Cowabunga!
Over the weekend Carlye and i decided to have a couple of lazy days and so found ourselves on the couch staring at the TV. Carlye said, "i kind of want to watch a movie. pick something out."
i selected the 1990 blockbuster, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. and you know what, dear readers? it was really good!
there is the inevitable wave of nostalgia that comes when you watch a movie that you practically had memorized as a kid. you're bound to have some moments where you remember inside jokes you and your friends had in reference to that film. but it had been 20 years since it came out so we started judging the film based on its own merits and it held up surprisingly well!
first, you have to make allowances for the fact that it's a story about six foot tall talking turtles who are led by a giant rat. admittedly, if you weren't a fan of the series or the comic books then this will be a hard pill to swallow. but once you accept that the rest of the film moves along with a completely straight face and presents itself really really well. the puppetry was amazing, the choreography of the fights was flawless (not bad, considering the stars couldn't actually see anything and were wearing heavy rubber suits), the costuming of the normal people was all very well done, the writing was solid and the only thing that stood out as being slightly unbelievable was the fact that April O'Neil's family had land stashed all over the place, from an antique store with loft housing to acres of farm land upstate, all while she's a low paid night reporter for a tiny TV station.
Shredder's organization surprised us. he has teens out on the street stealing purses, TVs, stereos and what have you and if they bring in a certain amount each week they get to play in this "lost boys" kind of playground with unlimited soda, skate parks, video games, card games, free cigarettes, seriously, what has D.A.R.E. got to offer these kids? if the hoods want they can avail themselves to the free kung-fu training program and if they do well enough at that then they can advance in the ranks of the Foot Clan and learn ninjitsu and become a paid soldier in Shredder's army. this is entirely plausible! it works! it's better thought out than anything in The Warriors and certainly made more sense than the cartoon adventures of the Turtles saying that Foot soldiers were all robots.
Shredder himself ascended above the "i'm mean and bad 'cause i am" kind of villain and had a sort of Darth Vader thing going on, a man with a plan and the patience to execute it. there were several points where it could have been hammy and stupid and they could have said, 'well, it's a kids movie' and just phoned it in. no one did. watching it was really a wonderful way to spend an afternoon
but no matter how many times i see the movie i will never get over the fact that the puppeteer and voice of Splinter the rat was Kevin Clash. imagine a character who encompasses Mr. Miagi from Karate Kid and Yoda from Star Wars and you have Splinter. a low, smokey, raspy voice with the gravitas to impart much wisdom and knowledge. now realize that the same guy voicing this character also voices Elmo.
right!
i selected the 1990 blockbuster, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. and you know what, dear readers? it was really good!
there is the inevitable wave of nostalgia that comes when you watch a movie that you practically had memorized as a kid. you're bound to have some moments where you remember inside jokes you and your friends had in reference to that film. but it had been 20 years since it came out so we started judging the film based on its own merits and it held up surprisingly well!
first, you have to make allowances for the fact that it's a story about six foot tall talking turtles who are led by a giant rat. admittedly, if you weren't a fan of the series or the comic books then this will be a hard pill to swallow. but once you accept that the rest of the film moves along with a completely straight face and presents itself really really well. the puppetry was amazing, the choreography of the fights was flawless (not bad, considering the stars couldn't actually see anything and were wearing heavy rubber suits), the costuming of the normal people was all very well done, the writing was solid and the only thing that stood out as being slightly unbelievable was the fact that April O'Neil's family had land stashed all over the place, from an antique store with loft housing to acres of farm land upstate, all while she's a low paid night reporter for a tiny TV station.
Shredder's organization surprised us. he has teens out on the street stealing purses, TVs, stereos and what have you and if they bring in a certain amount each week they get to play in this "lost boys" kind of playground with unlimited soda, skate parks, video games, card games, free cigarettes, seriously, what has D.A.R.E. got to offer these kids? if the hoods want they can avail themselves to the free kung-fu training program and if they do well enough at that then they can advance in the ranks of the Foot Clan and learn ninjitsu and become a paid soldier in Shredder's army. this is entirely plausible! it works! it's better thought out than anything in The Warriors and certainly made more sense than the cartoon adventures of the Turtles saying that Foot soldiers were all robots.
Shredder himself ascended above the "i'm mean and bad 'cause i am" kind of villain and had a sort of Darth Vader thing going on, a man with a plan and the patience to execute it. there were several points where it could have been hammy and stupid and they could have said, 'well, it's a kids movie' and just phoned it in. no one did. watching it was really a wonderful way to spend an afternoon
but no matter how many times i see the movie i will never get over the fact that the puppeteer and voice of Splinter the rat was Kevin Clash. imagine a character who encompasses Mr. Miagi from Karate Kid and Yoda from Star Wars and you have Splinter. a low, smokey, raspy voice with the gravitas to impart much wisdom and knowledge. now realize that the same guy voicing this character also voices Elmo.
right!