Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - the Movie [DVD] [1990]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, not to be confused by the 1986 cartoon series was a masterpiece of it's time. Highlighting on its more dark and edgy early comic days, this film certainly had it all. Action, comedy, thrills and spills it was packed for 90 minutes of enjoyable entertainment that on it's release sparked a media frenzy worldwide for it's violent content. Although the film was categorised as PG and certainly not aimed at the children. The story is strong and the true meaning of combat is highlighted. Their master come father Splinter trying to enlighten their teenage mind in the art of ninjitsu as a way of life, fighting the forces of evil, whist still trying to make them understand the reality that is the surface of modern day America and that their lives would always be different of that of normal average Human.

The budget was not the biggest in the world, but I think that only aids to the film. Jim Hensons workshop were involved on the animatronics and special effect which undoubtedly added to the films success. the movement of the puppets aimed with the character vocals worked a treat

The film is dark, quite edgy and at times strikes a blow. The script is clever with catchphrases and styles of the time Full or sarcasm, great action spots, fantastic martial arts scenes and an ending that surely couldn't be considered for children? You'll see when you see?

If you simply think it would be a bad remake of a cartoon, think again. This certainly is a film for the older market. Although I first saw this movie at the age of 9, 16 years later this remains one of my all time favourite moves and only now did I see the more depth in the meaning of the writing that could never have been touched on in the children's cartoon. The concept of fitting in, being different and the people of society in their ways and thinking.

Even said, it's still a fun movie, full of one liners and a good little movie that seems to have stood the sand of time. Even if you never saw the cartoon, or knew what the craze was all about, the film covers all that in detail

A good little movie, try it, even sceptics changed their mind about it.

In my opinion, this is a great film and one of the best comic book adaptations ever. It sticks a lot more closely to the original material than the 1990's animated series did, although there are a couple of minor references to the cartoon, such as April O Neill being a news reporter and the Turtles love of pizza. The film is also much more watchable nowadays, as when it was originally released in UK cinemas (and later on VHS), almost every scene with Mikey's nunchukus was either edited or blurred out.....which is very noticeable in the fight scenes and makes a huge difference to the confrontation with Shredder at the end....but the BBFC have now seen sense and the censored footage has now been restored for the DVD.

Basically, the plot is a simple one of good versus evil and old vendettas....Shredder (a Darth Vader style bad guy, all scary mask and gruff voice) is attempting to take over New York with his clan of ninja thieves and the Ninja Turtles are out to stop him under the guidance of Splinter, a rat who's master was killed by Shredder many years before. But it is unusually dark and emotional for a film that is perceived to be aimed primarily at children. All kinds of themes are dealt with....coping with isolation from the outside world, anger, loss, and generally growing up and coming of age...and the characters are explored in a fair amount of detail and shown to be unique personalities who deal with situations in their own way. The fight scenes are also a lot of fun too, the restored scene where Mikey takes on a `fellow `chucker' is particularly amusing, as well as being a prime example of just how much the BBFC ruined the overall feel of the film by censoring it so much back in 1990.

The acting, well it's not going to win any Oscars, but Corey Feldman lends himself well to the voice of Donatello, Kevin Clash does manage to portray Splinter as a wise and venerable creature and Elias Koteas puts in a solid performance as Casey Jones. Judith Hoag is a little weak as April O' Neill but she was replaced by Paige Turco (of American Gothic fame) for the 2 sequels.

But for entertainment value, laughs, and memorable quotes, Cowabunga says it all.

I heard about this region 1 dvd about 6 months ago, been a guy who grew up watching the cut version on a regular basis, i was very intrigued to buy it just to see what they cut out of it in the early 90's.

When the film came to my door, i was expecting to see an extended version of that film.
What i saw was a completely different movie, not only had the uncut bits been restored into the movie, but nearly every single frame of film was different, this was due to BBFC super-inposing on what was seen at the time (offensive pictures) michaelangelo nun-chuku's, which were taken out in every frame.

Fantastic dvd 14 years on from it's original release.
The only down side is that the region 2 dvd has a better picture quality than that of the region 1 version.