Bullet Points: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze

Who the hell knew what ooze was back in 1991? I know I didn’t! But I sure as hell knew this movie was coming out and was waiting in line with a bag of popcorn and a massive sugary beverage at hand. This was one of those movies that was highly anticipated in the Cruise household and an eight year old Chad had been shadow-boxing and beating the crap out of pretend Foot Clan for weeks in preparation. You can’t have Ninja Week without the biggest Ninja franchise in movie history!

Synopsis: The Turtles and the Shredder battle once again, this time for the last canister of the ooze that created the Turtles, with which Shredder wants to unleash an army of new mutants.

• The Curious Case of Ernie Reyes Jr.: Young Ernie had been a stunt double for one of the turtles in the first film and was liked so much the character of Keno was created just for him. The character wouldn’t make another appearance in any other TMNT media. For my money, though, I always liked Keno’s character. Sure, he’s probably a little too good at martial arts. He doesn’t really have any trouble kicking ass without the turtles help so when he becomes friends with him, they kind of just hold him back from being awesome.
• Whoopin’ asses: Oh yeah, you had to know that the turtles would get plenty of chances to whoop some ass in this one. It’s a shame that there was some backlash from parents after the first film had a tad more violence than those lame ass parents thought it would have. The producers had decided that action wasn’t the problem but that the turtles wouldn’t be using their weapons much. I think Donnie is the only one who uses his weapon during the film.

• Origin goodness: TMNT creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird were trying their best to make the film series distinctly different from the cartoon. The goal was to make this film closer to the original black and white comics. The first film was a huge success but the producers caved on this one and quickly audibled to something closer to the cartoon. They brought back the Shredder against the writers best wishes and even passed on the space/cosmic bits they had hoped to add to the film. In the end, the origin for the film was changed from the comic to account for those changes.
• Lighter isn’t exactly better: It was no secret after the massive success of the first TMNT film that they’d go back to the team for another installment. They did, however, want some changes. The slightly dark and gritty, at times, tone of the film was replaced by a more cartoonish and slapstick tone. They removed the ultra-violent Casey Jones and replaced him with the teenage sidekick Keno.

• New Villains: Tokka and Rahzar were created for the film after writers Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird begged to not include the more cartoonish Bebop and Rocksteady. They had, of course, wanted the film franchise to stay as far away from the cartoon as possible. Funnily enough, Tokka and Rahzar became so popular after this film that the duo would make an appearance in the television show in the later seasons.
• The return of Shredder and the bad taste: I have to admit, I’ve always loved the character of The Shredder. I think the first film in this series makes him very intimidating and when we finally get to see him in action he is great. When he re-appeared in the beginning of this film I thought they would have to up the ante and give us an incredible fight. Instead, we got the Super Shredder (Kevin Nash)! Sure, he looks pretty rad all mutated but he literally does nothing. It’s a massive bummer to end the film.

The Verdict: While The Secret of the Ooze was probably my favorite Turtle film as a kid (it worked producers!), it’s definitely a change of pace from the first film. The toned down criminal activity from the first film and the slapstick nature of all the characters just makes it the lesser of the Turtles flicks in my eyes. It would have been very interesting to see what Eastman and Laird could have done with their original ideas but I guess we’ll never know. It seems we’re doomed to only get live-action Shredder as a villain. Bring on the Rat King!!