TEENAGE
MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (1990)
Director:
Steve Barron
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 case 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, 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
tedius 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. My final
verdict: three and a half stars, leaning heavily
towards four. Cowabunga, indeed.
Final
Rating: ***½