The second Live Action Ninja Turtles movie was released in 1991 after success of the first TMNT movie.
After the awesome dark atmosphere and serious themes present in the first movie, I watched the second in hopes that some of these themes would be carried through. Unfortunately, this movie is more like a live action adaption of the cartoon – as opposed to the original comic stylings.
Even the look of the film, which in the original was dark and gritty at some points became a well lit and colorful movie which made it so much more cartoon like to the eye than the first. The characters were more clumsy both in movement and in character and it just doesn’t measure up to the first film.
The story itself has the potential for deep themes as the first did. In the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the four turtles had to deal with the loss of a father figure and uncertain future, and this displayed very seriously. In this, the second film, the idea was more about identity, as the turtles were faced with some extra information regarding their original mutation and brings to question the reason they are alive – and questioning their very existence.
This serious theme was skipped right over almost entirely to bring about the dopey ‘Cowabunga!’ style jokiness of the Ninja Turtles.
It would seem that the powers that be wanted more of a children’s film than the first, since children were the target audience with rapidly growing success of the cartoon. While this sounds like a great idea – knowingly dumbing the film down somewhat to make more money – they spent twice as much making this film as the first and walked away making less money! So I’d say the direction and movement of this film was a bit of a miss after the first hit.
The return of the Shredder
The Shredder, who seemingly survived being crushed in a trash compactor, has returned several inches shorter than the first film with a helmet much bigger than his previous. The new ridiculous looking shredder takes control of the foot, confident that his badass methods (as seen in the first film slapping around splinter and just being freakin’ cool), he invests time into his next plan to create a Bebop and Rocksteady style pair of mutants called Tokka and Rahzar.
Tokka and Rahzar emerge as huge but extremely infant minded mutants calling shredder ‘mommy’ to further humiliate his legacy.
After several fails at trying to be any kind of threat against the turtles, he winds up becoming the Super Shredder, by taking the left over ooze and mutating not just himself, but his armor growing more spikes and larger helmet than before – apparently ooze can also print a six pack and pecs onto his shirt!
Unfortunately the new Super Shredder mustn’t have enough blood to circulate through his huge body and armour to make it to his brain as he ends up collapsing a building on top of himself without being any kind of threat to the turtles – what a crappy way to end what started out as such a friggin’ awesome character.
It’s not all bad though!
Hey, it’s the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! You don’t watch this movie expecting serious character development and deep issues – although the first film did a good job with the balance. If you can get past the almost unbearable 90’s ‘duuude’ and ‘cowabunga’ language you can find some fun in this movie.
There’s some fun moments and even a few nice cameos in the film. You’ll notice Vanilla Ice at the end of the film, and the character of Keno was cool also. Keno was created for Ernie Reyes Jr (you may recognize him as the rebel fighting Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson in the Rundown), who was the man under the Donatello suit in the first movie (for fight scenes).
Keno knows martial arts and proves to be one of the most entertaining fighters in the movie, pulling off some pretty cool moves and stunts.
The Action & Martial Arts
Lots of cool kicks are thrown, but lots of physical humor mixes up with some pretty childish fighting (as I said – it was made for kids).
Considering it’s target audience the effort wasn’t too bad. How those guys manage to fight in those costumes is beyond me! There’s a notable difference in weapon work in this film, I don’t think Leonardo even uses his swords in this movie, and ends up with two clubs in one scene – despite the fact he has perfectly good swords at his shell.
If you’re watching this movie for martial arts merit, don’t bother. The movie is passable, the action is very average and is really a movie made for the TMNT fan or children, it’s definitely not climbing my list!
On Blu Ray –
Region FREE (plays anywhere)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trilogy[Blu-ray]
On DVD –
Region 1 (US & Canada)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4 film DVD Collection
Region 2 (UK, Europe, etc)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 – The Secret Of The Ooze [DVD]
Region 4 (Australia, New Zealand, etc)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2
More info on Movie Regions here.
