TMNT: Mutant Mayhem

[BentonGrey]

Yesterday I watched the recent (2023) TMNT: Mutant Mayhem movie on our flight home from Birmignham.  Like most FR folks my age, I grew up firmly in the grip of Turtlemania and I was a huge Ninja Turtles fan as a kid.  I remain a fan of the characters and will always have a soft spot for the insane and imaginative original cartoon.  As usual, I'm more than a bit of a purist, so I have a hard time with things that differ from interpretations that I love.

From the trailers of the new movie, I was prepared for a film that was not to my taste.  From the stunt voice casting (Seth Rogan? No thanks), to the rap/hip-hop score, to the modern aesthetics, I figured this wasn't really a film for me.  Oh boy, was I right.  Yet, it's a bit of a strange animal.  This is a movie that is objectively well-made and, on its own terms, fairly good.  It just happens to be good at things that I actively dislike and in a fashion that grates like fingernails on a chalkboard. 

The movie is unquestionably tremendously stylish, with a unique and memorable visual, pseudo-claymation design that is reminiscent of Kubo and the Two Strings.  It feels genuinely imaginative and fully realized in that style.  Unfortunately, within said style, there is a continuation of the modern design philosophy of Turtles media.  The toys and media I grew up with had a radical, very 80s, rule-of-cool vibe, where everything was designed to feel "awesome," even when gross (especially when gross; only TMNT could make living in the sewers seem cool).  The modern designs lean much more into silly and grotesque designs, and I constantly find myself both repulsed and annoyed at such reimaginings of characters that I love.  This movie features a ton of my favorite characters, even a bunch of the Mighty Mutanimals...but they are all very goofy and quite hideous versions thereof, resembling those favorite characters in nothing but name.

The Turtles themselves are, to the credit of the film, recognizable as their archetypal selves.  Nobody feels radically wrong, but they, and the film itself, are reimagined in modern hip-hop style, which I abhor, both musically and culturally.  I recognize that this is almost certainly much more true to youth culture these days than the rocker/surfer vibe of the original cartoon, but this does not reconcile me to this aesthetic.  I realize that I'm just an old man yelling at the "darn kids" to "get off my lawn," and I suppose this was always my fate.

Despite these elements that were distasteful to me, the plot is entertaining, there is decent heart, and it is often genuinely funny.  Everything is well done, from writing, to animation, to action.  That's a bit of a shame to me, actually, as I imagine this approach to the characters will now become the dominant for the foreseeable future.

The treatment of my favorite characters makes me all the more eager to work on my Saturday Morning Adventures mod. 

[Panther_Gunn]

Far be it for me to call out a fellow curmudgeon, but I think I actually liked a new thing more than BG for once.

Qualifiers:  When the original cartoon came out, I was admittedly past the target demographic.  I was tangentially familiar with the comics, but I had never read any.  What little I did see of the series did shape my view & opinion on the material.  It wasn't something I was going to get into, but I didn't hate it (as opposed to Power Rangers).  The arcade game was cool, the first movie was a product of it's time, but it wasn't horrible (see:  Super Mario Brothers).

Went to see it with the minion & two younger brothers-in-law, who were *deep* into the fandom & collecting.  The minion really liked it, the BILs were fine with it, probably realizing that the IP had evolved a couple of times along the way.  I didn't hate it like I thought I would from the trailers.  The characterization of the turtles personalities felt more like barely pre-teen than teenager, April wasn't really April, Splinter wasn't Splinter, etc.  However, if you're going to change Splinter, you could do worse than to have Jackie Chan voice him (and did I catch a scene or two from a Drunken Master movie in the training montage?).

In the end, I was fine with it, even the animation style didn't actively annoy me by the end, though I did catch instances of scenes potentially set up for 3D exploitation.  I did at least like the style more than the 2018 series.  I'm willing to watch it again, just with more of a feeling of it being somewhere else in the Turtle multiverse than our boys of cowabunga.   At least they're not aliens this time.

[BentonGrey]

Haha, come on, PG, what are you doing to me?  Us curmudgeons have got to stick together! 

Naw, I'm glad that you enjoyed it to a degree.  I'm sure not having the classic cartoon as a baseline makes that easier.