Friday, January 27, 2012

Drew On Movies #16: Casey Jones (2011)





















Casey Jones (2011)

Let me get one thing out right off the bat, pun intended- I LOVE the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I grew up in the glory days of Turtle-mania, watched the 80s cartoon, loved it, read the comics, love them, watched and own the first two movies, still love them (the third... let's not go there shall we) and owned the toys, almost all of which are still in boxes in my basement. I watched the new cartoon in the 2000s and loved it, and even enjoyed the TMNT movie.

So you could say I'm a fan.

Earlier this week I watched The Blockbuster Buster do a review of a short film that immediately peeked my interest- a fan made film about the Turtles sport loving vigilante pal Arnold 'Casey' Jones. The review was good and got me interested to check the film out, and low and behold, you can watch it for free on the filmmakers website(link below) which I did tonight, and let me tell you, as a fan of the character this was something I can appreciated.

As with my previous short film review I'll keep this short so as to not spoil the film too much. The story concerns a violent young man in New York's Lower East side, Casey Jones, played by Hilarion Banks. Casey gets kicked off his local hockey team for violent behavior, such as knocking his own cousin out after the other man mouths off a little too much to him. Casey returns home to his mother's apartment, attacking a young man painting graffiti outside along the way. That night while cleaning the youth's work off the building, Casey runs afoul of the punk's friends- members of the Purple Dragon street gang led by Dragon Face, played by Brian Villalobos. Casey attempts to fight the goons off but is over powered and left bleeding. His mother shows concern but tells him the streets belong to the criminals now and she is ready to leave, something that Casey will not allow, and so he begins to get in shape and prepare to clean up the streets his own way. With his trademark hockey mask and sport bag of weapons, Casey sets out to confront the gang and whoever else gets in his way, including some dangerous ninjas called The Foot, although he gets some help from some very familiar faces along the way.

As this is an independent/fan film, certain elements can be forgiven for not looking perfect, although I won't reveal just what as it would ruin some of the film. Regardless, once you remind yourself that this is low budget you can forgive the film and enjoy it. You can also tell this was a labor of love made by someone who not only loves the character but the franchise as well. The familiar characters such as Casey, his cousin Sid, news reporter April O'Neil and others are all well acted and fit with the established characterizations- they don't try to change them, and this is to the films credit, as we know these characters well enough that we immediately connect with them. Casey himself is well written and played, as Banks has elements of Elias Koteas's Casey from the first Ninja Turtles movie both in appearance and attitude, so if one were to remove certain plot elements this really could be a prequel of sorts to the original film. This is actually quite a feat as it would likely have been easier to just make the film stand alone but the filmmakers obviously knew enough and cared enough to connect it with the continuity we know.

Honestly, the film's biggest flaws are those we could easily expect, as stated earlier- certain effects cement this as a fan made film, but again, I can forgive this. Beyond that, the only other issues I could find would be fan gripings, and the main one has likely been brought up in a number of other reviews so I won't waste my breath here. It's a slight change but eh, the movies changed stuff from the comics and the cartoons did as well- the basics are still there and that is what matters. The characters, especially Casey himself, are exactly as they should be, and that's the best one can ask for.

All in all, both as a fan of the TMNT universe and as a film fan in general, I enjoyed this film. It's not perfect, but hell, it was a whole lot better the Ninja Turtles 3, and likely cost a lot less. If you are a fellow Turtle fan looking for a good albeit violent film to kill thirty minutes watching, check it out.

4 Blood-drenched Pizza's out of 5

That's all out of me, until next time I'm The Drew and I Be Awesome.

Check out the Blockbuster Buster on http://blockbusterbuster.angelfire.com/ and www.thatguywiththeglasses.com
Check out the movie on www.caseyjonesthemovie.com

1 comment:

  1. If ever Hollywood makes a new ninja turtles movie, this is how they got to make it; dark and gritty. The core of the audience has grown up since the 80's cartoon and because of that, needs to go back to it's original comic book style with little dark comedy and balls to the wall action. Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention.

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