Classic Movie Review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Secret of the Ooze (1991) 

Directed by Michael Pressman 

Written by Todd W. Langan 

Starring Paige Turco, David Warner, Vanilla Ice, Ernie Reyes Jr. 

Release Date March 22nd, 1991 

Published August 3rd, 2023 

If you don't realize that Hollywood studio executives are blood sucking snakes eager to suck the life blood out of anything that appears remotely like a hit, I have just one sequel for you, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze. Pumped out in less than 12 months after the original and without director David Barron, the man responsible for the charming first live action Turtles adventure, is as nakedly commercial and mercenary as Hollywood can possibly be. I'm sure that Barron's director's chair still had his name on it when he was already being replaced by the cheaper, less experienced but very eager Michael Pressman. 

Barron dodged a bullet, for sure. Had he stuck around to make a sequel to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequel, he would have been blamed either for not giving the fans what they wanted, more Turtles, and, more than likely, he would be blamed for the film's mediocre performance in the rushed wake of making the first film and the studio bean counters urgency in making a second film in a hot, of the moment franchise. Naturally, not at all unexpectedly, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lacks for not having the steady, ingenious hand of Steve Barron guiding the sequel. 

Instead, what we get is a movie that was made cheap and fast and not at all satisfyingly. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze isn't bad, but it is kind of cheap and ugly due to the nature of it being rushed into production simply to capitalize on the success of the first film. There is always going to be an icky quality to a sequel that exists purely as a way to wring a little extra cash out of an existing intellectual property. It's always going to feel like a movie that only exists as a product to be used as a flail slapped on to the moving going consumer with the sole purpose of separating people from their cash. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Tron

Tron (1982) 

Directed by Steven Lisberger

Written by Steven Lisberger 

Starring Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan, Bernard Hughes

Release Date July 9th, 1982 

Published July 10th 2012 

Comedian Dennis Miller once satirized then Vice President Al Gore’s allegedly stony and boring persona by claiming that the VP’s favorite movie was “Tron.” If you have seen the original, 1982 version, of “Tron” you likely found that joke pretty funny, in 1999 when the joke was made and even today.

Yes, “Tron” is not the most exciting exercise in acting or dialogue or special effects (compared to what we see today). But, in its day “Tron” was cutting edge in terms of effects, if still stolid in acting and stumbling in dialogue. What looks remarkably cheesy through the prism of today was mind blowing in 1982.

Forget it Mr. High and Mighty Master Control

Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) was once the top programmer at the Encom software company. But, hen his many ideas for new videogames were stolen by a fellow programmer, the slimy Ed Dillinger (David Warner), Flynn is devastated and then fired. Now, Flynn runs an arcade while secretly trying to hack Encom and get his games back.

Flynn has been battling Dillinger’s Master Control Program and mostly been losing until his former co-workers Alan (Bruce Boxleitner) and Lora (Cindy Morgan), Flynn’s former flame, approach him at the arcade. Alan’s Tron program has been locked up by the Master Control thanks to Flynn’s hacking. Flynn, however, has a plan to get Tron out and take down the MCP.

Derezzed

Once Flynn, Alan and Lora break into Encom, Flynn gets to work on invading the MCP. Unfortunately, for Flynn he finds himself on the wrong side of a laser beam that digitizes him and puts him inside the computer grid where the MCP uses programs like Sark (David Warner, again) to force programs into deadly videogame competitions. If Flynn loses he could be ‘derezzed’ a term you can take to mean killed inside the computer.

“Tron” is awkward and a little boring outside the computer world and strange and entertaining inside. The dialogue goes from oddly delivered to just plain odd with lines about ‘Micro-Sectors,’ ‘Bit Brains,’ ‘Users,’ and my favorite odd line “Who does he calculate he is.”

High gloss camp

Even the most diehard fan of “Tron” must admit how campy it all is. From the dialogue to the odd looking lighted costumes to Bruce Boxleitner’s wooden performance as both Alan and Tron, there is a heavy dose of unintentionally funny stuff in “Tron.” In fact, the kitsch is nearly overwhelming by the end of “Tron.”

So what makes “Tron” a classic? How does this admittedly goofy looking movie remain part of the pop culture ephemera? “Tron” strikes a lasting chord for being document of it’s time, a relic of a period before computer effects consumed movies. “Tron” was the first of its kind.

Tron invented at MIT

Director Steven Lisberger was an MIT graduate who worked on first generation computer animation while in school. Inspired by the video game “Pong” Lisberger came up with the idea to combine computer animation with videogame graphics and “Tron” was born. Lisberger took the idea to Disney who committed 12 million dollars to his visionary idea and the rest is movie history.

The cheese-factor is inescapable but so is the film’s place in movie history. “Tron” will be remembered forever for its visionary use of animation, computer graphics and videogame tech. Bruce Boxleitner will never live down his beyond wooden appearance and Oscar winner Jeff Bridges has a little to be embarrassed about as well, but mostly “Tron” is a movie classic.