The mind starts to boggle when I read all the comments that claim this sequel was better than the original. All the signs of an obvious cash-in are included here. Fox studios were, like most of the Hollywood majors, still bitter that they had missed the virtual shower of dollars that the first feature film entailed. So, when Golden Harvest announced there would be a second feature, Fox could not help but buy a share in the production, just to ensure they would reap some of the benefits. Unfortunately, what they also brought to the table were the typical vices of big media. They set out to make a family-friendly, sanitised version of the Turtles' world. Showing that they did not even bother to see the first film, they believed this would result in a better film. They were wrong.
With an estimated budget of twenty-five million dollars, the inherent name recognition in the Turtles brand became a big factor in Fox's marketing. They saw to it that every media outlet around the world was aware that a new Turtles film was coming out, and the children of the time made certain that their parental units would take them to see it. You can see how specific this marketing was in some of the dialogue, especially during some of the almost-fight scenes. While the gross for this film, at seventy-five million dollars, sounds impressive, the original was estimated to have cost a mere thirteen-point-five million, and wound up making just a little over ten times that amount in the USA alone. Once again, family-oriented marketing tries to claim success, but is bowled down by fact.
So far, we have a family-friendly atmosphere, childish dialogue, and fight scenes that mislead the primary audience as to the true consequences of violence. A fourth strike comes in the form of a cameo from Vanilla Ice. Just as real musicians like Black Sabbath had their craft sullied by the likes of Poison or Warrant during the 1980s, the blaxploitation rappers of the 1990s had to contend with the likes of Vanilla Ice. From the second the Turtles wind up in the nightclub, the film is so badly dated that it never gets a chance to recover. You can just picture in another twenty years, when a child stumbles across this by accident, they will turn to their now-forty-something parents and ask if white people were really this idiotic in the late twentieth century.
Nonetheless, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II can at least be said to have been profitable. In fact, it was, by Hollywood standards, massively profitable, which is more than what can be said for the abysmal third effort. How much of that wound up in Fox's pocket is a point of curiosity, but it is a lot less than the virtual bonanza of the original. I guess the saying should be modified to read that wealth creation used to be a function of innovation. In contrast to the original film, where it was soundly proved that puppets and comic book material could be used to depict something other than the bright pastel tone that corporations like Disney continue to bombard us with. If anything, the fields of animation and family entertainment have gone backwards since the early 1980s.
Some things that went wrong in the original, such as the miscasting of April O'Neil, were rectified in this sequel. Paige Turco brings back the youthful exuberance of April, as opposed to the snotty, arrogant whining that Judith Hoag weighted the character down with. Sadly, the real star of the original, Elias Koteas, is nowhere to be seen. He was obviously busy with the much more challenging (and ultimately rewarding) role of the wheelchair-bound brother in Almost An Angel. It is such a pity that Almost An Angel did not achieve better financial success, proving once again that wealth and good storytelling are incompatible within the Hollywood business model.
Unlike the so-bad-it's-spectacular third installment, I am giving Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II a two out of ten. In trying so hard to please everyone, it winds up not only pleasing very few (at least not once they outgrow the Disney-like marketing), but it winds up being not bad enough to be good, and too bad to be good. Stuck firmly in no-man's-land, in other words.
With an estimated budget of twenty-five million dollars, the inherent name recognition in the Turtles brand became a big factor in Fox's marketing. They saw to it that every media outlet around the world was aware that a new Turtles film was coming out, and the children of the time made certain that their parental units would take them to see it. You can see how specific this marketing was in some of the dialogue, especially during some of the almost-fight scenes. While the gross for this film, at seventy-five million dollars, sounds impressive, the original was estimated to have cost a mere thirteen-point-five million, and wound up making just a little over ten times that amount in the USA alone. Once again, family-oriented marketing tries to claim success, but is bowled down by fact.
So far, we have a family-friendly atmosphere, childish dialogue, and fight scenes that mislead the primary audience as to the true consequences of violence. A fourth strike comes in the form of a cameo from Vanilla Ice. Just as real musicians like Black Sabbath had their craft sullied by the likes of Poison or Warrant during the 1980s, the blaxploitation rappers of the 1990s had to contend with the likes of Vanilla Ice. From the second the Turtles wind up in the nightclub, the film is so badly dated that it never gets a chance to recover. You can just picture in another twenty years, when a child stumbles across this by accident, they will turn to their now-forty-something parents and ask if white people were really this idiotic in the late twentieth century.
Nonetheless, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II can at least be said to have been profitable. In fact, it was, by Hollywood standards, massively profitable, which is more than what can be said for the abysmal third effort. How much of that wound up in Fox's pocket is a point of curiosity, but it is a lot less than the virtual bonanza of the original. I guess the saying should be modified to read that wealth creation used to be a function of innovation. In contrast to the original film, where it was soundly proved that puppets and comic book material could be used to depict something other than the bright pastel tone that corporations like Disney continue to bombard us with. If anything, the fields of animation and family entertainment have gone backwards since the early 1980s.
Some things that went wrong in the original, such as the miscasting of April O'Neil, were rectified in this sequel. Paige Turco brings back the youthful exuberance of April, as opposed to the snotty, arrogant whining that Judith Hoag weighted the character down with. Sadly, the real star of the original, Elias Koteas, is nowhere to be seen. He was obviously busy with the much more challenging (and ultimately rewarding) role of the wheelchair-bound brother in Almost An Angel. It is such a pity that Almost An Angel did not achieve better financial success, proving once again that wealth and good storytelling are incompatible within the Hollywood business model.
Unlike the so-bad-it's-spectacular third installment, I am giving Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II a two out of ten. In trying so hard to please everyone, it winds up not only pleasing very few (at least not once they outgrow the Disney-like marketing), but it winds up being not bad enough to be good, and too bad to be good. Stuck firmly in no-man's-land, in other words.