Despite making over 100 million dollars at the box-office, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a B-movie through and through. Made on a fairly low-budget to cash-in on the success of the television cartoon and toy line (which were in turn based on the cult comic book created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird), the movie brings the turtles into a live-action movie and while there's a few inspired moments the results are intermittently entertaining.

New York City finds itself in the middle of a youth crime wave and TV news reporter April O'Neil (Judith Hoag) is trying to blow the lid off a criminal ring called "The Foot". Unlucky enough to be attacked by some thugs after finishing off her segment, she's saved by some unseen heroes who beat down the baddies, tie them up, and leave in a flash - but they accidentally leave behind a "Sai" (a three-pronged dagger).

Turns out her lifesavers are four overgrown man-like turtles who are named after Renaissance artists (Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, and Leonardo), speak in California surfer talk (despite being raised in the New Yawk sewers), and are proficient in Ninjitsu. They also have a talking rat called Splinter for their sensei and a huge appetite for pizza.

April finds herself teamed-up with the turtles and self-appointed vigilante Casey Jones (played with aplomb by Elias Koteas) to go after the head of "The Foot", a masked ninja named Shredder (an actor in an unimpressive red padded jumpsuit, not nearly as cool as the character deserves) who's kidnapped Splinter in order to try and stop the turtles from cracking his crime ring.

Walking the fine line between kiddie and adult, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles leans more towards its cartoon roots than the comic. It's filled to the brim with dopey humour, never takes itself seriously, and is never anything more than harmless. Sure, it has a good handful of martial arts fights that are more attune with Eastman and Laird's books, but when it's all said and done this movie could easily be watched by a pre-pubescent boy who's shoveling popcorn in his mouth and rooting for his favourite "turtle" - it would've been interesting to see what they could've done with the franchise if they'd of given our reptilian heroes more of an edge.

Co-produced by legendary Hong Kong company Golden Harvest (father's to many a classic kung-fu romp), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has certainly not aged too well and is only for the younger crowd really. It's pleasingly tongue-in-cheek, the dialogue is loaded with tons of pop culture references (you might notice the movie one of the turtles goes to see is Critters, an earlier effort from distributor New Line), there's an amusing "nunchuck off" scene, the animatronic puppets created by Jim Henson's workshop are generally decent (there's a few misses in there like seeing Splinter doing karate in his cage as a young rat), and it even manages to get former teen idol Corey Feldman to voice one of the turtles (Donatello, if you care) - but in the end it's just not that great a movie.

The entire thing has a cheesy bent, which helps digest it a bit easier, but unless you're gunning for a dopey comic book inspired timewaster and you're able to forgive those awkward looking turtle suits and a really junky finale you're probably better off either revisiting the original comics or watching the recent Anime-inspired animated series.

Followed by two sequels. (Chris Hartley, 2/15/06)

Directed By: Steve Barron.
Written By: Todd W. Langen, Bobby Herbeck.

Starring: Judith Hoag, Elias Koteas, Raymond Serra, Michael Turney.