Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles[a] is a 1990 American superhero film based on the comic book characters created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

It stars Judith Hoag and Elias Koteas with the voices of Brian Tochi, Josh Pais, Corey Feldman, and Robbie Rist.

The film adapts the early Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, with several elements taken from the animated series airing at the time.

Investigating a crime wave terrorizing New York City, television reporter April O'Neil is attacked by thieves, but is saved by an unseen group of vigilantes.

April's rescuers, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael — return to their hidden lair in the sewer, where their adoptive father, a rat named Splinter, advises them to continue practicing the art of ninjutsu.

Charles Pennington, April's boss at Channel 3 News, struggles to control his delinquent son Danny, who has been recruited with other teenagers to help the mysterious ninja Foot Clan in their wave of thefts.

Glimpsing the turtles hiding at April's apartment, Danny informs Shredder at the Foot's hideout, where Splinter is being held prisoner.

The turtles fight off the Foot with Casey and escape the burning building with April, who is fired by Charles in a phone message.

Splinter tells Danny that as an ordinary pet in Japan, he learned ninjutsu from watching his master, the ninja Hamato Yoshi.

The Channel 3 crew arrives to cover the story, and Danny is reunited with Charles, who gives April her job back, with benefits.

All four actors who played the in-suit turtles also appeared in cameos, with David Forman (Leonardo) as a gang member, Michelan Sisti (Michaelangelo) as a pizza delivery man, Leif Tilden (Donatello) as a messenger of The Foot and Josh Pais (Raphael) as a passenger in a taxi.

[1][3] Much of the production took place in North Carolina, with a couple of location shoots in New York City during the summer of 1989 to capture famous landmark areas, such as the World Trade Center, Times Square, the Empire State Building, and the Hudson River.

Production designer Roy Forge Smith and his art director, Gary Wissner, went to New York City four months prior to filming and took still photographs of rooftops and other various locations.

In order to make the sewer authentic, a tide-mark was given, and it was covered with brick, plaster and stucco paint to give the walls a realistic look.

Editor Sally Menke, who later edited many films by Quentin Tarantino, was removed as production company Golden Harvest did not like her work.

On August 11, 2009, the film was included in a special 25th anniversary box set (commemorating the original comic book), released to both DVD and Blu-ray formats.

[23] On the film's initial release, Roger Ebert gave 2.5 out of 4 stars and concluded it to be "nowhere near as bad as it might have been, and probably is the best possible Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie.

"[24] Variety praised the film's tongue-in-cheek humor and "amusingly outlandish" martial arts sequences, but thought it was "visually rough around the edges" and "sometimes sluggish in its plotting".

[25] Janet Maslin of The New York Times criticized the cinematography, stating that it was so "poorly photographed that the red-masked turtle looks almost exactly like the orange-masked one".

[26] Kim Newman wrote in the Monthly Film Bulletin that he found the characters reminiscent of the early 1970s Godzilla film series, describing the turtles as "loveable monsters in baggy foam rubber suits" who "befriended lost children and smashed things up in orgies of destruction that somehow never hurt anyone" and "drop the occasional teenage buzzword but are never remotely convincing as teenagers, mutants, ninjas or turtles".

[27][26][25] Newman noted a racist joke in April O'Neil's response to the Foot Clan, "What's the matter, did I fall behind on my Sony payments?

[24] Lloyd Bradley of Empire gave the film four out of five stars, stating: "A well-rounded, unpretentious, very funny, knockabout adventure – subtly blended so that it's fun for all the family".

[29] Entertainment Weekly and The New York Times praised the work of Jim Henson's Creature Shop, with Maslin stating "without which there would have been no film at all".

The website's consensus states, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is exactly as advertised: one-liners, brawls, and general silliness.