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

 

After the success of the first film, it stood to reason that a sequel would attempt to capture the same lightning in a bottle. And although 'The Secret of the Ooze' is a fun film and a definite must-watch for fans of the franchise, you could tell that changes were afoot. 

What this film does right, is expanding the mythology of the Turtles. After April covers a story about a chemical factory that is cleaning up waste they spilled, it is discovered that roughly 15 years ago, they lost a canister: the same one that mutated both the turtles and Splinter to their present state. But what remains of the Foot has also discovered this. Even worse: the Shredder has survived his fall into the garbage truck and is hell bent on revenge. To this end, he kidnaps professor Jordan Perry (David Warner enjoying himself immensely) and orders him to mutate a wolf and snapping turtle, so he can fight the Turtles 'freak to freak'. It doesn't all go according to plan, as professor Perry makes these new mutants stupid, but Tokka and Rahzar are formidable opponents. Will our friends succeed in defeating these monsters and put an end to the Shredder once and for all? 

This backstory of the Turtles is what gives this film some gravitas and especially Donatello has a pretty meaningful bit of dialogue where he wonders if this is truly all there is to them. But it's mostly fun and jokes and several fights, so don't worry that things might get too philosophical all of a sudden. This time around, the Turtles are joined by young martial artist Keno (Ernie Reyes), which is fitting, considering in the previous film, he often portrayed one of the turtles in the fight sequences. It's a fun addition, but the film did not really need his character. 

The animatronics and suits are even better than the first one, once again proving that the Henson Studios is wonderfully equipped to bring characters to life. Whereas in the first one, some of the mouth movements could be a little off (just a tad), here, it all moves more fluently. The change is especially noticeable with Splinter, who now has a much wider range of expression in his face/snout. 

There's still cool fighting, even though apparently they wanted to tone down the violence, so the Turtles hardly ever use their weapons, except maybe for Donatello. Raphael never uses his sais (except to spear a piece of pizza), Mikey doesn't use his nunchucks and Leonardo's swords are more occasional implements instead of real weapons. So that's one item that is geared more towards little kids.

The other thing that makes this more a kids' film than the first, is the jokes and humour. There is a ton of them and they do manage to elicit a chuckle here and there, but it is silly. A perfect way to describe this film: enjoyable, yet silly. 

About Tokka and Rahzar: an incredible amount of people wanted them to be Bebop and Rocksteady from the cartoon, which makes sense. But because of some bizarre licensing twist, the makers weren't allowed to use either those likenesses or names, hence we got two all new characters in Tokka and Rahzar. Tokka looks fine, but Rahzar has got this goofy grin on his face all the time which is rather unsettling. They're played for comedy more than anything else, but the suits look good at least. 

And there was a time when people thought Vanilla Ice was cool and he gets a full song in here, alas. It just shows this is more a product of the time, whereas the first one has aged a little better. But still: this is a fun film and for fans, this comes recommended.