Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

TV reporter April O’Neil (played by Judith Hoag) is investigating a recent crime spree that she intuits is the work of the secretive organisation of ninja known as The Foot (Clan). Unfortunately, The Foot become aware of her presence and descend upon her. Out of nowhere, masked assailants come to meet The Foot’s violence with their own, and quickly dispense with them (or at least the few of them around). April’s saviours turn out to be the title turtles; brooding Raphael, pizza-loving Michaelangelo, somewhat serious and dutiful Leonardo (voiced by Brian Tochi), and Donatello who is…the one voiced by Corey Feldman. They live in the sewers where they were raised by another mutant, a sage rat named Splinter (voiced by Kevin Clash), who taught them the way of the ninja. The film proper concerns The Shredder (James Saito), an old adversary of Splinter’s ‘master’ amassing an army of street punks (i.e. His ever-growing Foot Clan) to wreak havoc on the city, with the Turtles proving a fly in the ointment at every turn. Toshishiro Obata plays Shredder’s gruff henchman Tatsu, whilst Elias Koteas plays a smart-mouthed, masked vigilante named Casey Jones, who finds himself caught in the middle of all the mayhem.

 

This was my first experience watching the 1990 Steve Barron (1984’s “Electric Dreams”) big-screen adaptation of the comic book/TV cartoon as an adult. I had, of course, been a fan of the cartoon as a kid and remembered seeing this film as a 10 year-old. I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it well enough, but like the cartoon (and it’s definitely more faithful to the cartoon than the comics in tone), it didn’t really stick with me through the years. I kinda forgot about the Ninja Turtles by 1992 or so. I’ve gotta say, from my 35 ¾ years old perspective in 2016, this actually isn’t too bad a film from Barron and- bizarrely- Golden Harvest (the legendary Raymond Chow serves as EP), especially for what it is.

 

The turtles themselves are far and away the best thing going here, even if Leonardo kinda gets upstaged by the others. The puppet suits from the Jim Henson Workshop (Barron being an associate of Henson’s workshop himself, directing eps of “The Storyteller”) are a bit rubbery-looking but actually a lot less cumbersome than I seemed to remember, and the voice casting of the turtles is perfectly fine, even if you can pick Corey Feldman (as Donatello) a mile away. Raphael and Michaelangelo in particular stand out as idiosyncratic in both character and voice (the latter is pretty much the character you know and loved from the cartoon, and way better than the more recent Michael Bay film offered up). Splinter, meanwhile, looks quite good and future Elmo dude Kevin Clash is terrific voicing the part. On the human side of things, I think Paige Turco is the more charismatic and beautiful April O’Neil, but Judith Hoag (whose on-set complaining apparently assured that she would get passed over for Turco in the sequels) is perfectly fine in the part. Elias Koteas is odd but highly effective casting as masked vigilante Casey Jones. The mask is tops, by the way. Love that thing. Although James Saito and Toshishiro Obata have their voices dubbed as Shredder and chief henchman Tatsu, they both look fearsome and the former gets an awesome entrance. The biggest surprise for me re-watching this thing as an adult was seeing Sam Rockwell, of all people, playing the guy welcoming all of the new recruits into The Foot. Who knew he was in this thing? Also an interesting factoid is that junior martial arts/TV star Ernie Reyes Jr. does the stunt doubling for Donatello. Reyes, a highly underrated and charismatic juvenile star for like a nanosecond, would turn up as a teenage co-star in the sequel. I think he deserved a better career, myself.

 

I was kind of amazed that this film held up as pretty watchable, and particularly that I remembered a lot of the dialogue. I swear I’ve only seen the film maybe twice before, yet I was reciting the dialogue before it was delivered. Then again, the trailer was shown ad nauseum back then and snippets were heard in songs from the soundtrack too, if I’m not mistaken. On that soundtrack, I must admit I was much more tolerant of dance/hippity hop stuff as a 10 year-old than I am now, but songs like Hammer’s ‘This is What We Do’ and ‘Spin That Wheel’ by Technotronic bi-product Hi Tek 3 (with Ya Kid K) were pretty popular with me for about a month or two when I was 10. Truth be told, Barron’s previous career as a music video director has more cred (iconic clips like ‘Billie Jean’, ‘Money for Nothing’ and ‘Take on Me’. Yep, Barron did all three of ‘em!) than this soundtrack has, but it’s kinda fun in a cheesy 1990 way I guess.

 

This isn’t a great movie and never was, but I can’t deny I’ve got some nostalgic feelings for it. My time with the Ninja Turtles was more fleeting than it will have been for many, but I was indeed a Ninja Turtle guy for a while and this film played a part in it. Looking at it again as an adult, it’s still quite watchable and much better than many of these sorts of big-screen adaptations and McProducts can be. It may not be radical (I also think Barron’s music videos and work on the miniseries “Merlin” are vastly superior), and no Ninja Turtle movie is gonna hold the same appeal to me in middle age as it did as a youngster, but this one and the 2014 film are pretty much on the same level. If anything, the 2014 film has the edge for adults, whilst this one is probably the better kids movie. Based on the Eastman and Laird comic book series, the screenplay is by Bobby Herbeck (a TV actor and occasional TV episode writer) & Todd W. Langen (a story editor on “The Wonder Years” he worked on the sequel and even co-wrote Vanilla Ice’s immortal ‘Ninja Rap’), with a story by Herbeck.

 

Rating: C+