Review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Double Feature (2 Discs)

Introduction

Review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze.

The very young will not be aware of the phenomenon of the Ninja Turtles. A truly `awesome` marketing campaign saw parents frantically besieging ToysRUs in the vain hope of securing one of the little green scaly things. The cartoons retain their charm but the movies that sought to cash in on the craze hit an all time low with this particular instalment. This leads to the question of why this has been transferred to DVD and not straight to oblivion.

The plot appears to consist of the turtles eating a lot of pizza jumping around a bit like small children and fighting other people who have masks over their faces. Why do the turtles have masks? They don`t look like people; at least not like any I`ve ever met…also, regarding the comic book violence, nobody gets hurt in this film. There is a lot of bouncing off walls but no significant bruising. Again to suit the certificate we are offered violence with no consequences just like " Home Alone " but without as many laughs.
Back to the plot. A local chemical company has started to dig up and properly dispose of its toxic waste. The waste turns out to be the `ooze` that caused the turtles and Splinter to mutate. The Shredder, who has remarkably survived from Film 1, wants to use the ooze to create a more deadly brand of mutant, with a little help from the captive scientist (David Warner).
Cue many ninja fights and an excruciating "Ninja Rap".
Aah and don`t let`s forget Splinter. Before Jar-Jar there was the rat with attitude. Not to be confused with Roland from GMTV, he is the Ninja master that the turtles turned to when they developed `brains` and the desire to kick-ass.

Video

Poor as the original probably was. I remember seeing this on TV and wondering what was going on? I`m still wondering. The colours are rather muddy and it is difficult to distinguish one turtle from another. Still on the plus side the turtles wear masks and perhaps they still have a chance to get a decent film part-Mr Warner is not so lucky.

Audio

Just the average sound of a martial arts movie punctuated by the occasional scrap of dialogue. It would have been nice if somebody had written a script but they didn`t bother.
The music reflects the rap of the time with the `Ninja Rap` by Ice Tea cropping up in a fight scene. The disco where the fight takes place is a scary retro look at hairstyles and clothing from the early 90`s – Boy George has a lot to answer for!

Features

Not really any thing to write home about. Scene selection so you can skip the boring bits, oops most of the movie.
The original theatrical trailer-yes, all the `best bits`.
Add the subtitles and you can pretend it’s a murky foreign art film, well no you can`t.

Conclusion

A poor film transferred poorly. If you can remember what all the fuss was about then you are too old to watch this. I think this was an example of product placement big time. Sadly, this offering did not impress today`s children and I was embarrassed to admit that I had once scoured the shops for those cuddly little turtles.