To me, this felt like the perfect Gen Z movie, and all the better it’s the turtles that can fulfill that role. Fast paced, led by kids, natural sounding and already exposed to more violence and adult themes due to their being chronically online. Plus the mid credits scene, which kids are used to seeing due to Marvel’s dogma.
While Across the Spider-verse may be a more cinematically stronger film than this, tbh I had a lot more fun watching this. Its was just a really enjoyable fun film for all ages & finally felt like a fresh TMNT take. The way they all talked over each other felt natural & in those moments there are some REALLY hysterical lines you may not catch since they're all talking. This is best chemistry Ive seen of the turtles (& yes I grew up with the og AND I really enjoyed the early-00s version). The score AND soundtrack both hit SO hard & will get many re-listenings
This film was a nice blend of different TMNT eras. From the original comics to the 80s show to the 2003 series. It felt like a great pastiche of all those iterations. The turtles feel like actual teenaged brothers and their camaraderie and friendship with April is the heartbeat of the film. The plot moves along at a brisk pace with an effective touch that satisfyingly builds to its conclusion in a way that evokes the heart of the movie. I’m a little disappointed about the separation between Splinter and the Turtles from Shredder in their origin, but I get it. The separation does allow this film to focus on other aspects beyond Shredder and allows them to build up to him later. But I do miss the Hamato Yoshi and Oroku Saki (Shredder) connection.
The movie is 99 minutes long. I do have to give them credit for that. Seems it succeeds at what it sets out to be and with a sequel already announced (with an upcoming TV show bridging the gap), I think I'll be having a good time.
I saw it last night and overall it was a good time. Felt a bit reference heavy at times, and the plot was simple, but I loved the visual style, animation and vibe. There are also a lot of blink and you'll miss it references. One of my favorites was during one fight when the turtles were fighting the camera panned along with them from left to right, and there was a fish tank that ended up between the turtles and the camera. One of the turtles threw one of the bad guys towards the camera which smashed into the fish tank and cracked the glass - a clear reference to the Turtles in Time arcade game where you could throw enemies at the screen and a similar crack would appear. Also the first time I've heard "rizz" used in a TV or movie. 7/10
I’m an older adult that hasn’t seen ANY TMNT prior movies or the TV show, so I wasn’t going to see this. But Dan’s review changed my mind, can’t wait for my first TNMT movie this weekend!
Everyone who's seen it say it's a blast! How will it do though at the Box Office with Barbenheimer? Hope its reported $70-80m production budget means it's able to turn a profit! Be great if it could make $200-250m worldwide.
I’m a huge fan of the 1987 animated series and the 1990 film. My son loves the 2012 TMNT Nickelodeon series. Which I also thought was well done. We both hated “Rise of the TMNT” series that just ended on Nickelodeon. And we didn’t like the Michael Bay adaptations. I feel like this might be a good mix of the 80s/90s TMNT and I see elements of the 2012 series. We will give it a shot. Hope it’s good.
Took the whole family plus kids from the neighborhood and we all LOVED it. Your totally right Dan, there were several young kids I am guessing 3yr old ish in our theater and they totally freaked out in the last battle scene. But (SPOLIER) when the good guys did there thang those kids cheered. This move has heart, is very witty and looks great on the big screen. Damn animated movies are winning big this year.
4:35 Only just noticed this due to the freezeframe, but how does Mikey have braces if they've never interacted with humans before? Is Splinter an orthodontist in this too?
Yeah, that's never explained. I assumed maybe it was Donnie but that doesn't really make much sense either. Just cuz you can "do machines" doesn't mean you can do dental work. I guess this is just one of those fridge logic moments that even some great movies have.
Dude as someone who is the same age as the turtles in the movie, THEY R SO ACCURATE. Like i can see so many people and acc know people at my hs who act like them. I never rlly paid attention to tmnt but this movie did teenagers perfectly. They perfectly captured the teen of rn
I was the perfect age of 8 back in 1990 when seeing the original film. Never thought I'd still be getting new TMNT going into my 40s. Thank you Dan, and, if I may, thank you Paul Reubens. RIP
As someone with ZERO history with the Turtles, based on the teenage appropriate voices and amazing animation I want to just jump right in with this one
As a 34yo man, I am looking forward to watching this with my siblings. I will mention, my favorite Turtles movie was actually Batman vs The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It was so much better than it had any right to be.
I love, love, loved it!!! Words cannot describe how pleasantly surprised and elated I was walking out of that theater. I'd had reservations about this film, because the last time the turtles got a cinema release, we got the cringey Michael Bay versions, but I am so happy that I was wrong to be worried. There were certainly a few things here I wasn't thrilled with, but they were vastly overshadowed by all the fun and heart and enjoyment I was having watching it. I felt like I was a kid just discovering them again for the first time, I swear I was practically in tears from joyous nostalgia by the end, lol. TMNT is my personal favorite franchise, and I am so beyond glad that it's still going strong!
I get people comparing this movie to Spiderverse, but I find it to be closer to Mitchell's vs. the Machines, which makes huge sense because the writer/director directed this film.
I still have one of my OG Turtles figures too. Also still have the staff I used when I dressed up as Donatello during Halloween when the first season aired (my mom DIY made the costume lol)
Haven't seen it yet, but I can already really appreciate how the film actually has a vision for what it wanted to do and how to get it across. Just reminds me about the previous attempts with the Bay produced duology and how the first film was so caught up in making this "bad ass" take where they are hulking brutes who are bulletproof going against a transfomers-esque take on Shredder along with dumping the focus on April instead of the turtles and how the second film was trying to amend all that by trying to get into the silly spirit more and bringing the focus back to the turles, but proving too little, too late at that point. Glad to see this one knows what it has in mind rather than trying to focus on what they think would be the type that is suited to what they think a blockbuster audience wants.
Whenever a new Turtles project drops, people bring up the original comics run as being dark and gritty. But all the issues I’ve read are pure action, adventure, sci-fi wackiness. Sure, they’re black and white, but they’re pretty cartoon-y. Great review though, has me really looking forward to this movie.
38 year old inner kid here! Bloody LOVED Turtles. They were the biggest craze when I was a kid. Even more than Transformers. Would 100% recommend the graphic novel ‘The Last Ronin’. It hits hard. Think they are making a game based on that.
This movie had more product placement than I have seen in any animated film. It was comparable to the product placement in the Transformers movies, imo. My kids wanted to buy Doritos after watching this film. 😂
Movie was so much fun! One of the few films I’ve seen this year with a competent screenplay, all characters had a purpose, desires, conflicts, and a resolution that made sense. I hope the film does well because I’d love to se a sequel!
This is the review I was waiting for. I have no idea why Jeremy Jahns hated the movie, also considering that Dan is a fan of TMNT I don’t think people can use “Jeremy is a real fan of TMNT” as an excuse why it’s “bad”
Jeremy used to be a critic that I was pretty commonly in lockstep with, but over the last few years I'm finding that we started to disagree a lot on major releases. Nothing wrong with that, just something I've noticed, that trend continued with this one. I loved this movie.
@@andothersuchnonsense2685yeah it’s weird cause I feel like Chris Stuckman used to be harsher on movie reviews 8-9 years ago and Jeremy was the easygoing one but now it feels like Jeremy nitpicks movies to death. He conveniently didn’t bring up them changing April O’Neil’s race but did complain about them changing two villains into women….
This is honestly like the 4th generation of kids, there’s the kids in the late 80s early 90s with the 87 shows, folks like me who was born in 2000 who watched the 2k3 show on tv, kids who were young during the 2012 and rise series and this one. Turtles turns 40 next year, that is a feat all in its own
Obviously Marvel and DC heroes and Barbie as brands are up there too, but yeah, since they came out every generation of kids has grown up with their own iterations of turtles, power rangers, and Pokémon. It’s actually really cool to see, especially considering TMNTs origins
I really enjoyed this interpretation of the turtles. It was a ton of fun and their chemistry in the film was fantastic. I really hope they get a sequel.
Wow this was not on my radar at all. When I saw the title of the movie, I rolled my eyes because every TMNT movie has been trash so far. But this one looks like it actually might not be! Love the great animation and the idea of using young voice actors. I think I might have to take the kids out for this one.
I'm glad the movie is good. But conversation around some movies revolve around the "awful character of the actors" and some don't and I really don't know why. Jackie Chan is an awful human being and Ice Cube is not far behind. It is sooo weird that some people are cancelled and some just escape and nothing happens. Nothing against the movie, just an observation.
If we started framing every movie through the lens of everything that every actor has said or done off camera, we wouldn't be talking very much about the movies.
The movie came out in Ireland on Monday and i jave to say, other than the great art direction and animation, i found the narrative and characters to be absolutely middling. But not in an irritating way, or some other kind of bad faith way; i just think the film played it so safe and boring that it felt like it didnt do anything at all. Of all the turtle adaptations theres nothing it hs to leave its mark other than the great casting. Heck, there was a group of 4 little boys of about 8-11 year olds behind me, and ither than laughing at the lowest hanging fruit, they never exclaimed with awe or excitement that ive heard kids have for other films. The lore also felt mediocre and fucking weird. Them using media to kearn ninjutsu is some of the wackest lore in the framchise. If so, where did they get the weapons? Although, making Splinter have predisposed human hate from his time as a rat was smart, just wish the message was more cohesive.
Excuse me sir but you can not be accurate that they are on their third generation of influencing kids, because I was a kid when they first came out and 1990 was only 10 years ago 👀😆 👵 That being said I'm glad to hear that it's a good watch, I think it will take a bit for my brain to wrap around the art style (it was the same with the spiderverse movie initially) - but I look forward to seeing this.
Also, the teenager thing is amusing just because when you take into account the dangerous stuff they do and take on on a regular basis, I suppose you don't want to think about ACTUAL teens doing it, so they are usually in the older teen realm enough to be convincingly played by adults. Should be interesting too since that means there is potential for this version to later drop the Teenage part and just call them the Mutant Ninja Turles.
#TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles was fucking great. I took my nephews and they we're raving about it afterwards. Ive never seen that kind of reaction out of the theater.
Ill give it a shot. I'm just worried it might not do good. For no fault of its own, it's just my concern on the film. It might get lost in the Barbenheimer craze.
Saw this on wensday with some friends and we loved it. Seeing some of our fav characters from back in the day really got us. We loved the change for Mondo
Hey Dan, was wondering if you’ve thought about adjusting your lighting setup at all? The shadow from the brim of your hat tends to cover the top third of you face, often when you tilt down a little bit.
Loved this movie! It was so fun. Would be interesting to see the charts comparisons for all the past TMNT movies vs the overall performance of this one.
I plan on giving turtles a shot this weekend. I don’t know when I’m gonna go, but I’m definitely gonna give it a shot. Been a long time fan since the original toy lion and cartoon series. Enjoyed most of the iterations. I didn’t finish the turtle rise cartoon but I thought it was an OK first episode. My least favorite turtles movie is the third live action movie. It had really good animatronics, but the story was definitely lacking.
I won't be watching. Even though I am the same age as Dan and my friends were all obsessed with TMNT too, and I watched the occasional cartoon and attempted one or two movies, I just never got it. Definitely not a franchise for me and I can't imagine that this new film will change my mind. That said - the animation looks absolutely INCREDIBLE!!! I would give it 5 stars on the animation alone having only seen the trailers.
I grew up with the 80s cartoon and it’s been cool to see how the franchise keeps going in one form or another to this day. That said, I would like to see the Last Ronin story line properly adapted into a film or series.
I was pretty hesitant to check this out, even as a huge Turtles fan, none of the trailers excited me nor am I a fan of Seth Rogen's brand of comedy. I suppose if he's genuinely a fan then the obnoxious nature I find in his starred movies isn't present. Your review kind of sold me to at least give it a chance.
They capture the dynamics between the brothers perfectly, felt realistically like a family. Also think the humour was really well done and didn't patronise or play up to adults. Obviously the animation was fantastic but the soundtrack also was so good? All round just had such a good time with this movie, and i'll be glad to see more of it
Crazy how everyone saw it yesterday when it said only in theaters August 2nd. What happened to that lol, said that in the trailer and ended up playing most places a day earlier anyways.
It's pretty funny that Joy Ride made a funny joke about Splitter being a really good father, but then this movie cast famous shitty father Jackie Chan in the role. I guess there were literally no other Asian (definitely not Japanese) actors available, so they got the Chinese government supporting, homophobic, guy who abandoned the child he had from an affair. Which is unfortunate since this otherwise seems like a fun movie.
