Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - The Movie

You can chalk it up to good timing and a heavy dose of video-game synergy, but this 1990 hit remains the box-office champ of independent films, with a total gross of $135 million. Of course the Turtles began as a phenomenally successful Nintendo video game, so it was a given that the movie would be a hit with its target audience of rabid young video addicts. This is what comic books fans call "the origin story," in which we learn how a foursome of small turtles were mutated by a green radioactive goo and turned into human-sized turtle crime fighters. Their large rodent mentor, Splinter, teaches them to master the martial arts. They're also gifted pop musicians, by the way (think of them as amphibious Spice Guys), so they can rock the house while they're cracking a crime wave with the help of their cute friend and television reporter April O'Neil (Judith Hoag). The script is terrible, of course, but countless millions of children don't seem to care, as long as the Turtles keep ordering pizza and dispensing their wisecracking brand of justice. --Jeff Shannon

Movie Details

Cast: Judith Hoag, Elias Koteas, Josh Pais, Raymond Serra, David Forman, Michelan Sisti, Leif Tilden, Michael Turney, Jay Patterson, James Saito, Toshirô Obata
MPAA Rating: PG
Running time: 95
DVD Aspect Ratios: 1.85:1

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DVD Features: Available subtitles: English, Spanish, French Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 1.0) Interactive "Sewer Maze" game

International rating:

Europe: PG

DVD International release dates:
North America: Feb 24, 98