Details
Title: Release Date: Pros: Cons:	Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles March 30, 1990 Successfully combines elements from the comics and cartoon that can be enjoyed by all fans, Turtles' costume designs are amazing A largely serious tone for those expecting something like the original 80s' cartoon, odd choices on character focus

Review

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was all the craze going in to the 90s. What initially started off in 1984 as a comic book targeted to an older audience exploded into a massive franchise. At the time there were toys, a cartoon series that aired from 1987, before the Turtles finally made their appearance on the big screen in 1990.
The film is about the origins of the turtles, their master Splinter, and their first steps in directly engaging with humans. Along the way, they encounter and befriend their first human friend, April O'Neil, and enter conflict with the Shredder and his Foot Clan.

The movie combines elements from both the original comic and the 80s' cartoon series, with the story based on the comics, while the Turtles' coloured bandanas, personalities and love for pizza among other things are taken from the cartoon series. This merging of different media helped create a film that appealed to a wide audience, with fans both young and old able to enjoy the movie - my much younger self included when I saw it for the first time in cinemas.
The film focuses on the theme of family, with both the Foot Clan and Turtles highlighting it in different ways. Whereas the Shredder uses the notion of family as a tool to draw in troubled teenagers to build up his army of ninjas, Splinter shows genuine care and fatherhood towards the turtles by imparting advice and wisdom, though with the Turtles being teenagers, they don't take it seriously at first. There is one example of a touching interaction between Splinter and Raphael early in the film. In addition while there are the staple characters of the Turtles, Splinter, April, Casey and the Shredder, there are some characters exclusive to this film, including Shredder's no-nonsense second in command, Tatsu, and the teenager Danny, an acquaintance of April. What is especially interesting about Danny, is that we also see the story from his perspective, where he starts with a bad relationship with his father, and gravitating towards the Shredder and his ideals of family. He starts to have second thoughts once he realises his actions have consequences, and is finally introduced to a different perspective on family by Splinter.
One criticism I have of the story is the arc between Raphael and Casey Jones - or rather, the unresolved arc between them. Nothing really developed beyond their initial fight, and later on, it seems that Donatello and Casey develop a friendship for unexplained reasons, when it really should have been Raphael and Casey due to their very similar personalities. Following on from that, a good portion of the movie focused more on Rapahel compared to the other turtles. Though the rest of the turtles do get adequate screen time in the later half of the film, it had a heavy focus on Raphael from the very beginning right up until the fight at April's apartment - and Raphael is my favorite out of the Turtles. I think it would have made more sense for the focus to be on Leonardo due to him being the leader of the group.

This film drew on the stories of the original comics, and it wouldn't be until the 2000s when the franchise would come back to this particular story arc with the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series and later iterations of the Turtles. Before this film, most kids probably only knew of the cartoon series that took a more lighthearted approach to the adventures of the Turtles and their battle against the Shredder. While the Shredder and his Foot Soldiers were shown as being mostly fodder for the Turtles to beat up in the cartoon, this movie showed that the Shredder and the Foot Ninjas are a credible threat, especially when using their greater numbers to overwhelm the Turtles.

One more thing that I also want to talk about is the costume designs for the Turtles. Understand that this movie was released going in to the 90s, long before CG was commonplace. Unlike the cartoons, their colours are dull and dark to best fit with the setting of the movie, and I think it helped that you very rarely see the Turtles out and about in broad daylight, and even when they are, their presence is not out of the ordinary. Not to mention that despite being bulky costumes, their speech, movements and facial reactions are very natural.
That's not to say that the other characters designs aren't good either, particularly the Shredder. While his 80s' cartoon had him come across as rather goofy at times, the colors for this iteration of Shredder is based on his comic appearance. However, the silhouette and his iconic mask and bladed armor is recognizable to any turtles fan, regardless of what media you follow.
If they ever go back to making another live action Turtles movie, I would love to see them go back to this style of using actors in costumes, over the really bizarre CG designs we got with the Michael Bay films.

While it does have flaws, I think this is still a good Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. But for those that grew up on the cartoons expecting more of the same will be in for a bit of a shock. Though the violence is not gruesome, it can come across as a surprise for those expecting the silliness of the 80s' TMNT cartoon. As I said earlier, the movie was able to combine elements from both the original comic and the 80s TV series very well, and while there are some elements of the cartoon here for fans to enjoy, it is primarily taking from the comic book source material. On the other hand, fans of the original comic may be left scratching their heads on some changes in the story and the focus on Raphael.
At the time, reactions from angry parents to this movie led to two sequels that were more family friendly and slapstick, with mixed reactions from fans. In comparison, the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie still holds up. Even if you have never watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in its (many) other iterations, I think this is a good entry point into the franchise if you are looking for something not so cartoonish.

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