Two Cents Cheers “Cowabunga!” Alongside 1990's TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES

Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.

The Pick

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been such a steadfast part of pop culture for so long that it can be easy to forget just how weird it is that some turtles who are also teenage ninja mutants are a steadfast part of pop culture.

Created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in 1984, the TMNT originated as a straight-faced riff of the kind of grim, tech-noir style that Frank Miller had popularized with his Daredevil run.

But it was the cartoon series, in conjunction with a mega-popular line of action figures, that took the turtles into the stratosphere. The 1987 series embraced and amplified the wackiness of the concept, differentiated Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael via their colored masks, and in general turned the TMNT into a goofy, kid-friendly commercial juggernaut.

The turtles have occupied pretty much every form of media ever since. There was the first NES game that permanently traumatized a generation, ongoing comic runs, a revolving door of animated series, and even a live action series that have waxed and waned on the sliding scale between Eastman and Laird’s original darkness and the more popularly accepted wacky shenanigans of the 1987 toon.

And oh yes, there have been movies.

First and still probably most-beloved is the one we are here to talk about today: 1990’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Directed by Steve Barron (the legendary music video director behind A-ha’s “Take on Me”) and featuring make-up and creature effects by Jim Henson (it would be his final completed work before his untimely passing), the first Turtles movie was a giant hit that solidified the TMNT as phenomenon with long legs.

Series co-creator Kevin Eastman recently celebrated the movie’s 30th Anniversary with a terrific “from quarantine” at-home commentary of the film, which you can check out here.

As for the films, two direct sequels followed, though those films followed the franchise’s pivot to kid-friendlier silliness and diminishing returns. The film series went dormant until 2007 with the underrated TMNT. More time passed, and then we got another stab at a live action series, this time courtesy of Michael Bay and his production company. Those ‘roided out monstrosities scared audiences off (which is too bad because the sequel, Out of the Shadows, is actually pretty rad).

So the TMNT are resting from the big screen at the moment, but we know it’s only a matter of time before they come out of their shells once again to remind us what heroes on the half-shell really look like.

Next Week’s Pick

It is our sincere hope that movie theaters will be open and functioning again in the near future. Until then, we suppose we might as well take advantage of the weird circumstances to watch a film that by all rights still be exclusively on the big screen.

So let’s go Onward together. Currently streaming on Disney+.

Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!

Our Guests

Austin Wilden:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, from its title to everything else about its dozens of incarnations across all variety of media, likely needs some level of base acceptance of the premise before being able to engage with it on any other level. For Eastman and Laird’s original comics, the acceptance would come from comic fans understanding the works of Frank Miller on Daredevil the pair were satirizing. With the 1987 cartoon, still airing new episodes at the time of the 1990 film’s release, being aimed at a younger audience could expect a similar suspension of disbelief from the target demographic. Accepting that absurdity or not probably accounts for the 1990 version of TMNT receiving a negative critical reception at the time while going on to be a well-regarded classic by people that grew up in the pop culture landscape Leo, Donnie, Raph, and Mikey helped create.

The fact the movie rules helps too.

What struck me most on this viewing is how much effort the movie places on making the Turtles feel like living people, even beyond the fantastic work of Jim Henson and his team on the title characters. Plenty of scenes are about the four of them, either as individuals or a group, hanging out being themselves. Whether its sharing pizza at April’s apartment or the extended farm sequence, the part where the movie’s heart gets laid bare, the way they act makes these cartoony beings work on screen to this day. Furthered by occasionally stylized but mostly grounded cinematography. Between the facial puppeteers and the stunt performers in the heroes’ half-shells, they can easily stand side by side with the best suitmation from Japanese tokusatsu like Godzilla or another famous turtle, Gamera.

Speaking of, it probably wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the live action martial arts and creature work here helped pave the way for Saban’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers to bring tokusatsu to kids in America. (Though the less said about Saban’s later attempt to turn TMNT into a live action TV series, the better.)

None of this praise is to say TMNT 1990 is perfect by any stretch. A decent portion of the wisecracks rely on now-dated pop culture references, and others are just plain bad, like April snarking about Sony around the Foot Ninjas and Casey’s “I never even looked at another guy” response to being called claustrophobic. Casey himself is the ultimate mixed bag of a character among the main cast. For every genuinely solid action or comedy beat he’s given, there’s stuff like his attitude towards April early on. Elias Koteas’s performance is good enough overall that I’m still willing to put Casey in the list of things in the movie that work. Not on that list, though: Danny coming across more as a screenwriting tool than a fully fleshed out person, with him stumbling across or into the exact situation to move the plot along multiple times.

Back on what does work, the farm sequence stands out. While it’s taken from a storyline in Eastman and Laird’s comics, this movie cemented the Turtles’ retreating to April’s old farm to recover as iconic to the point where multiple future versions felt the need to do their own twist on it. It’s where the Turtles feel the most united and gives us the best look into how they feel about each other and their father/son relationship with Splinter. Plus the match cuts between April’s drawings of the four to their current situations stand out among the filmmaking choices and serve as a remnant of the original scripted ending where she’d create an in-universe version of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics.

Warts and all, TMNT 1990 stands as one of the classics of comic book to screen adaptations. I’d even say it stands above the contemporary 1989 Batman with a more solid story structure and better action sequences. There’s a reason Turtles fans still cite this as one of the 35-year-old franchise’s absolute pinnacles. (@WC_Wit)

The Team

Brendan Foley:

The TMNT were a non-entity for me growing up, so it’s only been in adult life that I’ve learned to appreciate turtle power. Even so, I never bothered with this movie before now. Surprise, surprise, it’s a totally enjoyable romp, bolstered by Henson’s remarkable work in costumes and puppetry and a performance by Elias Koteas so ferociously committed that he lends the film quadruple doses of legitimacy (even if he’s stuck with all the homophobic/racist cracks that date the film worse than any wardrobe).

If I can play a minor party-pooper to this procession, this movie does reflect the degree to which comic book movies post Burton’s Batman still struggled with translating those narratives to the screen. The Turtles don’t actually do much in the movie besides go from one location to the next. The Foot Clan bear an intense grudge against the boys for no real reason besides Raph interrupting a mugging. The Turtles take no proactive action throughout, and they don’t even know about the existence of Shredder until he appears before them looking for a final battle. By the time you get to that, there’s no actual enmity between the good guys and the bad, so what should be the epic clash is just guys in cool costumes flailing around.

Even so, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles holds up shockingly well thirty years later. (@TheTrueBrendanF)

Justin Harlan:

At 38 years old, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been a part of my life from an early age, and I’ve had the honor of passing them down to the next generation. While the cartoons of my generation and subsequent iterations have been generally solid, it’s the film series that’s the holy grail for me… with the original classic being the shining star. Thankfully, my kids have embraced it, and my wife is probably even a bigger die-hard fan than I.

I love this film, and it honestly can do no wrong. Every scene is iconic, and every character my friend. There is no such thing as honest film criticism from me when it comes to this classic of my youth. I continue to watch it just about yearly and will likely do so for years to come…in the hope that I can get my grandkids hooked on it one day.

If I must choose one iconic moment, it would be Raphael yelling “Damn!” early in the film. I was young enough when I first saw this to gasp at the fact my beloved turtle warrior would say a would I knew not to be okay for me to say, but in that moment I knew he was a total badass and I loved him the more for it. For that reason, he’s probably been my favorite member of the team ever since. (@thepaintedman)

Austin Vashaw:

Talk about a movie with a lot to give. Over the years I’ve come around to some new understandings about one of my all-time favorite films, for example coming to the realization that the Turtles, while cool and fun to spend time with, are not the ultimate heroes of their own movie — Casey Jones is the Samwise to their Frodo. It’s he who saves Splinter, and that pairing that ultimately defeat the Shredder. That doesn’t make me like the film any less, it’s just another layer to appreciate, and a new favorite character (especially considering how Casey was sidelined to a third-tier character in the 87 toon). Expanding on that thought, as a kid my favorite turtles in the movie were probably Mikey and Raph, while now it’s flipped to Donnie and Leo.

As a fan of the comics, I’ve also come to appreciate that it does a really incredible job at translating the run of the series up to that point (and even beyond, as elements of the film found their way into the comics narrative as well).

Along with being an all-time favorite, it’s also one of the ultimate comfort movies. It’s also maybe the primary movie of my childhood, and the one I can most vividly remember begging and anticipating to see on the big screen and absolutely loving. It’s a film that I can watch and enjoy anytime, and now as a parent, pull in my own kids (who have inherited Daddy’s Turtle fandom) and enjoy it with them too. (@VforVashaw)