As a long-time fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it's disappointing to see how poorly the franchise has been treated in recent years. While the Turtles have enjoyed success in various mediums, including cartoons, comics, and video games, it's been a long time since we've seen a proper movie adaptation that does justice to the characters and their world. The last TMNT movie, released in 2014, was a CGI-heavy mess that failed to capture the spirit of the original comics and cartoons. The Turtles themselves looked more like grotesque monsters than the heroes we know and love, and the story was a convoluted mess that lacked the heart and humor of the source material nor the original movies from the 90’s.
It's time for a change. With the popularity of superhero movies at an all-time high, there's never been a better time to give the Turtles the big-screen treatment they deserve. What we need is a movie that captures the essence of the TMNT franchise: the humor, the action, and the heart. First and foremost, the Turtles themselves need to look and feel like the characters we know from the comics and cartoons. While there's certainly room for creative interpretation, the Turtles should be instantly recognizable as Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael. After the dissapointing live action movies we got back in the 2010’s. This Into-the-Spider-Verse apporach to the animation of the new movie “Teenage Mutant Ninija Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” may be the way to go. The casting of actual teenagers to voice the characters may be an obvious stroke of genius.
Hopefully, the movie strikes the right balance between humor and action. The Turtles are known for their witty one-liners and playful banter, but they're also skilled fighters who can hold their own in a brawl. A good TMNT movie needs to capture both sides of the characters, giving us plenty of laughs while also delivering exciting fight scenes that showcase the Turtles' skills. The previous 2007 TMNT movie was riding the cheap-version of clean CGI animation and didn’t work. Mikey was still a stereotypical surfer-dude voice, and dimwitted. Donny was the computer-wiz genoious who never solved anything. Raph was the hot head brute that was obsessed with hating Leo for some reason, and Leo was the leader that offered no tactical commands, he just stayed out front. It was a waste.
The Michael Bay turtles were a little too horny. The action was cool enough but the turtles were just so ugly it was hard to watch. It’s also painfully obvious that they monkied-up the casting of Shredder to save themselves from the backlash of White-washing the character. There are so few popular American made Japanese characters in media that the Oroku Saki character becoming Eric Sacks was not a wise choice. It wasn’t broke so don’t fix it.
Any-who, the new movie has some nice potential, I was hesitant about the look, but ultimately it needs to be for kids. I know that Eastman and Laird made a more mature comic-book. But the franchise ultimately works better for the child to adolescents demographic.
Let’s hope it works out. If not, just wait another year and we will get yet another interpretation of the Turtles.
