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Massawyrm Dusts Off The Katana And Goes Off On Another TURTLE Adventure!!
Hola all. Massawyrm here.
T-u-r-t-l-e POWER. T-u-r-t-l-e POWER. T-u-r-t-l-e POWER. Teenage. Mutant. Ninja. Turtles.
Look. I’m gonna lay this out as quickly and easily as I can for you folks. If you have no love for the turtles, if you can’t fathom why they should have made another movie, if you think the turtles were a cartoon that lost steam 20 years ago…then this movie absolutely, positively and unequivocally IS NOT for you. At all. You will miss nothing by skipping this film this weekend. Come on, there’s gotta be something good on cable. Really. I’ve got a enough friends who have seen this already that are looking at me sideways because they weren’t there for the turtles. And while most of them didn’t hate it, most of them didn’t care much for it either. And that’s cool. I get it. The turtles ain’t for everybody.
So you folks might want to call it quits on this review right now. Because you’re in the first two rows of a Gallagher show and you just might get splattered with nerd juice.
Because what if you liked the turtles? Or, what if you (looking both ways) LOVED the turtles? You know. Like Harry and I did. Alright, alright. Like Harry and I do. What if you read the old black and white comics? What if you devoured every episode of the cartoon? What if you mastered both the TMNT stand up game (as a photograph of me playing gracing my high school yearbook perfectly illustrates – thanks yearbook assholes, I would blame you for not getting laid senior year, but I’ll concede that it might have had something to do with shit like playing the TMNT video game) or the NES version (even getting past those fucking complete bitch of bomb diffusing levels)? What if you played the Palladium TMNT RPG and owned such great supplements as After the Bomb and Mutants Down Under? What if you spent hours arguing with your friends about just which mutant animal you would choose to turn into if you were soaked in radioactive waste? What then?
Then you, my dorky little soulmate, are about to have your ass blown off in a chuckle filled geekgasm. Because for fans of the turtles, this movie kicks all sorts of ass.
No, this isn’t a great movie. But it is a great Turtles movie and has just about everything us fans are gonna want from this kind of film. Rather than trying to kick-start the series off again by rebooting, this film exists in the exact same universe and continues in the continuity we’re all familiar with. We’re slowly reintroduced to the Turtles, to April, to Casey, to Splinter and then BAM! We’re off and running. Monsters are tearing apart New York City and it’s up to our sewer running little buddies to stop them.
No the plot’s not incredibly complex and this won’t win over any new adult fans – but it was made with two audiences in mind. Geeks already in love with the Turtles and their kids. If this film falls short of being everything I wanted, it’s that it is rated PG rather than PG-13. Apparently families don’t want to take their kids to PG-13 Movies. You know, movies like Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter. Shit like that. I know, I know, But this is animated! Still shoulda been PG-13. But the PG result makes for a family friendly film ready to blow the socks off of kids who do not yet know how awesome Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are. I know at least one of my childhood friends who can’t wait to take his son this weekend. Right before he pulls out his box of Turtle toys.
The animation is gorgeous, with character design borrowed very heavily from the angular look of the comic, and the fight scenes are incredible, including one in the rain that even the film’s harshest critics have conceded is pretty freaking cool. There’s enough subtle references to the various lines of TMNT media that die hard fans will feel right at home, but the film doesn’t really require much of a stretch to understand, so it’s accessible for the younger audiences.
I only have two real problems with the film. There are a few moments where the voices don’t synch up well with the animation – annoying, but it’s not that terrible. I’m just anal about that kind of thing. And they chose Sarah Michelle Geller to voice April O’Neil. A choice I understand but dislike on account of her being the Paul Walker of actresses. But if that’s what I have to sit through to hear the voice of Mako coming out of Master Splinter’s mouth, then fuck me in the ear with Gellerspeak all you fucking want. Cause this shit is minor compared to how right they got everything else.
It’s a hell of a fun time, and I enjoyed every minute. But I do have to give some credence to all the criticism this is getting. You have to bring plenty of love in with you to dig the hell out of this – because it’s not going to provide it for you. Highly Recommended for diehard turtle fans and kids. If you owned the toys, played the games or can properly identify which film Vanilla Ice performed the Turtle Rap – then you’re gonna dig this. But not even remotely recommended for anyone who has ever wondered what the big deal about these guys is.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
If you answered “Mutant Wolverine”, then you’re my kind of cat and should probably e-mail me here.
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Damn you Michael Bay
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Damn you Michael Bay
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Damn you Michael Bay
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FACT.
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Nicely done.
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One of the few levels in my life that I gave up in.... I got that "O.K" , then blown to bits every other time....then again I was only 4 or 5 :) ,
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It was the barricade level afterwards that I had trouble with. Never made it past there. There was one lvel in the sewer where you have to jump from platform to platform, but it was just too far away. I kept falling.
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...i feel that it matches my own, but comparing Sarah Michelle Gellar to Paul Walker makes you look stupid. Oh, and the reason the voices might not sync up well sometimes is because, originally, the film was animated to the voices of regular unknown voice-actors with the intention of using them all the way through, but the studio panicked a bit late in the game and insisted on some characters being re-voiced by famous people. Shame they couldn't have gone one way or the other but the film still looks awesome. Can't wait to see it.
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.....was a pain in the effin A.To this day i still cant do it. Great game though . Ninja, ninja RAP !!!!
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Dude, that "fuck me in the ear with all the Gellarspeak you fucking want" statement made me laugh so hard, my boss is kicking me off Ain't It Cool right now. And wasn't "Ninja Rap" from "Part II: The Secret of the Ooze"?
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Right on WolfmanNards! I totally had the bomb level down to a science too. Though, no matter how many times I played that level I could never get through that one tunnel that was packed to the brim with those electrified seaweed things without getting shocked a couple of times. But it was that damn Turtle van/barricade level. Lost too many hours to that overhead nightmare. Getting one of the turtles back if you found the right warehouse was kick ass though.
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Damn you for mentioning Palladium. Transdimensional TMNT was the greatest suppliment ever.
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If you didn't spend even a single weekend night in your friend's garage playing the TMNT role-playing until AT LEAST dawn the next day, I don't even think I want to know you.
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This is the best review I've read of the movie thus far, and am now stoked beyond all belief. Thanks Massawyrm!
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i remember eating some cereal before school and catching the tail end of one of the tv spots for the first time. i just remember it was the shot of michaelangelo doing the head-into-the-shell thing and screaming "i love being a turtle". I went to school and told all my friends, and they told me to "stop being gay" cuz they thought i was making it up. and now over 15 years later i get to prove them wrong for the fourth time. those 6-year-old bastards.
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I never often beat the bomb level, since I was always trying to not get shocked. The key turned out to be to get shocked tons, and just switch turtles like crazy. Arcade Game (now on X-Box Live!) dominated my birthday party, and even the overlooked Turtles 3 was good. Turtles in Time, of course, is maybe one of greatest games of all time.
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Damn the tortoise and damn its power. Blessed be the porpoise.
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...black and white comics. By the time the turtles made the big screen, they'd already been stupified by the kid's animated show, and I was too big to care how bad they'd become.
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COW-A-BUNGAAAAAA!!!!! Guess it's time to bust out my own box of Turtle toys, including my original Raph with the amputated arm from when I dropped them off a balcony with "grappling hook" strings tied on. And the Turtle van toy was hands down the coolest thing ever. The blimp kinda sucked because it was too hard to get the little plastic nubs into the glider and it was SO easy to put a hole in it. I guess what I'm trying to say is, HELL FUCKING YEA. I haven't been to the theater since Clerks 2, but this will DEFINITELY get me to trek an hour out to the AMC. On a weird side note, has anyone else seen the wacky Japanese anime Turtles shorts? With the super anime faeries that transform the Turtles into identical musclebound Superman-esque things? And then they all combine to form the SUPPAAAA SAINT TURTLE(!!!) to fight a 50 story Shredder after NYC gets flooded by a massive tidal wave? Yea, shit's trippy. There's a second one that I haven't had the guts to watch yet. OH, and Krang's voice is to DIE for. Check it out if you've got bittorrent. As a lover of all things Ninja and Turtle, I highly reccomend seeing it at least once.
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Now you've got me singing and dancing to "T-U-R-T-L-E POWER, T-U-R-T-L-E POWER..." Shit's gonna be stuck in my head for DAYS. =P
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It's great to hear this film really works for the fans of the series. Everything I've seen of it suggests it was made by people who know and love the franchise. In particular they have really nailed the characters, Leo going off on a spiritual journey, Raph becoming a loner vigilante and Don doing tech support. The only one I see as being a bit lame is Mikey, I can't see him wanting to do kids parties somehow...
And now I have to say it: Why the fuck couldn't the morons making the Transformers film be even half as faithful to the original series as these guys have been. You can tell when they made this new Turtles film there weren't any Michael Bay-types in the room eager to rape the designs and personalities of every cherished character. -
this is the kind of review i've been waiting to read. every other one it seems was saying how lame tmnt is. now, i am FUCKING STOKED!!! massawyrm, you rule.
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I used to practice the moves from the Turtle Rap. "Go Ninja, Go Ninja, GO!"
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pizza
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxigNvJxGn4
Who would have known they could have rocked so hard? -
"I know! The only safe thing in the woods... would be the trees!"
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Tell me you didn't pay money for this."
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but you've caused me enough trouble. Now you face... The Shredder!"
Donny: "The Shredder?"
Mikey: "Uh... maybe all that hardware's for making coleslaw?" Ok, I'm done. I think. I have the Coming Out of Their Shells Tour on VHS. Musta watched that 50 times as a kid, at least. *sigh* Oh, Turtles. -
I love the comics and I was crazy about the RPG. I even had a Wolverine in my crew. Myself I preferred the Puma. We combined the TMNT system with ninjas&superspies and heroesunlimited. Damn I miss those days...
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till the film opens in my country... All of my friends are laughing at me, but what do they kno! I can´t wait!
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