Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 31, 1990 TAG: 9003310443
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
This oddity of a movie comes on the heels of the popular cartoon series, comic books and other items of Ninja Turtle marketing. And if nothing else, it clearly represents a pop cultural division between parents and non-parents. If you have a 3-year-old who says "Cowabunga, dudes" you have an inkling of where it was learned. Non-parents will probably remain blissfully ignorant of this phenomenon that elevates the eating of pizza and the cultivation of teen slang to the heroic level of bad-guy bashing.
I entered the movie with two second-graders and one preschooler in tow, figuring it to be targeted at the Saturday-morning cartoon audience despite its PG rating. After all, "E.T." was also rated PG.
My oldest child has seen stronger stuff but I don't know when I've been caught quite as off-guard. The violence is relentless in this movie that gropes for both an identity and a tone. Director Steve Barron and his screen writers have concocted a muddled mixture of martial arts, Spielberg-Lucas knock-offs, the Three Musketeers, Dickens, Robin Hood and even Pinocchio.
It's all tied together by some ersatz mysticism and sentimental homilies that are obviously included to serve as some kind of rationalization for all of the wounded bodies that litter the screen. Add to that brand-name dropping throughout this extended commercial to rival "Back to the Future II."
The idea of four turtles who act like teen-agers and vanquish bad guys through the skills of the Japanese shadow warriors has an engaging satirical goofiness about it. If only the movie exploited the satirical angle as much as the action angle.
The story begins with a city in the grip of a crime wave. It seems that a Japanese warrior who sounds like Darth Vader and has the employment skills of a Fagin is building an army of young thieves who have been alienated from their families.
The four turtles - named Raphael, Donatello, Michaelangelo and Leonardo for practitioners of the fine arts rather than the martial arts - live in the city's sewers. Their sensei is an old rat who looks like a breeding ground for bubonic plague. All four creatures were exposed to radioactive material and have achieved human size and characteristics from the exposure.
They set out to stop the crime wave and in the process encounter a pretty TV news reporter (Judith Hoag) and another vigilante - a benched hockey player (Elias Koteas) who has apparently been in one brawl too many for his brain to function properly.
So engrossed is the movie in its slugfests that it fails to find any personalities beneath the rubber suits of the turtles created by Jim Henson's outfit. There are a few moments of humor but none of the charm of the Muppet movies.
However, I was a minority of one in my movie-going congregation. The second-graders pronounced it `'awesome" and the 3-year-old kicked and slugged away at his older brother until he managed to fall down and bump his head so hard that it threw him into a crying fit in a mall bookstore. `Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' A New Line Cinema release at Valley View Mall 6 (362-8219) and the Towers Theatre (345-5519). An hour and 40 minutes long. Rated PG for violence and language you wouldn't want your youngsters using.
by CNB