The city looks like a grungy back-lot version of shabby film noir, and the sewers are like medieval dungeons.
Roy Forge Smith is the designer, and seems inspired by a low-rent vision of " Batman" or maybe " Metropolis" (1927). The most interesting part of the film for a non-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan is the production design - the sewers and the city streets above them. And there are flashbacks to give us the back-story about how their rodent teacher came by his knowledge. The plot? Do you care? It involves a TV news reporter and her friends, a teenage crime wave, a secret society named the Foot, and a learning experience for the Turtles as they grow and adapt and become braver warriors with more character. These are actual human beings for the most part, including stunt men inside the life-size turtle suits (certain other characters have been created artifically by the Jim Henson folks). I expected animation - a spinoff of the Saturday morning Turtle cartoon show.
Having not followed every detail of the film's production with great interest, I was surprised to discover it's a live-action film. It supplies, in other words, more or less what Turtle fans will expect: the Ninja Turtles, subways, pizzas, villains, a rudimentary plot and an explanation of how the Turtles met their Zen-master, a wise old rodent. But this movie is nowhere near as bad as it might have been, and probably is the best possible Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie.
For that matter, I did not walk out afterward with my spirits renewed. I did not walk into the screening with a light step and a heart that sang. Now comes "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" the movie.
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