Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

Saw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)(Thanks, Kim!) I liked it okay. The TMNT thing passed me by when I was young, so I'm not coming at this with much loving nostalgia. I found the rubber suits have not aged so well (there's a scene where one turtle sadly says "it's Splinter" that's downright hilarious) and the creepy ninja-sploitation is still creepy. The turtles were surprisingly limber for being encased in rubber though so good show, stuntmen. The turtles are also sufficiently winning, only slightly cringey in their high-fives and tubulars (self-congratulation is one of those things that always looks terrible in movies.) They were never quite action-hero-competent enough for me to ever really hate them. I was kind of annoyed by the humans in the film however. April was too 80s-sassy. I kept feeling ambushed by the worryingly stuffed groin of Casey Jones' sweatpants (look at it!) The less said about the for-some-reason-hanging-around-Arpil son and dad the better. Also, apparently April is completely rich. She can afford rent on a huge apartment and an antique shop (which she never opens, but keeps out of sentiment) and a place in the country (albeit a run down place. What? You think she's made of money?)

So, okay, the film is ridiculous. It's a kid's movie. It's meant to be enjoyed with teddy grahams and too much hi-C, not sneeringly dissected over tea by a bitter grad student. And frankly I enjoyed even its stupidity. My eye-rolls were usually accompanied by groaning laughs, there were weird birth-of-the-turtles interludes (fueled by a radioactive goo marked 'Radioactive',) and delicious 80s excesses. I even got caught up in the characters of the turtles (will Raphael ever conquer his inner demons?) Not a great movie, but a pretty fun one. A lot like the movie Flash Gordon, it invites affectionate mockery. I recommend watching it with a group of only slightly jaded friends.

Edit: just realized, I keep writing 80s when this film was clearly made in 1990. The '80s's stay. I regret nothing.