Fiction vs. Fiction: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II- The Secret of the Ooze

 A Book version of a rushed Sequel?  Radical!

I bought this long ago, before I even got the DVD Set.

It was only 105 pages long (with Pictures and Size 22 font), so why not check it out?

The last FvF was about BB.  This one was written by B.B.

What's the Same?

The Plot doesn't change at all.

This is, after all, the Film Adaptation.  It is not a case where they changed all that much that matters.

That said, there were a few notable tweaks that made this worth double-dipping.

Some tagline, eh?

                                     What's Different?

As I said, the Plot doesn't change.

Instead, we get a big explanation to start with.

In the Book, right before they fight the Robbers in the beginning, Leonardo challenges himself and the other Turtles to not use their weapons during the next fight.  Something about being a Ninja.

In the Film, this is not addressed.  It was literally done to make the Film 'less violent' (again, they never even cut someone, but whatever!).

They also cover up Keno BEFORE they do half of a fight in front of him in the Book.  Nice.

In the Film, the Lab Computer crashes before the Foot Clan shows up.  In the Book, Donatello narrowly avoids AN ARROW shot at his head, which shorts out the Computer.

I must have had some of these...

The 'keep away' fight is also cut down to a single paragraph.  Boo.

In the Book, Michelangelo is caught faking his Backflip Practice, asks where to restart and begins at 1.  In the Film, a simple look from Splinter makes him know to start at 1.

Neither can explain why the Nightclub is right next to the Docks (outside of calling it the 'Dockside Club.'

In a minor tweak, they make the anti-mutagen work by spraying seltzer down the mutants' throats.  In the Film, it is done with fire extinguishers.

In the Film, the Turtles don't address the crowd and the Rapper is Vanilla Ice.  In the Book, they do that and he's just 'the Rap Performer' (saves on licensing fees!).

Both Book and Film fail to explain how one Canister can be used to mutate Tokka and Rahzar AND still have a full canister left to use on Super Shredder.
Oh well!

In the Book, Splinter doesn't get the last line of 'I made another funny!'  Good?

Final Thoughts

This one is, again, not as a big a thing as others where Books where changed (and sometimes the Film itself was also changed) drastically.

This is the Kid/Young Teen Novelization and only has minor tweaks.

The Book gives you the feel of the Story, some slight explanation for things...but also doesn't let you truly enjoy the banter between our Heroes.

As such, the nod ultimately goes to (warts and all)...

The Film.

If you couldn't afford/beg your Parents enough to buy the Film on VHS, this is a good substitute.  It's just not quite as funny to hear about backflipping Ninja Turtles, you know?

Streaming Standard: Wednesday- Season 2 (Part 2)

*Snap Snap*

Might as well talk about this before everyone moves on, as is the short shelf-life of Streaming Hits these days!

After setting up about 16 Subplots in the first 4 Episodes, how do things wrap up in...

New threats.
Old faces.
Fester appearing in 1 Episode and disappearing.

Wednesday is not in a great place as the 2nd half of the Season begins.

Once she recovers, she continues to work the case.

Now there are new angles and she has to work with the Lady from Ab Fab (aka Grandma).

She's not a kooky lady who torments people who ended up at the wrong House.

A familiar Hyde is back on the loose, but he's not alone.

When family gets involved with Monsters, nothing good comes out of it.

Meanwhile, Steve Buscemi- as the new Head of Nevermore Academy- is working his own angle(s).

He's here to fill out the B and C-Plots nicely.

Grandma Addams becomes a key player in the intertwining Plots.

There's a whole thing with Mothers and Daughters not getting along.
It is not the least bit subtle (while also being very effective).

Enid has her own Subplots, what with a romance one (taking the place of Wednesday's love triangle in Season 1) and her Werewolf Heritage coming strongly into play.

Can Billie Piper- who was ironically a Frankenstein creation on Penny Dreadful- help her?

Can she help herself?

This is far too soon for SPOILERS (plus what is TikTok for?), so to find out what happens, Stream the Show now.

A strong conclusion to the Season, quirks, twists and all.

The best thing about the Show is that there is plenty going on.

If you're not interested in Wednesday's main Plot, there's Enid's, the Dean's and others.

The trade-off, however, is that it also means that you may have to take notes to keep track of things, especially if you don't binge it.

I'm that guy- the one who spaces out these Shows to enjoy them in chunks.  Sorry?

If you watch the Episodes with, for instance, a two-day separation, it might take a moment to recap yourself.  The Show does help, to be fair.

A big thing here is that ever-present balance of Wednesday being a smart planner who isn't usually caught off guard with her also being vulnerable.
Ortega really pulls this off with subtle surprise and dismay.

Other than my general concern that people will eventually associate The Addams Family with Tim Burton and not Bary Sonnefeld, I highly recommend the Show- now complete.

As always, there's more of these...

Don't ask why Wednesday and Enid are meeting Groot.

A Show that manages to be creepy, kooky and just really damn good.  Now the long wait until Season 3 begins.

Shudder Day: Tales from the Crypt- Demon Knight (1995)

 As long as I'm in the 1990s (mostly) this week, let me carry that over to this one.

I wasn't allowed to watch Tales from the Crypt as a kid and never really saw too much of it still as an adult.
Should I?

Regardless, I did watch the 1995 Film spun off from the Series...

The Cryptkeeper appears in the Intro- as he did on the Show- as a Director of a Horror Film, complete with a John Laroquette cameo.

He goes to his Trailer to show off his latest work, which is this Film.

A drifter- William Sadler- is on the run from a bad guy- Billy Zane.

Both survive a fiery wreck and the former hides out at a Hotel, which contains our Cast of dead meats.

Amongst the group is Thomas Haden Church, Jada Pinkett, CCH Pounder and Charles Fleischer, who run into in the weirdest Films.

Zane finds him and tries to get the Cops to hand over a strange, blood-filled cross that Sadler has.

When that fails, he kills the Sheriff and summons some Demons to kill those inside!

Now they are trapped inside, but at least the blood can create (temporary) seals to keep the creatures out...for now.

Naturally, none of these people get along, so the simple plan of 'Just wait for the Sun to come up' is not too easy.

Zane manages to tempt members of the group, which then allows them to transform into his demons.

The only way to stop them is to destroy the eyes, which must just be a common 'demon' lore.

I thought Brimstone made that up!

As the body count rises and the Sun inevitably nears rising, can our remaining Heroes resist temptation?

To be fair, he was the damn Phantom and is in the 4th Highest Grossing Film of all time!

Can Sadler get Pinkett (no Smith yet) to learn the ropes before it is too late.

You know that these can sometimes have 'unhappy' Endings, so who knows?

To find out, stream (for the first time or revisit) it now...

A fun Film, even if it doesn't really attempt to break new ground.

The Film is full of visuals and ideas that you are probably familiar with.

People trapped in a House.
Possession of a person combined with a transformation.
A snarky devil Character.
A stubble-sporting Hero with a secret.

The news stuff is how the demons look, with glowing green eyes and distorted features.
They look good, done with old school prosthetics and make-up work.

The big draw here is Billy Zane as the evil Devil/Demon guy.  When he finally shows his true nature and starts to tempt the people in the House, he's great.

Watch it for him if you like that kind of quirky, charismatic bad guy.

All in all, whether you know/love/hate Tales from the Crypt, this self-contained Film is good, old-school (yes, it is weird calling '90s stuff old-school) Horror fun.

A Film that works for those that love this kind of gritty, old-school stuff.  It doesn't connect to the Show, so don't worry about getting caught up.

'90s Trash?: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)

 At long last, I finally revisit a Film that I remember disappointing me as a kid in Theaters.

Will I like it better today?

This is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, a Film that is sometimes given a new Subtitle.  You see, the 4th Video Game was called 'Turtles in Time' and this Plot involves Time Travel.

So, somehow, people started to convince themselves that this Film had the same Subtitle.  
My DVD's Box Art says 'yes.'  The DVD itself says 'no' and the Title Card also says 'no.'

Confused yet?

The Plot involves the Turtles using a Japanese Artifact to Time Travel to 1603 when said device accidentally sends April back there!  That old cliche.

This one was supposedly made to cater to the Japanese Market, given that the 2nd Film cost twice as much and made about a third of the profit ($78 vs $200 million).
The Film...was never released Theatrically in Japan.

To see if this truly is the stinker of the Trilogy, read on...

Some vague amount of time has passed since the 2nd Film as the Turtles have no spruced up their Sewer Lair.

They don't have the Foot Clan to fight, but do keep the City safe...or so we're told.  We see nothing.

Speaking of seeing, if these look 'off' to you at all, that's because Henson's Company didn't work on this Film, being replaced by the All Effects Company.

In Feudal Japan, the son of a Lord objects to him fighting a war backed by a foreign arms dealer.

Desperate, he takes the family's artifact and activates it...

...which causes him to switch places with April O'Neil, who just brought the Artifact home as a gift to Splinter (whose Puppet is 99% immobile here).

They also switch clothes, so the Adult version of me is wondering if that guy is now wearing ladies' underwear.
Admit it- the thought crossed your mind too!

They find her where they last saw the Son, so they understandably freak out.

The Arms Dealer (famous 'That Guy' Stuart Wilson) tries to scare her, but fails.

He's up to no good.

She's thrown into a Dungeon and sees...Casey Jones with short hair and beard?

Yes, they got Elias Koteas back as Casey (who was cut when they wanted a 'less violent' Film for Part 2) in the Present Scenes (wearing a now obvious wig) and in these Scenes playing his descendant named 'Whit.'

The Turtles use the Artifact to travel back to rescue April and are given an arbitrary 60 hour deadline in which to do so.

The group is separated, but eventually reunite to save a Village from the Lord and Wilson's men.

During all this, Raphael (who was feeling unwanted in NYC) bonds with a kid named 'Yoshi.'

This one is far cuter than the other Yoshi we got in a 1993 Film.

The Turtles join the Resistance- naturally- and we get some fighting with *gasp* their actual weapons.

They are allowed to do this, since the Soldier have them too...I guess.

Whit seems to betray the group, but then feels bad about it.

After a failed attempt to kill Leonardo with a cannon (perhaps inspiring Kung Fu Panda?), Wilson flees and falls to his death in the Ocean...but they didn't add a splash in, so he just vanishes into the water.

Raphael and Michelangelo both want to stay (for slightly different reasons), but eventually concede.

Mikey is a few seconds later and we tease him being stuck there...for about 10 seconds.

The random Drama ends when the Turtles reunite and dance like in the beginning.
The End.

It's...not terrible, but I don't think it is that memorable either.
The fact that people continue to conflate this Film and a different Video Game says plenty, doesn't it?

This Story is apparently *sort of* based on the Comics.  The problem is that this version excises all of the Mirage's Villains, replacing them with a generic Lord and a British bad guy.

Stuart Wilson is referred to once as 'Zorro guy' in this one btw and he would be the Villain in the first Antonio Banderas Zorro Film about 5 years later. 

The Turtles themselves look a bit off here, as the new animatronics are a bit spottier with more lip flap than in the previous Films.  The downward trend towards the Suits used in the Live Tour and The Next Mutation begins here.

The Plot is just not that interesting, no matter how many Characters and Subplots they throw in here.  No villains or moments really stand out.
It is just pretty damn forgettable.

By the way, if you need a Forest to sub in for Japan, just go to Astoria, Washington like they did.

Next up, let me jump all of the way back to the 1960s.  Let's see how Bond...James Bond debuted (as part of a look at every Film eventually).  Stay tuned...

Tubi Thursday: Tomb Invader (2018)

The Live-Action Tomb Raider Film from 2018 is on Tubi.

So is The Asylum's 'inspired' Film.

Let's check that one out first...

In a Cold Open, 2 ladies and a dead meat guy try to figure out which key will open a door.

They chose...poorly.

In the Present, we meet Alabama (or Ally) Channing is a Tomb Ra...er, Invader.

They basically give you the Temu Version of the Intro to the first Indiana Jones Film.

She goes back to her College Job and gets a mysterious package- her dead Mom's Journal!

A rich guy calls her and offers her a chance to get the treasure that her Mother tried to get.

She goes to the Tomb- the Title would be a lie otherwise- with her two friends, a Love Interest guy with Stubble and the rich guy.

Who will live?
Will they find the Treasure?

Our Heroine also doesn't quite dress like Lara Croft, despite what the Cover Art says.

I'm shocked.

To find out how her adventure begins (and also ends, because they decide to reboot Tomb Raider instead), stream it now...

A so-so adventure that doesn't do all that much.
I guess it does that stuff alright though.

Is this just a way to do 'Tomb Raider' without paying for the licensing?  Yes.
Not Lara Croft is good, but I never got much more out of her than 'I want to return treasures to their people' and 'I'm sad sometimes.'

She's definitely going for more...but it is missing.

The Film is set in China.
They clearly shot all of it in California.

Oh right- they used a few CGI shots of an Asian Temple they bought from a Stock Footage Website a couple of times.  I'm now convinced.

This is the kind of DTV Film that is just kind of so-so, inoffensive and you kind of forget about in a week or so.

Now let's change the Actress for the Foreign Cover...for some reason.

A Film that is halfway decent, fairly low budget and inoffensive.  Do I expect more from The Asylum at this point?

Bonus: The Many Cameos of 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze'

 The Plot and background of this 1991 Film were plenty to cover.

As such, I didn't mention the many random Cameos in it.

Let's fix that now...

After the first Action Scene, we see April returning to her Apartment.

She's met by two people, but the notable one is the lady on the right.

That's Susie Essman, the Female Comedian/Actress most known for hating/swearing at Larry David on 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.'

Later on, Keno is being recruited for the Foot Clan.

Among the group there, you can see a young Michael Jai White (about a decade before Universal Soldier: The Return) as one of the potential members.

Curiously, he's not also a Stunt Performer here.

Lastly, a less famous one, but also the most adorable one.

In a Scene where Tokka and Rahzar attack the Street to prove a point (and set up the finale), we see an older Couple comment on it.

They are played by David and Sasha Pressman, the Parents of this Film's Director- David Pressman.

Aw, what a good Son.

No pressure on me...right?
Right?!?

'90s Fun: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II- The Secret of the Ooze

 Is this the Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo of the Series?

This is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2- The Secret of the Ooze, the 1991 follow-up to the 1990 smash hit.

Like said Boogaloo, this one was rushed into Production and made within a year of the last one.  That's fast, considering all of the aspects of Studio Filmmaking!

Imagine if Matt Reeves was under the same pressure for The Batman 2!

This time, some things have changed.  Mainly, this is now much more of a Kids Film, so the violence is tamped down and the Action is sillier.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is notable.

We also have a new April, new mutants (as Eastman and Laird vetoed a live-action Bebop and Rocksteady) and more 'almost the guy' Characters.

Does this one hold up as well as its more serious counterpart?  To find out, read on...

Our Heroes are kicking butt still, only this time they don't use their weapons.

It's not like they ever stabbed a foot soldier in the last one or anything!

Regardless, they are staying with...new April (who isn't bad TBF) until they can find a new lair.

Meanwhile, a Scientist (David Warner) is working for the company that made the ooze that transformed our Heroes.

They got rid of all of the samples (for liability and good PR), but there's one left...and someone wants it!

He was happy to be in a Film that his kids could watch.

In the Intro, they fight robbers right in front of Keno, a Pizza Delivery Guy.  So much for being ninjas.

He goes to April's place (where his delivery that night was going to) and discovers them.

Like April, he faints at the sight of Splinter and is then given their origin in the exact same manner.

Will they make a new friend in Part 3 and keep the streak alive?

Warner is kidnapped, along with the ooze, and forced to make Mutants for Shredder, who is alive because shut up, that's why!

He transforms a snapping turtle and a wolf (both found in NYC?) into Rahzar and Tokka.

In a case of Deja Vu, Raphael goes off on his own (annoyed that they aren't looking for the Foot Clan) and recruits Keno to try and join the group.

It works...until it doesn't and Raphael is beaten up by the Foot Clan...again.

It leads to a face-off between the gang and the Mutants, who are way too strong.

They run away- with Warner- and devise a new plan.

They make an anti-mutagen that they eventually feed to them, but more work is required.

So, naturally, they hold them down and spray fire extinguishers down their throats!

Incidentally, the fight spills out of an Industrial Park and into...a Nightclub where Vanilla Ice is performing.

He immediately makes up a new rap (pause for laughter) called 'Ninja Rap' which he performs during the fight.

Our Heroes stop fighting to do a choreographed dance, as you do.

The big fight with Shredder this time is...Keno blasting him out of the building via exploding speaker.

Off-screen, he drinks the remaining ooze and becomes Super Shredder!

He starts smashing up the Pier (next to the Club?) to get to them...and crushes himself (possibly to death).

Alright then.  One more Splinter pun and we're out. 

A fun Film, even if it feels like a very different kind of one.

The Plot is silly, with just enough logic there to make it not satire.  Shredder wanting mutants to stop mutant turtles- sure, I get that.

Of course, they're also kind of dumb and voiced by Frank Welker (who famously doesn't voice animals).

I do appreciate that this one builds on the Turtles' origins too.  If this was leading somewhere for the third Film, I'd have no complaints.

The big thing is that everything here is brighter and less 'scary.'  Case in point...
The first Film opened up with Night Scenes of kids/teens committing crimes.

This one opens with shots of random people eating pizza.

Everything is toned down, sillier and just less threatening.  Even the lead Henchman who almost (but does in the Novelization) kills a Foot Clan Member is just squished by the Turtles and beaten.

Amusingly, this is basically the reverse of how Cartoons work.  They grow up with their audiences.

TMNT 2 is a fun Film, but arguably a downgrade.  Plus, it shows how much inflation we've had.
This is how much the Turtles left to pay for TWO PIZZAS!

Next up, the final Film in the TMNT Trilogy.  Will this disappoint Adult me like it did Kid me back in the day?  Stay tuned...