The trailers kind of put me off as the animation looked extremely buggy and/or looked like it was trying to rip off Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. While it does take some time getting used to (it often resembles an animated storyboard), overall, the animation isn’t bad. At least it has personality, which is more than I can say for TMNT, the last animated feature-length reboot of the franchise. (Even if it’s only marginally better than that film.) In fact, I really dug the way the Turtles were introduced here as they are seen in their original white eyed comic book form. Sadly, it just winds up just being a daydream. I kind of wished they looked like that the entire time, but oh well.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are living in the sewers out of sight of the humans. They meet teenaged April O’Neil who wants to do a story on them for her school paper. To make the story as big as possible, the Turtles try to get to the bottom of a series of thefts involving radioactive material. They soon learn the villain behind the robberies is a mutant bug named Superfly (Ice Cube) who plans on turning every animal on Earth into a mutant.
The casting of Jackie Chan as Master Splinter was inspired, although he’s more of a shellshocked (no pun intended) cranky old man than a Kung Fu master. Likewise, changing April to a nerdy high schooler was an odd choice. Some of the other updates are a bit questionable too (did Bebop really need nipple rings?), but at least the core four Turtles’ personalities are mostly the same. (Although Donatello sounds like a little girl.)
The original comics, the first live-action movie, and the Michael Bay-produced Turtle flicks had somewhat of an edge to them. This one is aimed squarely at kids, which is fine, I guess. They probably won’t mind that the villain’s plot is just a twist on the first X-Men movie or that nearly every damn needle drop is a rap song. Although there are some fun in-jokes for fans, there’s nothing really laugh out loud funny here. As an introduction to a new generation of fans, Mutant Mayhem works. As entertainment for anyone over the age of eight, it misses the mark.
as someone in my 30s I have to disagree that this one is just for kids, I found it pretty engaging overall and sure the villains motive is cliched but Ice Cube gave him enough personality that I didn't mind. I'm very interested to see what they're take on the Shredder is like, i'm personally big into hip-hop music so I didn't mind the soundtrack(and considering the live-action movies had hip-hop as well it's pretty fitting).
ReplyDeleteApril being a high-schooler isn't really that odd considering she was already one in the last two animated TV series(TMNT 2012 and Rise of the TMNT both on Nickelodeon).
I thought TMNT 2007 film was pretty decent overall.