Movie Review: "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze" (1991)

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Movie: "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze"
Director: Michael Pressman
Year: 1991
Rating: PG
Running Time: 1 hour, 28 minutes

The Turtles, since having their hideout discovered, are now living with April O'Neil (Paige Turco). They continue to fight crime in New York, but have become careless about staying in the shadows. Meanwhile, the Foot is rebuilding its numbers, and unbeknownst to the Turtles, Shredder (Francois Chau) is still alive and is leading the Foot. At the same time, a chemical company called TGRI is cleaning up a waste dump and disposing of the buried ooze. This ooze is the same substance which created the Turtles and Splinter (Kevin Clash) 15 years prior. Now, Shredder wants the ooze to create mutants of his own to defeat the Turtles. 

"The Secret of the Ooze" is far inferior to its predecessor, the one and only excellent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film from our childhood. This follow up is marred by unnecessary censorship, which doesn't allow the turtles to use any of their signature weapons in combat. This begs the question: what's the point?!? What the film is left with is the turtles fighting with yo-yos, salami sticks, and other wacky items, all of which are so totally not the Turtles, dude. Shredder survived being compacted in a garbage truck by Casey Jones, who is mysteriously absent in this film and is replaced by a pizza delivery boy named Keno, played by martial arts child actor Ernie Reyes Jr. Now, Shredder is out for revenge on the turtles. Shredder steals the ooze from TGRI, which made the turtles, and kidnaps Professor Jordan Perry, played by David Warner, forcing him to make Shredder his own mutants. When we heard this as kids, we probably thought, "awesome! They are bringing in Bebop and Rocksteady, the classic rhinoceros and warthog thugs!!!!" Then, all of our dreams were crushed and smashed to the ground when Shredder's mutants turn out to be the new Tokka and Rahzar, a baby wolf and snapping turtle....wait what? Another turtle? What the hell?! Aren't there already enough mutant turtles that are good guys? Despite all these negatives, the film does have a charming, campy quality about it, but it's still nowhere near as charming and campy as its predecessor, the only true TMNT film we recognize, even as adults. This kitsch includes a ridiculous dance sequence and a rap song called "Ninja Rap" performed by Vanilla Ice. Um, HELLO? Brilliant. This one scene is better than most of the movie. There are a few quippy jokes here and there that made us chuckle. In fact, making audiences chuckle seems to be the primary goal of the film. The first movie had a few dark and emotional moments to off-set the silliness in an actual attempt to develop a somewhat compelling story. Unfortunately, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze" moves as far away from serious as possible and just seems interested in having fun while appealing to kids in the simplest, bottom of the barrel way possible. 

My Rating: 4.5/10
BigJ's Rating: 4.5/10
IMDB's Rating: 6.6/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 31%
Do we recommend this movie: No.
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One year ago, we were watching: "Butter"