“First, we must observe the ancient ritual of the... traditional pre-fight donut.”

I decided to revisit the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, and was pleasantly surprised by how much I still loved the original one. In my memory, I remember liking its sequel, The Secret of the Ooze, just as much as the first, and that it was just the third one that was bad. Unfortunately, I think I was wrong in that thought.

Firstly, The Secret of the Ooze just feels like a much more childish and shallow version compared to what we saw prior. The most obvious thing to point to is, of course, the new mutated creatures. They are presented as babies and act in such a way that they were honestly so dumb it got a little bit annoying at times. It’s even more frustrating once you learn that these creatures were supposed to be Bebop and Rocksteady originally, but got changed due to copyright and licensing issues.

Then there is the Shredder. He makes a return here, and not for the better. He’s a much more dumbed down version of his prior self, being indecisive and, well, just dumb, and it makes him far less imposing and cool than he was before. Similar to the new mutants, he also acts very childish, so much so that it feels like an entirely different character.

The stakes are also really just not there. The Foot Clan is much smaller than it was before, and the chaos that they ensue is really only cut down to one incident, making them not feel like much of a threat at all. Their plan is also extremely goofy, adding to the film’s kiddy vibe overall. The problem with this film’s kiddie tone is that there really isn’t much there for adults at all. Similar to what we had before, there are some references in there that really only adults will get (not any of the innuendo kind, just to make clear), but this time it feels a lot more forced, almost like they added it at the last second because they realized most adults probably wouldn’t get a whole lot out of this.

The last thing I’ll say here before I get to my positives and cap things off is really more of a mixed criticism, at least compared to everything else, and that is the editing. I don’t know if it’s just me, but there were numerous moments in this movie where it felt like the movie just jumped ahead instead of showing certain events, and it was kind of disorienting every time it happened. It almost felt like there were extra scenes that they just, for whatever reason, cut out.

Now, this sequel isn’t all bad, and, in fact, I almost considered giving it a five out of ten instead of a four, but I think I’m going to stick to the four. The one thing that is not only just as good as it was before, but possibly even better, is the action. I really don’t even know how they’ve pulled off the stunts they have (even in the original), but they are quite impressive for people in (I would assume to be) heavy practical suits. There is some great martial arts action here just in general, so bravo to the stunt team yet again.

The turtles are just as fun as before, too, as one might assume. They don’t get as much time to shine individually, but as a team, they’re still a lot of fun. The only thing I think was missing was some character development, which, kind of similar to the first film, was pretty bare bones, but even worse in that regard. There were hints at something there, particularly with Donatello, but they never really went anywhere or came to fruition in any sort of way.

So overall, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze really just ends up feeling like a dumbed-down version of the original movie. The character development is even less of a thing than it was prior, and a lot of it feels more childish and less deep than it did before, unfortunately. Like I said, though, it’s not all bad, but I definitely wouldn’t consider this a good movie, hardly at all. Considering that this didn’t age poorly, even though I liked it as a kid, I can’t even imagine how poorly Turtles in Time (or just Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III) is going to age, because even I knew as a child that it was no good.