It's trashy. It's farcical. It's downright silly. And yet I found myself enjoying this senseless Kung-Fu fest. The plot? The leader of an evil ninja gang, The Foot Clan, starts recruiting the aimless adolescents of New York City to do his bidding for him. This leader dresses in steel plated body armor and calls himself—rather comically, I thought—Shredder. As the police of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are—like those of most vigilante films—characteristically inept, only 4 anthropomorphic turtles and their mysterious rat sensei, Splinter, have any chance at all of defeating Shredder and his army of 12 year olds. Thankfully, Splinter has trained the turtles from birth in Ninjutsu, the ancient Japanese art of er..something or other. A good bit of punching and kicking is involved, and that is all that really matters for the intents and purposes of this film. If you can get past the contrivance of 4 extremely short physical actors in rubber turtle suits sparring with a walking can opener, you might just enjoy this film. For my part, I didn't much care for the endless fight scenes, the lame dialogue, or the dated special effects. Much more interesting was the performance by the unsung Elias Koteas as the boorish vigilante Casey Jones.
Casey, despite being human, is no less ridiculous a character than the turtles. He wears a hockey mask and carries a cache of sporting equipment he uses as weapons in a golf bag. He patrols the city alone at night, beating up muggers and purse snatchers with cricket paddles. In real life, Casey would last a full 5 minutes on the streets of New York before having his skull perforated a half dozen times by the magnum slugs of the first mugger he accosted. That I was able to take at least one character in this film seriously is a testament to the performance of Koteas. Here is an actor with brutish charm, good looks, and good if not excellent comedic timing. A quick look at his IMDb resume reveals he is still a working actor a full 20 years after the release of this film. It saddens me that this man never really "made it big." I suspect it has something to do with the fact that he started losing his hair in his late 20s and was no longer beautiful enough to audition for George Clooney's roles.
What else is there to be said for this film? The choreography is adequate; not stunning, but not too far below par. The story is somehow less silly than the black and white comic book it was based on; the smallest of triumphs. The turtles are named after renaissance artists; a nice touch, I thought. All in all I can't by any stretch of the imagination recommend this film to others, but there were things about it I found charming.
Casey, despite being human, is no less ridiculous a character than the turtles. He wears a hockey mask and carries a cache of sporting equipment he uses as weapons in a golf bag. He patrols the city alone at night, beating up muggers and purse snatchers with cricket paddles. In real life, Casey would last a full 5 minutes on the streets of New York before having his skull perforated a half dozen times by the magnum slugs of the first mugger he accosted. That I was able to take at least one character in this film seriously is a testament to the performance of Koteas. Here is an actor with brutish charm, good looks, and good if not excellent comedic timing. A quick look at his IMDb resume reveals he is still a working actor a full 20 years after the release of this film. It saddens me that this man never really "made it big." I suspect it has something to do with the fact that he started losing his hair in his late 20s and was no longer beautiful enough to audition for George Clooney's roles.
What else is there to be said for this film? The choreography is adequate; not stunning, but not too far below par. The story is somehow less silly than the black and white comic book it was based on; the smallest of triumphs. The turtles are named after renaissance artists; a nice touch, I thought. All in all I can't by any stretch of the imagination recommend this film to others, but there were things about it I found charming.