REVIEW: ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ (1990)

Back in the mid-1980’s, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird unleashed one of the most beloved martial arts action teams in history, comprising of four mutated turtles whose skills in martial arts were the stuff of legend. With a successful cartoon series in the late-1980’s, the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES became the leads of a live-action film in 1990.

The film is set in New York City, where a criminal organization known as the Foot Clan have been dishing out robbery after robbery with the help of local teenagers. When a local news reporter, April O’Neil (Judith Hoag), gets herself involved with investigating the robberies, she finds herself a target of the foot. When she sees some of the teenage thugs robbing a news van, she is nearly mugged until she is saved by four heroes, or should we say, turtles?

Living in the sewers of New York City, Leonardo (David Forman), Michaelangelo (Michelan Sisti), Donatello (Leif Tilden), and Raphael (Josh Pais) have been training in martial arts since they were mutated along with their mentor, a rat named Splinter (Kevin Clash). While Leonardo is the leader of the bunch, Raphael is more the rebel of the group. During a night out incognito, he finds himself going face-to-face with a local vigilante, Casey Jones (Elias Koteas).

Meanwhile, the Foot Clan’s leader appears. Known as the Shredder (James Saito), he wears a suit with a helmet and shoulder blades made of metal. When the Foot learn of April’s recent newscasts about their robberies, they confront and attack her only to be saved by Raphael, who proceeds to take her to the sewers. What starts out as a shocking discovery soon leads into the legendary friendship between April and the Turtles.

When Splinter is kidnapped by Shredder, a confrontation leads Raphael to be seriously injured and with the help of Casey, April and the Turtles escape to a farm hours away, where the Turtles not only must recuperate, but begin training for a rematch with the Foot Clan and the Shredder in an efforts to not only rescue their mentor, but put an end to the crime wave once and for all.

If the film were made today, one would think that the Turtles could be done using computer graphic interface (CGI) effects. However, we’re talking 1990, and so there is only one person who can bring the Turtles to life. In what would be his final film before his death, MUPPETS creator Jim Henson and his son Brian put together with their crew the elaborate costumes and animatronic effects that would make up the four “heroes in a half-shell”. The turtles look very believable and thanks to the help of voice actors, were able to interact well with the human characters. The only actors to play both in the suit and provide the voice of his character were Josh Pais, who plays Raphael, and Kevin Clash, who plays Splinter. Brian Tochi provided the voice of Leonardo, Robbie Rist provided the voice of Michaelangelo, and 80’s teen idol Corey Feldman provided the voice of Donatello.

What helps boost the film in terms of plot is a few subplots that help mesh the film together. Screenwriters Todd Langen and Bobby Herbeck mixed the elements very well in terms of the “sibling rivalry” between Leonardo and Raphael, a possible romance between April and Casey, and an important subplot involving a teenager, Danny (Michael Turney), who is involved with the Foot Clan yet holds some sort of loyalty towards April, making him feel conflicted about what’s right and wrong.

The actors playing the Turtles even appear in the film sans costume. Michelan Sisti can be seen playing a Domino’s Pizza delivery man who tries to find where Michaelangelo placed his order. Josh Pais plays a man in a cab who asks the driver what his the cab after Raphael is hit trying to chase Casey down in their first encounter. Leif Tilden plays a member of the Foot Clan, and David Forman plays a thug in the film.

While these actors provide the interaction scenes, martial artists were hired to double for the Turtles in terms of their fight scenes. A sixteen-year old Ernie Reyes Jr. provided the fight scenes for Donatello while Kenn Scott, Ip Choi Nam, and Chi Wai Chiang provided martial arts for the other three turtles. Hollywood fight choreographer Pat E. Johnson (THE KARATE KID, MORTAL KOMBAT) was responsible for the choreography of the film with help from his assistant Barbara Bernhardt-Goldstone. However, they got a little help from Hong Kong, courtesy of the film’s production company, the legendary Golden Harvest. To assist as consultants for the fight scenes, Liu Tak Wai and Brandy Yuen (brother of Yuen Woo-Ping) were flown to New York to assist with bringing a Hong Kong element to the fight scenes, which is why unlike most big Hollywood A-list martial arts productions of that time, the fight scenes looked so much better here.

Two sequels, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II: THE SECRET OF THE OOZE and TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES III, were released in 1991 and 1992 with virtually a new cast with the exception of Koteas returning as Casey and Corey Feldman returning as Donatello’s voice for the third film. Meanwhile, both Rist and Tochi would provide the voices of Michaelangelo and Leonardo respectively throughout the entire film series.

For a movie of its time, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES definitely holds as a film not only for kids who love the heroes in a half shell, but martial arts fans will also love the elaborate fight scenes that boost the film into cult action status.