Retro Nerd Girl Movie Reviews: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze Movie Review

From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.

Today I'll be reviewing the movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze released in 1991.

Starring:
Paige Turco, David Warner, Michelan Sisti

Directed by:
Michael Pressman

Genre:
Action, Adventure, Comedy

Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Rating:
PG

Budget:
$25,000,000 (estimated)

Current IMDb Rating When Reviewed:
6.0

The Synopsis is:
Teenage mutant ninja turtles, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello, and Raphael discover the secret of the ooze that created them.

I am actually doing this one as a special request to one of my very first subscribers. Josh this one is for you!

Story:
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles first began as a black and white comic book created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird 1984. In 1986, Dark Horse Miniatures produced a set of lead figurines. Playmates Toys produced action-figures in 1987 and greatly contributed many of the popular catch phrases to the miniseries that launched the toys.

The show was then picked up by CBS and the rest was franchise history as it went on to play for 10 seasons until 1996 and populate a flurry of entertainment up until even today.

The TV series had to change a few things to make it more kid friendly and fun, since the original comics were actually a lot more mature and darker.

In 1990, a live-action feature film was released as an independent film and ignited the imagination of children, specifically young boys. It did quite well in the box office and encouraged a flurry of toy sales.

The powers that be, thought that there should be a rush to capitalize off the success of the first movie before it’s core audience got too bored of the franchise. Within a year of the first film, we got this movie, it’s sequel… possibly too prematurely, not allowing their core audience a chance to desire something new.

Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird was hoping to have more leverage on the second go round so that the film would resemble the original comics they wrote more than the TV show.

However, the studio and the director, Michael Pressman sought to make the film more like the cartoon show which makes more sense from a marketing and branding point of view. The fans of the show were the kids that watched the TV show, and I think in that respect, this screenplay by Todd W. Langen was written more in line with it than even the first film.

Of the three movies from the 1990’s, this film has the most slapstick, puns, gags and jokes, that pretty much come at you at a rapid fire, referencing a lot of movies and pop culture of the time.

When the turtles are heading to the sewer to find a new home. Michelangelo says a few lines from Casablanca (1942).

Professor Perry’s glass of mutagen antidote has a picture of Bart Simpson from The Simpsons TV show released in 1989. This links the two shows since both of them commandeer the word "Cowabunga", as a catchphrase.

The Karate Kid released in 1984, was adorably parodied, "Wax on, Wax off."

Other cute references came from, The Court Jester (1955), Rawhide (1959) (TV Series), Ghostbusters (1984), WrestleMania (1985), Dot and Keeto (1986), The Oprah Winfrey Show (1986) (TV Series), RoboCop (1987), and Wall Street (1987).

We also have a few callbacks from the first movie.
April’s apartment is visited by someone unexpected while the turtles hide.

Raphael is outnumbered and overtaken in a fight.

The turtles band together to rescue someone who is captured from their family.

Splinter says cowabunga after saving the turtles.

Pacing:
At and hour and 28 minutes, that's usually just about how much time your really need for an action adventure film. I usually never say this, but it could have been longer and I’d be ok with it and I’ll explain why when I get to the ending portion of the review.

Challenge:
The challenge in the film is the mysterious band of Foot soldiers and their leader Shredder. In the last movie, the Foot were disbanded and many put in jail.

Shredder is reborn from the garbage piles at a dump and returns to the remaining gathered Foot clan being organized by Tetsu, his right hand man.

And this is where we get a clear motive for Shredder’s actions as he now wants revenge for what the turtles had done to him, which was more concrete than his motives in the first film.

He gets the idea to pit mutant against mutant creating the monsters, Tokka from a snapping turtle and Rahzar from a wolf.

There is a theme of birth and rebirth in relation to Shredder because he creates these monsters that they have bonded with as their “Mother”. As well Shredder experiences a rebirth twice as he reaches his hand out of rubble emerging different from the way he was before. This all sets you up for the ending when you think he’s going to do it for one last time… but the film surprises you because he doesn’t quite make it.

Empathy:
The heroes of the film the teenage mutant ninja turtles (often shortened to TMNT or Ninja Turtles) are named after Renaissance Italian artists and color coded so you can tell them apart.

In case you know nothing about the the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, here’s the rundown.

Leonardo (Leo) named after Leonardo da Vinci is the leader, wears a blue mask and wields two katana. He is the most responsible and quiet.

Raphael (Raph) wears a red mask and wields a pair of sai. He is the one with the teenage angst and always argues with Leo about his decisions as a leader. But the thing to remember is that he is quite inquisitive being the one to always seek answers.

Michelangelo (Mikey) wears an orange mask and wields a pair of nun-chucks. He is the consummate jokester of the group with a very surfer dude, Bill and Ted sound.

Donatello (Donnie or Don) wears a purple mask and wields a bo staff. He is the tinkerer, making cool gadgets and usually coming up with good ideas for solving problems. The film focus in on him a little more than other iterations and the ooze seems to spark a little disappointment in him because he wanted their mutations to mean something special.

Splinter is a Japanese mutant rat that learned the ways of ninjutsu from his owner and master, Hamato Yoshi and made his way to New York City. The same ooze transformed him into humanoid mutant and he became the turtle’s sensei and adoptive father.

It is through their relationship with Splinter that the film has the most heart and humanity as he guides them along the way with words of wisdom often told in what sounds like riddles. He has an almost Yoda, way of speaking. Can you imagine a conversation between those two characters?

Typically they live in the sewers of New York City, but the after the adventure of the last film, they sought refuge at news reporter and friend, April O'Neil's new apartment. Her old apartment was destroyed in the last movie, as well as the turtle’s home in the sewer.

April O’Neil doesn’t play a big part in this movie except to interview Professor Jordon Perry who is trying to contain the secret of the ooze from the public. The Professor is a good guy caught between trying to do the right thing for the environment and staying alive after he is captured by Shredder and forced to create Tokka and Rahzar under protest.

Technical:
I think the piece that makes Secret of the Ooze conversation worthy is how completely different in tone the film is from the first movie. One big difference was that in spite of its success, parents who took their kids to see the first movie complained that was too violent. Hoping to double its 135 million dollar gross earnings, the producers wanted the film to be more family friendly.

They removed the character of Casey Jones, the voice of Corey Feldman for his public image, and demanded that the Turtles not use their signature weapons, especially the sharp edged ones.

It's kind of odd because, these were the same weapons prominently featured in every cartoon episode that children were seeing every week.

The film made a little more than half of the gross earnings on this film than the first one so the producers saw the error of their ways and brought back the weapons triple fold, Casey Jones and the voice of Corey Feldman for the third film.

I thought that the film still had exciting moments considering that limitation. The fight scenes were pretty cool. I love the body language of the actors in the turtle suits. They were great and helped to bring those characters to life.

The special effects were by Jim Henson’s company, and film was dedicated to his memory because this was one of the films completed after his death.

The four turtles were full body suits and a head with expressions controlled by remote control operators. Of all the movies, this film had the very best of the most realistic smooth facial movements and design.

There were a few areas where you could see the seams and imperfections, but they seemed to be the least of all three of the films in the 1990’s.

Splinter’s puppet design and facial expressions where amazing! I was very impressed with the work on his character and how the puppeteers could get so much visual drama from him in a very elegant way to tell the story. Again, the best of the three movies.

Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird were able to pull rank as they refused the usage of Shredder’s beastly henchmen, Bebop and Rocksteady to appear for reasons unknown, and instead the writers created Tokka and Rahzar as substitutions to demonstrate the power of the ooze.

The switch seems to be a very sensitive topic for many of the fans of the show and comics. But I thought Tokka and Rahzar were fine.

The designs seemed to be mostly concentrated on making the characters obviously cartoonish, probably as to not actually scare any of the kids watching.

Rahzar in particular seemed odd because his mouth was always open and had peculiar lip movements to indicate he was speaking. It was a little goofy and although it was not realistic, I thought it all fit the tone of the film.

The whole film is very much staged for very young children, featuring bold bright, punched up colors, and cartoon fashioned establishing shots.

There were some great shots featuring slow moving dolly work, and zooms that I really enjoyed. I loved, loved, loved the movement of the camera in this film.

The sets were pretty good, I was really impressed with the abandoned subway station that the turtles chose for their new home. It is a set based on the decommissioned "City Hall" Station of the former Interborough Rapid Transit company in New York City. They couldn’t film there because the track is still active.

There was a decision to invest heavily in the film's soundtrack after the first film’s soundtrack featuring T-U-R-T-L-E Power! by Partners in Kryme and This Is What We Do by M.C. Hammer.

This time around, they added more songs by the popular artists of the year like Cathy Dennis, David Morales, Fifth Platoon and Dan Hartman.

Vanilla Ice was hired to actually perform in one of the scenes in the movie and co write along with Earthquake, and Todd W. Langen, the ultra catch song, Ninja Rap with the simplest hook. “Go ninja, go ninja, go.” It was indeed a hit with the kids and it fit the film well.

Performances:
The performances were all pretty good. Judith Hoag did not reprise her role as April O’neil and Paige Turco took over the role and does it well.

Also of note is Ernie Reyes Jr. playing Keno, the teen pizza boy that discover that the turtles live with April. Ernie was Donatello's fight double in the first film and the producers felt he should be in front of the camera as sort of a kiddie friendly replacement for Casey Jones.

Michael Jai White makes an un-credited appearance in the film as a Foot Clan recruit.

Best:
I really loved all of the goofing around in the film and all the fun the turtles are having. I found myself smiling through the whole film.

I enjoyed the pre-fight doughnut moment. It’s so silly, lighthearted and captures the levity of the film.

I really loved the connection between Splinter and the boys. They really listen to him as he doles out some great dialogue.

My favorite is Splinter’s discipline technique of making the turtles do flips. I loved that.

At the end Shredder takes a small vial of mutagen turning him into the Super Shredder. What a cool moment.

The Ending:
The ending was greatly disappointing to me and that is a shared sentiment among viewers. I was really hoping for an incredible showdown between Shredder and the turtles or even Splinter. It just wrapped up really quickly and it could have used a minute or two of actual fighting to make that scene a little more satisfying.

I was also sure that the docks that fell in on Shredder was directly underneath the dance club and then there was no indication of that at the end.

I did enjoy the two fake outs like the one where the turtles shells are floating in the water and then seeing them emerge a few moments later. Then there is also Shredders hand reaching out from the rubble, but then they announced that he’s finally gone.

Wish List:
I wish we did actually learn the secret of the ooze, because Donatello displays the same disappointment we all have, as Professor Jordon Perry explains the accidental ooze. He had hoped there was more to it and the film leaves it ambiguous for a possible future story to link it to the Utroms, that was part of the original black and white comics or even Krang from the 1987 TV series.

In the original comic story, the Utroms had a front company called TCRI (Techno Cosmic Research Institute) and the professor works for TGRI (Techno-Global Research Industries). So this could have been a hint to that story line that could have lead to something big in the third film, however… it didn’t.

I loved Splinter so much that I really would have loved to have in more scenes in the film. I understand that he was portrayed by a puppet, but it would have been cool to see him do more.

I wish that the Super Shredder was brought in a little earlier. He was a great twist on the character and I really wanted to see more of him in action.

I also wish that there was more attention payed to continuity in the film.

Shredder shows off a canister and a vile of ooze at the end, but the professor clearly states that he has the last canister, just before being kidnapped and using it to create Tokka and Razhar.

There are so many little things like that, but that was the biggest one.

In the last movie, the Shredder was crushed to death in a garbage compacting truck. So how is he still alive?

We know that the turtles can’t use their weapons, but they still wear them and the movie never explains why they don’t use them, when clearly, using them could be useful in situations like when they are captured in a net. They could have interwoven it into the story and have Master Splinter take away their weapons to teach them how to depend on their skills.

How does Tokka and Rahzar know that the pelet inside the donut he was given was a drug?

Shredder asks Tatsu, “Are these the two most vicious animals you can find?” I was thinking more like a panther, a bear, or a gorilla… something like that. Also, if the snapping turtle was just a baby, wouldn’t it be about the same height as Don, Leo, Ralph, and Mikey? And the fox, would, it be gray and white and not brown?

Sorry… that was just a few details that perplexed me.

Enjoyment:
I might disappoint a lot of people, but I have to say that I have yet to see a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie that I didn’t like or enjoy, even the third in this series that has been universally panned by the critics. I like them all and it’s definitely not nostalgia goggles because, I actually only watched them all recently, except for the first movie and the TV series. I saw those when they came out and loved them back then.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are a great creative and fun concept, so I know that the content is going to be light and fun as well as possibly unbelievable.

In the effort to make a more family friendly film, surprisingly, the most charming part of the film is the important message about the value of family.

Whatever the flaws, it was not enough for me to not have fun with it. If you’re looking for something more grown up, serious and gritty, this is not for you. But it’s a great movie for the kids and those who are kids at heart!