The Ninja Turtles franchise is one of those that I have always loved as a child, and while granted everyone likes bickering over which one the best adaptation is and usually their arguments can be summed up with “This one’s the best because it’s the one I grew up with” Which…yeah that goes true for me. But thing is I didn’t actually grow up on the live-action movie, I watched it once when I was 4, completely forgot about it and didn’t see it again until I was 17 and you know what? It’s a damn good movie and possibly the best adaptation of the Ninja Turtles franchise, or at the very least, the first good one.
While the original comic book works fine as a satirical take on the gritty comic books of the bronze age and one can appreciate the low budget indie becoming a massive success in a pre-internet era surviving just off of word of mouth, the comic itself…is just kinda okay by today’s standards. While the comic thrives as a satire, where it falters is in it’s own story and characters, by which I mean there is basically none, hell you can’t even tell the turtles apart, through writing or artwork. While the animated series, though still the most popular adaptation of the turtles I maintain is one of the worst. Again, I respect it for bringing the turtles into the limelight and without it the franchise would not be what it is today. But from a technical standpoint the show has horribly cheap animation, very poor writing and I’m just gonna say it, the voice-acting is pretty bad as well, yes most of the cast are voice-acting icons and have most definitely gone on to do better work, for this series it felt like none of them were providing their A-Game. Hell Rob Paulsen, the voice of Raphael would go on to play Donatello in the Nickelodeon animated series and he's 100x better there.
So when approaching this adaptation what do the filmmakers go for? Do they stick to the dark satirical nature of the source material or do they make it goofy and comedic to be closer to the more popular version of the time? Somehow, they found a way to be both. The film is shot with a very dirty and dark style to match the comic but also has plenty of comedic and almost cartoonish moments much like the animated series and it never feels forced or inappropriate, the story is dark where it needs to be and silly when it needs to be. To this day I still think no other adaptation has met the perfect blend, they’ve always gone either too dark or too wacky, to be able to maintain a tonal balance that well shows true talent. But it does more than find the perfect tone for the franchise, it also helps with the protagonists’ characterization. True while the original cartoon did most of the groundwork for Michelangelo and Donatello, Leonardo & Raphael never had much going for them. Raph played practically the same role as Mikey, just with a bit more of a sarcastic edge and Leo was…the leader. This film gave them much more of an identity, Raph became the aggressive and over-emotional hothead but with a caring heart deep down who would protect his family no matter what and Leo was the blind follower of Splinter dealing with his own insecurities as a leader without him. Almost every adaptation of the Turtles since have had these two constantly at conflict and this is the product that started that. So yeah, what we have here is an adaptation that not only perfects aspects of the franchise but also reshapes others and makes them even better, how often does that happen? Not very.
But hey it’s one thing to be a great adaptation, how does it stand as it’s own film? Well it’s still kind of a technical marvel. The costume work on the turtles themselves are outstanding, getting believable look suits to be this expressive and flexible when just walking and talking is impressive enough but the fight scenes could go down as some of the best in cinema history. Now it’s no Jackie Chan martial arts fight, but then again Jackie Chan didn’t have to wear a 60lbs body suit in every single scene, again one cannot underestimate how impressive it is that they got them this good. And all credit goes towards Jim Henson and his crew, because when you want impressive suit and puppet work you go to the master himself, and it just stands to reason how important his crew was because seeing as he didn’t work on any other live action turtles product, with every future instalment the suits would look worse and worse.
And like I said, the gritty viewpoint of the film with everything looking dirty, smoggy and dark goes great with the tone of the source material and shows the filmmakers really did understand the property and gives the film a unique style seeing as you don’t usually get kids’ movies looking this bleakly stylized outside of a Don Bluth film. And you know what makes all of this even more impressive? The fact that this was an independent movie. Yeah it’s kind of hard to believe that even during a time period where the Turtles were at their peak of popularity, Hollywood didn’t want to cash in on that so they made it independently. Not only is this again fitting considering the origins of the turtles, but it means this was truly a passion project and you can see where all of the effort was placed and they knew what the focus should be. It also means that you can be a little more forgiving of some of the technical issues, speaking of…
…Yeah this is why I say you shouldn’t expect films on this series to be cinematic marvels because if we’re being honest there are some very obvious production issues with this film. Mostly with the script, it is a very basic story and a lot of it doesn’t make sense. Shredder is recruiting kids in the city to steal random junk…because? In fact it makes even less sense considering Shredder has an army of ninjas at his beck and call, why not use them? Actually everything about the Shredder is kind of awful, from his look, to his plan, to how he was beaten. Also you can tell where they cut corners, some scenes seem poorly lit even considering the style, other times the cinematography looks cheap and the plot itself leaves much to be desired.
But like I said, the film knows where the focus should be and it’s on the turtles, like any good Ninja Turtles product. Also while the script has its flaws it doesn’t make it bad, especially in the dialogue, it’s charming, each character has a distinct voice even outside the turtles and that one joke from the cabbie makes me laugh every time.
Also the ranch scene is in my eyes still done brilliantly, an entire sequence where the movie just slows down and allows for a lot of character building and emotional pay-offs that you don’t really see enough of. Sure there are plenty of kids films that will slow down to have an emotional moment but it’s often too short to have an effect or it’s just not earned. This film earns the emotional payoff and is possibly the strongest moment in the film. And just as a final note the music itself is kinda great too. Partners in Kryme is a fun hip-hop song which helped form the musical identity between this genre and the Turtles franchise that would be continued (For better or worse) with Vanilla Ice, Juicy J, Wiz Khalifa, Ty Dolla Sign, Sebastian Evans II and Stanley Martinez. And the score by John Du Prez is has a nice upbeat tone that fits the usual style established from the cartoon but honestly the track 'All Fathers Care For Their Sons' is pretty beautiful and feels more like something out of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
So to sum it up, this film to me is a perfect adaptation of a franchise that at this point was yet to have a good product in it’s name and opened the doors for great adaptations in the future. From a technical aspect the effects are impressive, the script charming-if flawed-and with so much talent and passion behind it, how can I not considering it one of my favourite films?
-Danny
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