MR Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

"I have always liked... "Cowabunga".

Haha! I made a funny!"

Movie: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Directed by Steve Barron
Release date 1990
Genre Martial arts/Science fiction/Action comedy
Country USA/Japan

Here's another favorite classic of mine, if not for all of us from my generation as well.

The story of four mutated turtles that learned ninjutsu from their master, a rat, in order to fight an old foe who's running a gang of ninja in the streets of modern-day New York City.
On the paper, yeah, it sounds pretty ridiculous.
Who'd ever thought they'd make a big blockbuster movie out of this?

Yet since the breakthrough of the original indie comic book Hollywood kept a tight eye on Eastman and Laird's propriety.
Tim Burton's Batman proved to be such a success. It wouldn't be years until Hollywood started taking comic book adaptations and just look at the box office. Every year the Top 3 major movie productions end up being Marvel and DC movies!
And the independent market had such great ideas as well, and they could be cheaper to buy the rights from! No wonder Hollywood got interested - just look at The Rocketeer!

The movie was planned long before the TMNT cartoon from 1987 ended up on the air.
But in the mid-80s Irish music video and film director Steve Barron (Coneheads) couldn't find any studio or country - except France and Germany - that could be interested in investing in the project.
Barron wanted the film to be a direct comic book adaptation.
With the help from writers Todd W. Langen & Bobby Herbeck they were able to follow pretty closely the original comic book series, more precisely the very first issue, and making it into a single full length feature drawing bit here and there from later stories.

The movie opens with our heroes in action directly.
We're introduced to our four mean green Ninja Turtles after they save reporter April O’Neil (Judith Hoag) from getting attacked by a bunch of punks.
They go back to the lair in the sewers to find their master, the rat named Splinter.

Raphael's angry he just lost one of his sais.
Leonardo, as the mature one, is pondering on their first victory on the surface.
Donatello plays it quiet, he's the smarter one.
And Michaelangelo is already ordering a pizza.

In only 5 minutes we're already introduced to all the characters, their personality and traits perfectly layed on screen.
Such a clever and well crafted movie - a far cry from what some expected to be just "another children movie".
And actually the movie's quite far from that.
The first original film draws a lot from the original comics rather than the cartoon series.
It's a dark film, low on light.
Raphael spends the movie swearing, and even gets beaten down by the Foot Clan quite savagely.

Raphael later meets Casey Jones (Elias Koteas) in a park. Directly taken from the old Raphael Micro-Series.
The overall movie follows their first origin issue.
And it adapts various points from later arcs, such as April's introduction thrown in the mix.
But since Baxter Stockman is nowhere to be seen (he was the antagonist from their 2nd story arc), April retained her reporter background from the cartoon here. They kept bits from the cartoon to a minimum. (since the movie was developed simultaneously without its interference)
The "back to New York" storyline was also incorporated before the final showdown, in which the turtles leave the city for a bit, meditate a bit to finally come back better united in the end, stronger than ever.

The movie has still some solid comedy going for it, like good ol' action films used to.
The Turtles are still able to laugh in the worst situations, playing a game of rock, paper, scissors right there in front of Shredder before fighting the guy.
It's some light hearted moments in the middle of the darkest situations that made it such a better adaptation than the popular cartoon, in my eyes.

"A fellow ‘chucker hey?"

The special effects were handled by Jim Henson's Creature Shop in London.
The turtles were amongst the most advanced work Jim Henson had ever done at the time.
The suits are simply amazing. Great suits, believable, detailed and realistic enough while allowing the actor inside perform movements naturally and give a lot of body language to each turtle.
The heads had their own puppeteers, requiring sophisticated animatronic to give 'em life.
Three puppeteers operated the Splinter puppet!

They were voiced and animated by different guys.
Most of the actors in the suit got cameos in the film, like David Forman, the performer inside the Leonardo costume. He played a gang member in the warehouse where Casey Jones fights against Tatsu.
The same goes for the rest of the gang.

Fun factoid,  Ernie Reyes Jr who was Donatello's martial arts stuntdouble went on to portray a main character, Keno in the sequel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II.

The score is just as memorable as the entire movie.
It really gives the film a then-contemporary time. It's "urban", gives the Turtles a late 80s/early 90s vibe. There's some 90s rap and rock.
And John Du Prez' score might end up in the background most of the times but it's perfectly moody and fitting.

Overall, a dark stunning movie.
Perfect for its time and I'd even dare say, ageless to this day.

The best the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been to this day!
For kids it's a great fun action film, and there's enough darkness and serious bits to keep adults entertained - unlike some later 90s TMNT material.

The film is such a faithful adaptation of the original material.
The movie went on becoming the highest-grossing independent film of all time, having made over 133 million USD$ in America alone, not counting later re-releases.

I give it:

3 / 3 Films!