That the 1990 live-action movie version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was such a big hit in its day still blows my mind a little, even though I actually contributed to that success by going to see it in the theater. I was 15 at the time and, to be honest about it, felt a little embarrassed buying the ticket for a kids’ movie based on a cartoon* I was probably also too old to watch on TV (but definitely did anyway). Yet when I went back to school the following Monday, I found that most of my friends had seen it as well. This movie turned out to be inexplicably huge.

*Please don’t quibble about the cartoon being based on an indie comic book first. The movie would never have existed if not for the popularity of the TV show.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had an unexpectedly lucrative opening weekend, falling only behind the record set by Batman for three-day domestic gross in the United States, and ultimately broke into the box office Top 10 for 1990. In a year filled with plenty of other notable blockbusters, Ninja Turtles made more money than preordained smashes including The Hunt for Red October, Dick Tracy, or Days of Thunder – and went on to be very popular on home video as well. How radical is that? Turtle power!

Title:	Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Year of Release:	1990
Director:	Steve Barron
Watched On:	Max
Also Available On:	Blu-ray Paramount+ Various VOD rental and purchase platforms

Looking back on it, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a damn weird movie to be such a hit. It was a very low-budget production from a Chinese studio (Golden Harvest) known primarily for making campy schlock, had no significant stars, and most of its main characters were played by actors in bulky costumes with animatronic heads. Following the disasters of both Howard the Duck and The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, the idea that anyone would even attempt such a thing again, much less pull it off, seemed absurd.

That’s to say nothing of the inherently goofy nature of the story about a quartet of baby turtles that, after being exposed to toxic sludge, grow up to be walking and talking, ninja crime-fighters who live in the sewer, speak in surfer dude slang, and have an insatiable hunger for pizza. Named after famous Renaissance artists and trained by a similarly-mutated rat sensei, these heroes in a half-shell team up with human news reporter babe April O’Neil (Judith Hoag) and hockey-themed vigilante Casey Jones (Elias Koteas) to stop a crime wave perpetrated by the mysterious Foot Clan, led by the evil Shredder (actor James Saito in the costume and David McCharen doing the voice). Stuff like this may work in a cartoon, but seems entirely too wacky to take seriously in live-action.

Directed by prolific music video vet Steve Barron (Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” A-Ha’s “Take on Me,” among countless others), Ninja Turtles has weird tonal issues. Its PG rating notwithstanding, the movie has an awful lot of unnecessary profanity for a kid’s flick, and is photographed in a dark and grimy visual aesthetic that plays up the filth and seediness of 1980s-era New York City. While that type of look worked for Batman (and later movies like The Crow), it clashes with the cartoonish silliness of talking turtles who practice kung-fu and fight other ninjas. Stilted pacing also frequently makes the film feel longer than its brief 93-minute length.

All things considered, this movie really should have been insufferable. That it’s somehow not can be attributed to two things: 1) the strength and appeal of the source material, which provides instantly likeable, smart-assed heroes that both young kids and real teenagers find appealing, and 2) animatronic faces from the Jim Henson Creature Workshop that miraculously work.

The turtle costumes in the movie never look realistic, per se. They’re clearly rubber and latex, and the facial appliances have an obvious seam around the neck where the hood portions drape down over the actors’ heads. However, their bulk never restricts or prohibits agility during the fight scenes, and the faces have enough expressiveness and personality to allow viewers to suspend disbelief for them. That’s a huge hurdle the film successfully clears. If the faces had failed, so would the whole picture.

In addition to Koteas, a character actor who’d become a little better known later in his career for his role in The Thin Red Line, a young Sam Rockwell has a bit part as a nameless character credited as “Head Thug.” At the time, the only remotely marketable name in the cast was Corey Feldman, who does the voice of the turtle Donatello but whose real face is never seen on camera.

After a pair of less successful sequels to this project, the Ninja Turtles franchise segued back to animation for a while, then to a pair of much bigger-budget live-action reboot movies produced by Michael Bay, then back to animation again. Now more than three decades on, the property continues to thrive in the pop culture consciousness with periodic revivals.

In frankness, the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is not a great movie in objective terms. I wouldn’t even say it’s the best Ninja Turtles movie. A lot of it is very clunky and the whole thing looks and feels hokey as all get-out. I tried watching it with my kids, but they couldn’t get into it at all. (I would have introduced them to the original 1980s cartoon first, if it were currently streaming anywhere.)

Nevertheless, even as a jaded, middle-aged critic, I still find the movie agreeably amusing and entertaining. Watching it again so many years later takes me right back to a moment in my youth where my love of film had just started to blossom, but I hadn’t yet grown too cynical to appreciate a little kooky kid-centric humor.

Video Streaming

I don’t own the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on any physical media and had to stream the film from Max (I still want to call it HBO Max, dammit!) for this viewing. Warner Bros. released it on Blu-ray in 2009, followed by a few reissues and repackagings of the same disc later on. I can’t make any comparisons to those. On its own, the streaming version is clearly derived from an old video master, likely something prepared for cable broadcast and DVD more than two decades ago. Looking at some reviews from the time of release, the Blu-ray sounds to have come from the same source.

The 16:9 image (slightly opened up from the original 1.85:1) is very grainy and noisy, with obvious signs of electronic sharpening throughout. The contrast has been pushed, resulting in crushed blacks and clipped highlights, often at the same time in the same frame. Bright parts of the picture generally look too bright. I’d say the colors also look exaggerated, but I’m not sure that’s a complaint for a movie based on a cartoon.

The movie’s photography is often hazy, in a decidedly 1980s style. Despite this, and despite the effects of edge enhancement marring fine details, the high-def transfer is sharp enough to appreciate the textures of the turtle costumes but also expose some of their seams. That’s both a blessing and a curse. In any case, the movie is watchable enough for streaming, but could definitely use a remaster.

The film would have played theatrically in Dolby Stereo back in 1990. The soundtrack was later remixed to 5.1 for DVD in the late 1990s, and that’s been retained on all subsequent copies. The mix has a lot of satisfying surround action and decent dynamic range, but dialogue sync between the character mouths and the audio is sometimes erratic (and not just from the animatronic turtle faces). Whether that’s a streaming issue or just a lot of sloppy ADR work during the production, I can’t say.

Update

After publishing this review, I found that Paramount+ has also begun streaming the movie with what appears to be a different video transfer mildly letterboxed to 1.85:1. If that had been available at the time I watched, I would have tried that instead. I’ll give it a look when I have some free time.

Update 2

Indeed, I checked out a little bit of the movie on Paramount+ and it looks decidedly better than Max. Although still not quite perfect, the Paramount+ copy has no noticeable edge enhancement and less harsh contrast. I wish I’d known and could have watched this one instead.

Update 3

Watching a little more of it, I don’t entirely love the Paramount+ transfer either. It seems to have a fair amount of DNR to clear away grain, resulting in mushy textures. Regardless, on balance it still looks better than the copy on Max.

Related

• Ninja Turtles
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)
  • TMNT (2007)
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)
• Corey Feldman
  • Stand By Me (1986)