselves for a return to the city. They do eventually return, and with an apologetic Danny leading Casey to the Foot's headquarters so they can free Splinter, the Turtles wage a war with the Foot Clan that moves from the sewers to the streets, climaxing upon the city's rooftops as they have a final confrontation with Shredder.

In the lexicon of movies based on comic book superheroes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles seems to get lost in the shuffle. One could blame it on the fact that the unbelievably immense success of the cartoon and action figures overshadowed the existence of the comics. And it's usually dismissed by non-fans, lumped with other forgotten comic book movies like Spawn or Steel. Forgotten comic book movies are usually that way for a reason; those that remember them don't exactly remember them fondly.

But usually, the forgotten ones were poorly-made claptrap that completely flopped at the box office. That wasn't the case with this particular movie. The movie is actually pretty well done, and just like the franchise that inspired it, the movie was actually a big fat hit. It grossed just shy of 202 million dollars at the worldwide box office, and actually earned a spot as the highest-grossing independent movie of all time (until being dethroned by The Blair Witch Project nine years later). What surprises me about that is that it was neither produced nor distributed by a major studio. You'd think that with Turtlemania running wild, the major studios would be sacrificing their firstborn children to acquire the film rights. But New Line Cinema picked up the distribution rights with Golden Harvest handling production, and New Line had their some of their biggest success since the Nightmare on Elm Street series began.

The screenplay written by Todd W. Langen and Bobby Herbeck is very well done. It's actually darker than one would expect, considering that the movie probably wouldn't have been made if it hadn't been for a certain bright, cheerful Saturday morning cartoon. There's brief violence against women and animals (not counting violence against the four turtles, of course), two murders (and a third, implied one), and even a handful of mild profanities. I assume Langen and Herbeck chose to write the movie like this in order to retain some connection to Eastman and Laird's original comics, while also doing something to make the movie feel grown up. They even make references to The Grapes of Wrath, War and Peace, and, of all things, Bruce Willis's old TV show, Moonlighting. That way, the adults who got dragged to the local movie theater by their Turtle-obsessed kids wouldn't feel like they were watching a movie made entirely for children.

But I have to say that, darkness aside, Langen and Herbeck's screenplay has a youthful enthusiasm. Scenes like Donatello and Casey playfully insulting one another alphabetically, Michelangelo yelling martial arts advice at an animated version of The Tortoise and the Hare, and the Turtles teasing Raphael because they think he has a crush on April keep the movie entertaining, lighthearted, and enjoyable. The only part of the script that fails is the instances of awkward, cringe-worthy dialogue, particularly the surfer lingo used by the Turtles. I'll admit that Kentucky has never exactly been the surfing capitol of the world, but I can't say that I know a single person that has ever said "gnarly," "radical," or "cowabunga" in a regular conversation. I have no clue how talking like that was ever cool, even in 1990. Of course, I'll probably be mocking modern slang in about twenty years, but that's the circle of life.

Steve Barron's direction isn't too bad either. Known at the time for his work as a music video director, Barron appears to understand that the silliness of the Ninja Turtles concept is also what makes it special. Thus, neither Barron or cinematographer John Fenner really try anything fancy to distract from that silliness. I must say, though, that Barron does manage to keep the movie's energy high, especially during the action sequences. Prolonged fight scenes can grow tedious if they go on for too long, but Barron injects them with humor in order to keep them entertaining. Of course, it's completely within reason for the Turtles to crack joke after joke during their fights, so that also shows Barron's understanding of the property. On the music side of things, I enjoyed the music composed by John Du Prez. The score is engaging, exciting, matching the movie's pace and tone scene for scene and really enhancing what we see onscreen. And I have to say that the score is way better than pretty much all of the songs on the soundtrack. Pretty much all of the songs are as lame today as they were in 1990, and that's terrible.

The voice actors are excellent too, each of them filling their roles well. The actors playing the Turtles and Splinter give each of their characters lots of depth and emotion, which the roles need in order to make the characters believable. Unfortunately, the human cast is a mixed bag. Elias Koates is outstanding as Casey Jones, turning in a performance that's my favorite part of the whole movie. If I had to pick just one reason to check this movie out, it would be Koates's hilarious, entertaining performance. Meanwhile, Judith Hoag misses a few notes, which is mostly due to her having to deliver a few awkward lines of dialogue (i.e. "Am I behind on my Sony payments again?"). But for the most part, she's not bad.

But I'll tell you who is bad: pretty much everybody else. Raymond Serra and Jay Patterson, who plays April's boss, are complete non-factors in extremely minor, almost pointless roles, and Michael Turney just isn't very good at all. I could have completely done without the character to begin with, and Turney's awful performance makes me reach for my DVD player's fast-forward button every time I see him.

And I don't know whether I should really comment on James Saito or Toshishiro Obata's performances, since according to the credits, both of their voices are dubbed (with David McCharen handling Saito's dialogue and Michael McConnohie handling Obata's dialogue). It's like how people were complaining that Linda Blair got an Oscar nomination for her performance in The Exorcist when she didn't even speak half of her own dialogue in the finished film. If Saito and Obata's voices were dubbed over for reasons similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger's performance in Hercules in New York, that's one thing. But if it's a matter of a language barrier, then I don't know what the problem is. Some of the actors in Hostel couldn't speak a word of English, and still managed to learn their lines phonetically. It shouldn't have been too hard for Obata, since he only had three short lines in the whole thing. I guess I'm just raising a stink over something that isn't all that big of a deal in the long run, but sometimes it's just the little things that bug me to death.

I would, however, be remiss if I didn't at least mention the real stars of the movie: the costumes designed by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. The movie wasn't a success for the plot or the direction or anything like that; it made so much money because kids wanted to see four six-foot-tall turtles kick ninjas in the head. And I think those kids got their money's worth.

Nowadays, the characters would have probably would have been CGI-enhanced, if not completely computer generated. But the fact that they're four guys in suits with animatronic facial features helps the movie feel a bit more real, since we can see that the cast is actually interacting with someone that's there on the set with them. And you'd think that the turtle costumes would be uncomfortable and constrictive, but the four actors wearing them — David Forman, Michelan Sisti, Leif Tilden, and Josh Pais as Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael respectively — and their stunt doubles don't seem like they have any trouble performing. And for that, I applaud the Creature Shop's efforts.

I was one of millions of kids caught in the grip of Turtlemania back in 1990. We couldn't get enough of our favorite foursome, and to us, a Ninja Turtles movie was bigger than the Super Bowl and World Series combined. And nearly twenty years later, we Turtle fans have grown up, but I think the movie as aged as well as one could expect. No, it isn't as solid as it might have been when it was first released, but it's not a bad movie at all. As a comic book movie, I'll admit that it isn't as well-made as recent fare featuring Marvel and DC stars. But as entertainment, and as a reminder of just how wonderful my youth was, I think the movie was great. Cowabunga, indeed. 

Final Rating: ***½