Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990-1993) – Review

In 1984, comic book authors Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird took their love of the superhero genre and gave it a nice, humorous spin on things, borrowing liberally from Daredevil and the Uncanny X-Men while adding the comic tradition of utilizing anthropomorphic animals such as Howard the Duck to provide a nice element of parody. The successful run of their comic led to a billion-dollar toy explosion and an incredibly popular cartoon for children, which was certainly not the market the original comic book was aimed at, but with that kind of success, it was only a matter of time before a live-action family-friendly version was attempted.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

When talking about live-action adaptations of comic book properties this 1990s gem is often overlooked and while it may not be tonally a perfect version of the Eastman and Laird comic, which borrowed heavily from Frank Miller and Jack Kirby, it certainly has the heart and feel of the animated series that was airing at the time. The success of this film comes mostly from the incredible work done by the people at Jim Henson’s Creature Shop and the talented stunt performers who were able to fully realize four amazing ninja turtles. One should also point out that Elias Koteas was a picture-perfect Casey Jones and Judith Hoag more than held her own as April O’Neil.

As for the plot, well, it basically re-worked elements of Oliver Twist with the villainous Shredder becoming a modern-day Fagan to a group of disenfranchised youths – hey, look it’s a young Sam Rockwell – and the idea of a secret ninja clan that steals stereos and VCRs while hanging out in a place that looks like a half-assed Pleasure Island from Disney’s Pinocchio, is a bit silly but somehow it all works. Overall, this adaptation of the Eastman and Laird comic is still one of the best, with the 2007 animated version giving it a run for its money and is certainly better than Michael Bay-produced atrocities.

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

The first film ended with the Shredder being dropped into the back of a garbage truck, with the crusher activated by Casey Jones, but he survive this as we see in this sequel that Shredder climbed out of a mound of garbage at a local junkyard, apparently having survived that crushing, but the raises a big question “Why didn’t the police open the garbage truck to recover the Shredder’s body?” Didn’t Casey Jones or April O’Neill mention any of this to the police? And hey, it turns out that particular junkyard was also the Foot Clan’s fallback rendezvous spot, so the Shredder didn’t even have to catch a bus. How bloody convenient!

Seriously, this is what you get when lazy writers want to bring back a vanquished villain instead of coming up with something clever, or how about bringing in any of the other bad guys the Turtles have faced over the years? On the plus side, we do get David Warner as an unscrupulous scientist trying to cover up a toxic waste leak, which leads to the Shredder creating a mutant wolf and snapping turtle – that legal issues prevented it from being Bebop and Rocksteady from the cartoon is a real shame – and while we do get some fun action sequences, and the suits from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop are even more articulate this time out, but the movie itself is a definite step back in the quality of writing with the film’s juvenile dialogue often being quite cringe-worthy and will make it unbearable for many adults and while it was nice to see Ernie Reyes Jr. being allowed to step outside his turtle costume from the previous movie, to become a friend and ally for the Turtles, we are given no explanation as to where Casey Jones vanished to and he is greatly missed.

Overall, the mixture of comedy and martial arts violence didn’t quite hit the proper balance this time out and it made the whole proceedings seem even more cartoony. Also, if your big climax involves Vanilla Ice singing “Ninja Rap” then maybe you should rethink the entire concept and start from scratch.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)

In this third and final instalment of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Trilogy, we find our heroes travelling back in time, which is not an intrinsically bad idea – the Turtles did venture back to Feudal Japan in the comic book – sadly, for this entry the comedy and unfunny quips are increased by a factor of ten, so any enjoyment of a new setting is undercut bad writing and nonsensical action.

Note: Jim Henson’s Creature Shop was no longer providing the animatronic suits and this resulted in a major step back in quality as the work by All Effects Company was more on par with what you’d find wandering around a theme park and taking pictures with the guests.

Casey Jones does return, having been absent from the previous film due to the criticism that his character was too violent for a kid’s film, but what is truly disappointing is that even though Elias Koteas is back, and given a dual role as 16th Century mercenary, he has pretty much nothing to do in either role. These filmmakers really knew how to ruin a fan’s favourite character. Overall, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III tried something interesting with the addition of time travel but then failed to deliver decent action or anything even remotely funny, as the comedy on display ranged from juvenile to simply unfunny, and this is all quite disappointing when you consider that a movie about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Feudal Japan should have been badass, instead, what we got was a final chapter that fell faster than fake time sceptre in a well.