Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Amazon.com 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, who hatched as comic book characters, are also the stars of 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 Product Description Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (DVD) (25th Anniv. O-Sleeve) Four baby turtles come in contact with a mysterious substance called ooze and then are transformed into human sized crime fighters. The leader of the turtles is a human size rat who has come into contact with the same green ooze. The rat was a former pet of a ninja master and therefore uses his skills to train the four turtles in martial arts. They befriend a local journalist and with her help attempt to find the group behind a crime wave in New York City. Starring Josh Pais ("The Station Agent," "A Beautiful Mind"), Elias Koteas ("Zodiac," "Fallen"), and Judith Hoag ("Armageddon," "Cadillac Man"). ]]>