starring : judith hoag ( april o'neil ) , elias koteas ( casey jones ) , a bunch of guys in turtle suits directed by : steve barron , written by : todd w . langen , based on a story by : kevin eastman , peter laird , and bobby herbeck rated pg by the mpaa for violence and mild language . well folks , last week i went to go check out the replacement killers . not a bad flick , thanks largely to chow yun-fat . however , when i saw it , i also saw the trailer for wild things with kevin bacon , neve campbell , and denise richards . i fell ill at this . i have never seen a more idiotic-looking film trailer in all my life . this is worse than batman & robin's trailer . this film looks like the total scum of the movie world . if it grosses dollar one in its opening weekend , i'll have to fear for humanity . naturally , this turned me off to going to the theater for a little bit , in fear of seeing it again ( cue cold chill running down my spine here ) . i'll go back for dark city , but right now it's just stay home , watch tv , yadda yadda . and lo and behold , what's this ? why it's 1990's teenage mutant ninja turtles film . and you know what ? i'm going to shock you all by saying this , but it's not a bad film at that . in fact , it's pretty fun . i remember seeing these turtle flicks before . this would be the good one . a nice , dark vision of new york ( quite the cool production design ) , and of course , four turtles and a rat . if you don't know the old story of the " green machine , " it goes like this - a glass jar with four baby turtles fell into the sewer and shattered , leaving them to crawl around in some radioactive ooze that was coming out of a nearby cannister that also fell down there . so , when a rat from japan ( whose owner had recently been killed after moving to america , leaving him to crawl through the sewer ) comes across the turtles and decides to take care of them , it gets some ooze on himself , too , and of course , they all grow and become intelligent . the rat teaches the turtles the martial arts and he saw his previous master practice so many times before , and gives them all names of renaissance artists : lenardo , raphael , michaelangelo , and donatello . oh , and the rat's named splinter . i don't know why . in the course of this movie , they also become friends with a judith hoag who plays the new reporter april o'neil , and with another avenger of justice , who happens to have a fetish for sports equipment , named casey jones . that's elias koteas . and of course , there happens to be this huge crime wave sweeping new york , crimes committed by the japanese foot clan , which is led by the mysterious man known as the shredder ( james saito , voiced by david mccharen ) . who's gonna stop this ? i'll give you three guesses , and the first two don't count . this whole thing sounds like a bad troma ( tm ) film , but it turns out to be pretty fun . the turtles all have discernable personalities , and they're fun ones at that . they tend to make a lot of jokes , and just about all of the wisecracks hit home . it's not just a bunch of now-old-news pop culture references , as i remember the third film being chock-full of . this is stuff that could actually still seem funny years from now . koteas makes a memorable role himself here , if not an entirely fulfilling one - he could've used more screen time . hoag is also good in her part , doing a fine job at portraying the disbelieving friend of the large reptiles . but the real stars here are the turtles , and rightfully so . the technical expertise on display in the turtles' ( and splinter's ) suits is still impressive now , eight years later . the facial expressions they get out of these animatronic outfits are amazing . to this day , the only thing to top this or come close would be the mangalores in the fifth element . this was all done thanks to jim henson's workshop of puppeteers . henson died two months after this film was released . though his family and many others still work to make his legacy live on , this movie is just another reason why he will be missed . another great thing about this show ? it's so damn loyal its roots . the original ( four ? ) issues of eastman and laird's dark teenage mutant ninja turtles comic book are replicated pretty faithfully by the movie's plot - now there's something you don't see very often in comic films today . this sure kicks the pants off of a comic-based movie like batman & robin . sure , the blood is gone , and there's more humor - and the turtles wear different colored masks - but otherwise , this follows that original series nicely down to the big finish . so go on , don't be afraid , i don't care how old you are - if you have the time , check out teenage mutant ninja turtles . you might want to avoid the sequels unless you really love the turtles . incidentally , what was with tatsu's ( toshirô obata , voiced by michael mcconnohie ) funky hand signals when he said " go , play " to that one kid in the warehouse ? that just killed me . unintentional comedy there , i'd say . if you can never watch any film with such a premise , refuse to accept it , or just hate these turtles , then you can drop my rating down about 1/2 a star or maybe a full star . if you're a huge turtle fan ( i don't think there's any of those left . . . hello ? hello out there ? ) then you can add on another 1/2 star . but if you're like me , and you're in the mood for a weird , fun time . . . 
