Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

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Summary:
Four turtles are transmutated into human form from a chemical spill and trained by a giant rat mastered in the art of ninjitsu . They now live in the sewers, fighting crime in the streets of NYC. Recently, the Foote Clan have been causing massive organized crime in the city, and the turtles work their best at stopping the insanity.

Review:
I haven't watched this movie in... oh, 15 years. It's crazy how time flies by. I DID see it again a couple days ago, and seeing as how I'm older than the intended age bracket for this movie now... it wasn't half bad!

First and foremost, the Henson team did an OUTSTANDING job with the animatronics. I can't help but think that if it was made today, we'd have CGI computers against real life actors. There's something special about having dudes in suits. The facial expressions are... well... expressive, and eerily human. The actors in the suits also did a great job, such as when Michaelangelo prims his eyebrows after April compliments him. Yeesh.
The fight choreography is passable, especially for an American martial arts movie from 1990. There seem to be some limitations with the abilities of the suit, such as no high-kicking allowed, but it seemed like they did a good job emphasizing the more stronger points of their suits' capabilities for the majority of the time.
Another surprise was the darker tone. It's about using kids to conduct high crimes in NYC, and there is a scene in which kids are smoking cigars, drinking beer (very briefly) and being taught to perform evil acts against society. Not only that, there's a scene in which the Foote soldiers beat the shit out of Raphael mercilessly. It's a scene that goes on for about three minutes, with a large horde of soldiers kicking him while he's down. Not only is that unsportsmanlike, but it's also pretty vicious, considering that wasn't the kind of tone I was expecting for a family oriented flick.

The voice actors did a great job as the Ninja Turtles, even though Corey Feldman is well... Feldman. He's a little too recognizable as anything BUT Feldman, but I can look past that and accept him as a Ninja Turtle. Sure! Elias Koteas is very well cast as the confident head crusher Casey Jones. I wouldn't have thought of him as a possible casting choice, but he's a damn GOOD choice! It's funny seeing him in this as Casey, and then everything else he's done is a far cry from Mr. Jones!

I'm impressed to see how well this movie has held up over the last - yikes! - SEVENTEEN YEARS. Sure, it's more cheesy than it needs to be, and I'm not talking about their Dominoe's deliveries, either! I found myself laughing at their bad one liners more often than not. It flows at a decent pace, rarely lagging into the realm of boredom. Plus, I tried to keep the mindset of a 12 year old while watching this. If you're ages 6-12, this is AN AWESOME MOVIE! Once you grow up a bit, it's still not too shabby. CowaBUNGGAAA!!!

GRADE: B-

TRIVIA: This was the most successful independent film ever at $133 million domestic. In 1990, yo! YIKES!

A younger Sam Rockwell plays a prominent thief that attacks April O'Neil near the beginning, and has more to say and do later on.

Reviewed 3/22/07