So it’s summer 2023, and we have a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. Now for some, it’s been a while. They probably checked out of Ninja Turtles in the mid-90s. They old. For some, their turtles were the 4Kids show, aka 2003 Ninja Turtles, and their big ending T.V. movie that was essentially Crisis on Infinite Turtles Earths. Please note Utrom Shredder is the hardest Shredder, but back to review. Now we’re getting to newer ones; some folks grew up with 2012 Turtles on Nickelodeon, along with those HUGE Michael Bay-produced Ninja Turtles movies that started in 2014. Recently in 2018, there was another show, Rise of the TMNT, that ended with a Netflix movie that was very well done, but as I said, most don’t pay attention to that. Kids did because the toys are fire, and there are always new kids waiting to discover a new version of the Ninja Turtles.
So this version starts with Baxter Stockman creating the mutagen after absconding with the materials and other things from TCRI. When TCRI’s strike force comes after him and the animals he was trying to turn into his mutant family, and he dies, leading the mutagen, aka OOZE falls on some turtles and a rat. Fast forward fifteen years, and we have our heroes Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michaelangelo, along with their father, Splinter (Jackie Chan). Our for turtles being teens, so very much want to see and be a part of the human world. Very much like Ariel in The Little Mermaid but much like her father, their father is like NOPE, humans are terrible and will hurt you, so we must hide in the sewer. He, of course, taught them how to be ninjas, yet here is a little lose on how he does this than every other interpretation. After running in with a teen girl named April O’Neal (Ayo Edebiri), they decide to help her find a criminal named Superfly, whose robbery spree might cause a curfew and stop their prom. The turtles want to save the prom so they can go to school.
One of the biggest takes talked about with this film/take is that the turtles feel more like teenagers, but I’ll get back to that, but actual teenagers voice them. Nicolas Cantu plays Leonardo, Micah Abbey plays Donatello, Brady Noon plays Raphael, Shamon Brown Jr. plays Michelangelo, and all four do a fantastic job with their voice performances here. I do like it when they just let them talk over each other since they do feel like current teens. The big bad Superfly, voiced perfectly by Ice Cube, does something different with the housefly-based mutant. The conflict of the film is different as well. See, this film is more about acceptance and family. The Turtles do want to be in the community. Superfly and his band of mutants do bad things after being poorly treated by humans. Can this be changed? Can mutants exist with humans, and can the turtles just be like any other teenager? It sounds very X-Men-esque in mentality, and it adds something new for us older Turtle fans and maybe something more relatable to newer kids, even ones that just were watching the Rise show. I don’t want to forget that the film looks amazing. I love how tactile the film is made to look. Not only is it clearly influenced the Spider-Verse films of just being different and kinetic action. It also has this feel of clay animated films, as the characters don’t look perfect. It feels like hands made these characters and are moving them around. This is a movie I loved looking at the whole time.
I have two real nitpicky criticisms of the movie. One – it has too much old rap music. Now I know everyone loved it that I saw it with. That raving, and I get the filmmakers’ idea of wrapping their nostalgia for the TMNT in this new one through music from the time when the TMNT was big the first time. Yet does that sound like what kids in N.Y.C. listening to now? I don’t think so, trill believers. I know because of streaming and YouTube, young folks can find and love older music, but YOU AIN’T GOT NO NY DRILL RAP IN THIS?! I know the lyrics are kind of wild, but not anymore wild than M.O.P.’s Anté Up, which is played twice in this. Like no Pop Smoke (R.I.P.), no Cardi, No Fivio, no Ice Spice, No A Boogie? No beats either? That doesn’t feel right to me. It seems like they are doing this 40-year-olds man. I want to kids to feel represented a bit more—some Sturdying in the movie. The characters talk like it and sound like it, but I don’t know why I was hearing No Diggity. Compare that with 1990 Turtles; while some of those acts didn’t last, it had that feeling. It feels like a time capsule. My second issue is the whole “They feel like actual teenagers” Sorry, but when looking at 1990 Turtles, those characters feel like teens who live in N.Y.C. in 1990. They actually don’t feel that different than the characters in Juice, who were also played by young actors. Tupac wasn’t even 20 when he filmed that. Being a teen at that time would probably feel like an adult to many kids these days. And the characters shift a bit in each one, even those huge turtles in Bay-produced ones. Being a teenager isn’t some fossilized thing. The world and the society at the time creates the youth and youth culture of those times. That’s another reason why TMNT always works like all teen-based stories. I did really like this film, those last two things took me out a bit. Still, since this is already spawning the next show and most likely another movie (along with tons of toys). I watch every single Ninja Turtle show (yes including the next mutation), I’m down for another take of my beloved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Score: B
