Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Yes!)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

Runtime: 93 minutes

Directed by: Steve Barron

Starring: The four humanoid Turtles: Donatello, Leonardo, Raphael, and Michaelangelo, along with actors such as Judith Hoag and Elias Koteas

From: Golden Harvest

Yes, I'm reviewing a movie I loved as a kid (I was a HUGE Turtles fan, as many people were if you are currently in your later 20's to early 30's) but I hadn't seen in what had to be between 15 and 20 years. I'll tell you that I loved this and the sequel with the now almost-meme title of Secret of the Ooze; I saw both on the big screen. By the time the third one came out, I waited until I saw it on VHS. I thought it was crap with one of those plot points that really pissed me off at the time, back in my less critical days. One of these days I have to watch those sequels to see how they hold up. Viewing TMNT for the first time would also be interesting. By the way, the news that Platinum Dunes (i.e. Michael Bay and his buddies, known for all those shitty remakes of the past 5 to 10 years) is going to put out a Turtles movie... major sigh. I'm expecting that movie to be the diarrhea worst. Thankfully this movie doesn't fit that label at all.

I'm sure everyone knows the plot but I'll copy and paste from IMDb as at least it's short: “A quartet of humanoid turtles trained by their mentor in ninjitsu must learn to pull together in order to face the menace of Shredder and the Foot Clan.” Yep, that sums things up pretty well.

Overall, I say that a family film about this odd of a subject is pretty strange if you think about it, it still is fine as a PG movie you can watch as an adult with children. The violence will be fine to them, you don't have to worry about such thing as filthy language, and there are various things (such as lines of dialogue) which I'm sure I didn't get as a kid but I get now. Sure, there are goofy things for both kids and adults (such as them being pizza eaters or Michaelangelo in particular being a surfer dude, or Michaelangelo doing a Rocky Balboa impression) but it isn't too grating watching it as a grown up. It's a fine story that anyone can enjoy; it's an origin story that introduces everyone in a satisfactory manner. The costumes all look fine; it didn't have to be CGI for it to be effective.

The movie is darker than the cartoon as it was largely based on the original comic book; I was fine with it then and I'm find with it now. You don't have to have it be dumbed down and have it be full of buffoonery to appeal to kids. Youngsters are able to watch and enjoy things with a dark tone! Youngsters can even enjoy things that have some intelligence to them! I know that others (including people I know) have said much the same thing but I wanted to put it out there. I know I enjoyed this movie as a 9 year old and this had a dark tone and talked of such things as Raphael having anger issues and becoming distant from his pals and teenagers having to resort to crime in order to try and survive in the world. I just wanted to make it clear that you don't have to be dumb in order for children to like you.

Let me ramble on a few more things... as an adult, I realized that Casey Jones was pretty cool as a hockey stick-wielding masked man who is happy to be a vigilante. I don't know why the movie took a potshot at the movie Critters, but it did. I forgot how much of a badass Shredder was in the movie. I mean, he really is good at kicking ass, something that was usually not the case in the cartoons. And finally, in 2012 it's funny to see two guys that became famous in later years, Sam Rockwell and Skeet Ulrich, as thugs, with Sam having a much larger role.

Overall, like I said, it's not just nostalgia which is making me say that this was a perfectly acceptable movie to watch whether you are a child or a grown up. I am glad I was able to watch it, and I'm also happy this was not something that I ended up hating and thus ruining all those good childhood memories.

I'll be back Monday night with a review of something pretty interesting that I've been wanting to watch for years now.