TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II: THE SECRET OF THE OOZE 1991
35%
Directed by Michael Pressman
Written by Todd W. Langen
Starring Paige Turco, David Warner, Ernie Reyes Jr., Vanilla Ice
Synopsis
Picking up sometime after the first film, the Turtles search for a new home and learn about their mysterious origins. Meanwhile, the wicked Shredder sets out to re-establish the Foot Clan and get his revenge.
Why We Love It
Sometimes, a heavy swig of nostalgia and Turtle Power can overpower traditional film criticism.
In the first live-action Ninja Turtles movie, director Steve Barron opted for grittiness and dark lighting for his heroes, drawing inspiration from the characters’ broody comic books. In the sequel, The Secret of the Ooze, director Michael Pressman goes brighter and far more comical, seemingly more inspired by the wildly popular nineties cartoon series. The Turtles are given broad lines to speak and dated vaudeville routines to perform, and under all the happy, bright lighting, it’s hard to ignore the rather dubious lip articulation on those dodgy masks.
The quest for a more child-friendly film also means the Turtles largely refrain from using their weapons. The filmmakers wanted to tone down the violence, so the nunchucks, sai, katanas, and bo staff become decorative pieces as the Turtles instead use kitchen supplies and pratfalls to attack their foes. Also, Vanilla Ice makes an important cameo to deliver “ninja rap” to a generation of unsuspecting kids. (We still know every word.)
To put it another way, it’s a little too Michelangelo. But deliberately so.
All of these changes indicate a very specific directive: make it fun. Many kids left the first film wondering why it wasn’t like the cartoon, and the studio was not going to repeat that mistake. In changing the tone, the film does make plenty of mistakes. Jokes rarely land for anyone out of middle school. Tokka and Rahzar, the film’s answer to cartoon baddies Bebop and Rocksteady, offer no menace, and even the showdown with a mutated “Super-Shredder” amounts to nothing.
And yet the film gets one thing very, very right—and it’s a big one for true fans of these characters: it perfectly captures the essence of the early-1990s TMNT craze. In attempting to honor the feel of the cartoon and maintain some of the darker tone from the first film and the original comic books, it somehow portions out the history of the Turtles in the midst of all the cheese. It’s fan service, par excellence.
The inexplicable “Ninja, Ninja, RAP!” has become for those fans the anthem of a simpler time before smartphones, mortgages, and an endless stream of TMNT reboots (which true fans, naturally, view with suspicion if not open hostility). Certainly a slight film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze is a VHS version of a faded photograph taken in a roller rink: a perfect distillation of one very goofy moment in time. And one you love to pull out of the shoebox every now and then.