Rewatching My 3 Least Favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movies & Why My Minds Changed

you've heard me gush over the Ninja Turtle movies I love but now it's time for me to shred a couple of them this is honestly a first for me I have never bought a Halloween mask that was actually too big for my head this this is a miracle look at that you know how hard I struggle every time I put on a Halloween mask I got a big melon But continuing on here with the hype train for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem in my previous video I gushed over the first three live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies the ones I most watched as a child and now it's time for me to dive into the next generation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies the ones I was actually very harsh on the first time I saw each one of these but don't let this oversized Shredder masking costume fool you well I am gonna be extremely honest and critical about my opinion of these three movies I have grown up as a turtle fan and I've come to actually really appreciate these three films more than I did the first time I watched each one of them I'm not gonna lie I was a pretty stubborn kid when these movies were being marketed and released I only saw the 90s Turtles as the only turtles that should exist and since these three movies weren't really exactly resembling the feel of the 90s Turtles I rejected them so quickly but the thing I've kind of grown to understand about the Ninja Turtles is that because they are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles there will always be a different Turtle for every generation I feel like that's the best way we can explain why we've had now countless iterations of the Ninja Turtles on screen whether that be on TV or in movies when re-watching these movies these were a really big reflection of what was popular at the time for teenagers in that era or at least what some filmmakers thought were popular for teenagers in that time and even if I didn't exactly love what was being handed to me I knew within five to six years there would be another new iteration of the turtles to reflect the Next Generation and maybe that'll be the one I can more connect with so now kind of having that mindset that maybe these Turtles weren't my turtles but these films are probably responsible for making a lot of turtle fans back in the day as well as maybe even a couple of stubborn turtle fans like I was who only see the Michael Bay ones as the definitive Turtles and these mutant Mayhem looking mofos do not compare at all whatever the case may be let's go ahead and hit play on these three Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies starting off with a 2007 film titled TMNT foreign take on the Ninja Turtles I think is one of the most interesting for a couple of reasons not only is it the first animated movie theatrically that we would get for the Ninja Turtles it would also be the first theatrically released movie in 14 years and you would think with that much time they would just go ahead and do something completely new and fresh but this movie is holding on to the Past there's a strong argument to be made in here that TMNT is technically Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4 connected to the 90s live action movies because not only do they keep the designs pretty similar to what we saw in the live action films there's also some big Easter eggs towards the end of the film that connect the adventures that we saw in those films to this one from the same style Shredder mask the tcri can even the time traveling antique from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3. there's also even a couple of things in here of Adventures we never got to see like a couple of Mouser drones and honestly what missed potential to just have that as a background Easter egg when those mousers and the connection to them preferably with Baxter Stockman should have been the focus of this movie but instead of looking at the long library of iconic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle villains TMNT makes the same mistake that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 did and give us a brand new original villain that we've never seen before we'll look more into that villain in a sec here but getting back to this movie not wanting to let go of the past this film instead of being treated as a new entry in a brand new story for the turtles it really feels like it is almost dependent that you have seen a lot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle content in the past for you to kind of enjoy the things that they're trying to present in here like by the start of the movie the turtles have all kind of gone their separate ways and aren't even a unified team Leonardo my favorite Turtle has been sent to a rainforest in a foreign country by Splinter so that he could learn to become a better leader while Donatello has been at home working a couple of tech jobs from the sewer Michelangelo essentially becoming the equivalent of a clown out a kids party and Rafael not wanting to give up the crime-fighting lifestyle creates an alter ego the night watcher a vigilante that takes down criminals in a pretty harsh Manner and again first time watching this movie I hated all these ideas I didn't understand why they were doing this I thought this was so different and wildly removed but now watching it all these years later and keeping in mind in my own head Canon that this is technically connected to the original Three movies I actually like those ideas they're trying to explore in here I think it's a terrible decision to make some new turtle fans because it even makes you wonder how long have they been doing this and are they still even teenagers could they honestly be 19 20 years old by now because it's quite possible these Turtles could have been crime fighting for a long time now it's honestly the same kind of feeling I got where the first Scooby-Doo movie is the gang already splitting up and you're like wait we just got here in the first movie what do you mean you guys are already breaking up April and Casey Jones are included in here which is always nice to see as a turtle fan and I think April is really pushed off to the aside for the majority of this movie and Casey voiced by Chris Evans I'm not trying to tell you what to do I'm just saying that if it was my brother I'd find a way to work it out was given kind of a substantial role in this movie there's some great back and forth stuff with him talking to Raphael and wanting to look after him it honestly made Casey Jones look more like a character than just the meat head wanting to beat people up Winters the kind of villain of this movie an immortal being that's set up as the bad guy of the film when he's honestly just trying to die peacefully and that for sure to me has to be one of the weakest elements of this entire movie this 13B structure might have allowed for some interesting fights within the turtles themselves but again just knowing how many great villains they have that they've never used in the movies up until this point it just feels like a major waste even more disappointing when like the real villains of the movie turn out to be the henchmen of the bad guy it's like a good subvertion of expectations but again a letdown in the villain department but with all those things kind of down I want to talk about the redeeming stuff in TMNT that makes me look at this film completely different than I did when I first saw it don't do this rap taken orders by far the most interesting aspect of TMNT is the dynamic between Leonardo and Rafael I've mentioned as you watch a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie it's just commonplace that you have Leonardo always budding with his brother in this movie it becomes a central plot Point here where Leonardo is trying to stop this night watcher vigilante that he does not realize is his brother Raphael and it leads to some of the most compelling interesting TMNT stuff that we've ever seen and you know the writers cared so much about this specific subplot in the movie because although the animation throughout the film isn't that great sometimes it looks extremely outdated and like an animated movie you'd probably pick up at a dollar store nowadays when it comes to the scene between Leonardo and the night watcher AKA Raphael they put all the animation budget into that scene because wow does it look amazing so throughout the movie while all this tension is bubbling up and leading to the big Leonardo and Raphael fight I love the way they set it up here the fact that Leo fights his brother without knowing that it is his brother in the costume and ends up beating him I think is such a big win for the character because maybe I have a bias as a Leonardo fan but I do think Leo could essentially beat Rafael in a fight but he needs to know he's not fighting his brother if Leo knew that was his brother under the mask he would hold back he would not do the finishing blow which is exactly why things shift in the fight once Leo finds out it is his brother under the mask and even though his brother is not holding back Leo is and it causes him to lose the fight like really that was stuff I just didn't appreciate the first time watching TMNT and now it is by far like one of my favorite moments in the entire TMNT franchise even more heartbreaking that Leo gets captured immediately after the fight and Raphael is still wanting to go save his brother again the only criticisms I honestly have about this whole city situation is I felt like this is something that should have been built up this should have been like the second or third movie in this franchise but as the Leonardo and Raphael subplot come to an end the rest of the movie just kind of Teeters off for me I don't have that much interest or attachment to what else is going on but I would have been curious to see this franchise continue and the rumored plans for the next two movies we're gonna have each film focus on a different Turtle so this movie was very much Leo and Raphael's film and I think it does succeed in that aspect the next film was going to be about Michelangelo feeling like a joke member of the group where his brothers didn't appreciate him to where Michelangelo was gonna join the Foot Clan and that I think again would have been Peak storytelling even if it was treated as a subplot again like it was in TMNT I think I would have loved to have seen that while the third film would have been about Donatello going a little too far with his intelligence where he was going to be responsible for bringing Crane and a techno drone to the planet and maybe that would have been nice to see but even just with this one movie I really appreciate it now for kind of getting that Leo and Raphael fight that I think a lot of us have always wanted to see [Music] [Applause] the 2014 iteration of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles let me tell you guys it was kind of wild see this movie come together and eventually end up in theaters I've said this before way back before I even had this YouTube channel I was still a little nerd on the internet Googling movies I was excited about and reading every little update I could and growing up as a turtle fan hearing that there's going to be a big budget CG Ninja Turtles movie coming up oh I was on the internet like crazy first it was the announcement that it would be Michael Bay producing these movies and well he already kind of had a reputation for what he had done to the Transformers franchise but we thought okay he's a producer it's not like these movies are gonna look like an exact carbon copy of everything he does in his Transformer films you know it's not gonna have that dirty grimy oversaturated look lens flares about maybe even like a Megan Fox or something like that thrown in there inappropriate jokes for a children's movie but I can feel my shell tightening we can hear you I do not believe this man directed this movie I have to believe Michael Bay was on set every day because these look exactly like what the Transformer films did but way before the Sonic the Hedgehog days where fans got one look at the blue porcupine and said change that right now or we're not watching the movie and it actually worked that happened about four or five times in the production of this movie before it got released I'm not talking about with the design of the turtles no we're gonna hold off on that for just right now first the movie wasn't even going to be called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles he wanted to call it Ninja Turtles which you know what I don't think would have been that bad of a move Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle is kind of a handful I'm fully expecting will eventually get a Ninja Turtle movie that's just called Ninja Turtle but still fans didn't like that so they changed it back to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the Next shock heard around the world is Michael Bay making this announcement when you see this movie kids are going to believe one day that these turtle girls actually do exist when we are done with this movie these Turtles are from an alien race and they are going to be tough edgy funny and completely lovable the turtles were gonna be aliens okay they were gonna be from an alternate species a different planet crash landed on Earth why I remember seeing that video and just losing my mind but again the turtle fans were strong voiced their backlash on this and they changed it for the movie they are no longer aliens in this film they're still regular turtles that got hit with an alien liquid which I actually don't mind that at all that sounds fine but I think it would have been so wild to think that there's a planet a species of people that look just like the Ninja Turtles and you know the movies were eventually going to lead us into going to that planet that's two things down fans change the title and fans change the origin of the turtles for this movie the third thing Shredder oh there were leaks and rumors swirling around the internet once this film started getting completed once maybe it was starting to test with audiences that uh Shredder in here was not only not going to be played by an Asian actor but it would be treated as a secret reveal through the character of Eric sacks played by William fichner here and watching the movie knowing that he was supposed to be revealed as Shredder the entire time in the film all the clues are there for it I was born in Japan on a military base in Okinawa I was a powerless and Hopeless Boy until a local Sensei took me under his wing and yeah if that turned out to be the case I would have absolutely hated this idea and it looks like they were too far down the rabbit hole to make it such a big change because they do give us a shredder in this movie that's mainly in the shadows with a bald head and some scars on his face but he's very much treated like a background side character and that's not really how you should handle a big bad like Shredder but it was just so then they wouldn't have to reveal this white dude to Shredder in a mechanical Iron Man suit so yeah by the time we got to the reveal trailer and the world actually got to see what these Ninja Turtles look like for the first time and that caused extreme backlash the studio was like we already changed three things for these fans now they're getting really picky and now kind of focusing in on a project as a whole I am happy if these are the turtles that made you a fan of the Ninja Turtles but this was such a tough watch back when it came out for me but what kind of surprised me the most about this movie is that this would be kind of the first Ninja Turtle film where the Ninja Turtles aren't really the main characters watching this movie April O'Neil Megan Fox is the main character of the movie and we see the entirety of this film kind of play out through her POV but as far as how Megan Fox's performance goes in this movie I wouldn't say there's anything really wrong I just think her character does come off so frantic crazy and wild she doesn't always fit the energy of everyone else around her which is what kind of made me love her roommate in the movie because it felt like she was the audience looking in on her character vigilante I saw him I saw them I saw them and I've known them mom I want to move back home Will Arnett Place her cameraman kind of a dork that is trying his best to raise up Megan Fox and of course that's not gonna work it doesn't matter if your Lego Batman will Arnette and for the first 20 minutes of the movie The Turtles are only seen in the shadows lurking about we don't get our full fully fledged interactive look at the turtles until 21 minutes in I think that's kind of crazy when the original film was able to include the Turtles within the first five minutes but I think that is one of the major downsides of this movie in making the turtles fully CGI characters every second they're on screen they're pretty expensive to produce and that's not me commenting on oh they should just always be men in costumes I understand we gotta move past that and even when we get to the next live-action Ninja Turtle movie I know it's not going to be men in costumes but I do kind of Hope For Better designs because I remember watching the trailer for the first time in this scene with April interacting with Mikey and I lost my lid I could not believe this is the design choice for the turtles I found them to be hulking creatures too gigantic the over cluttering of accessories they get like specifically for Leonardo my favorite Turtle this little like bracket of little bamboo sticks in front of them don't exactly love it especially since these gigantic bulletproof turtles do not need any sort of armor on them I think this is the first iteration that also gave us Raphael with a do-rag cursing him with the red do-rag for almost every iteration from here on out Donnie will always end up being the busiest looking character because he's the tech head he just has to have tons of different Tech pieces on him but yeah giving the turtles lips and these nose nostrils misshapen heads I did not love this look when it was first revealed but now in re-watching these movies and kind of settling with designs for a while I've gotten used to them and I don't mind them as much especially hearing how much backlash the designer of these Turtles got over the years he specifically responded to someone who post posted a redesign of his turtles that yeah I'm not gonna lie does look a million times better but he responded with saying well time to relive this time in my life over again people and for real accuse me of our wording their childhoods because of the designs nowadays this would have been Sonic so fast it would have blasted me into an alternate Dimension so I do feel bad the designer had to go through with that and have a bunch of us nerds complaining like this when again this is just a different iteration of the turtles I maybe understand what they were trying to go for here these are mutant creatures if you're a mutated being that's trying to become humanoid maybe it's not going to end up looking so pretty and perfect and that's what he was trying to convey here and now that I've kind of been trashing on the movie for a big part I do want to mention the things I've kind of grown to like about it I still think the dynamic between all four turtles is great I think all of them fit the voice roll really well I know it's kind of odd to think Johnny Knoxville would ever voice Leonardo but as far as their personalities and characteristic traits go they they nailed it I also do definitely want to praise the CGI and effects of these turtles because I don't know what's happened in Hollywood lately maybe it's because we get 10 to 20 superhero films a year that all the VFX artists in Hollywood's are too strained they can't make every project look perfect but back in 2014 where we would get a heavy CGI film maybe three or four times a year they had all the time in the world to make these films look really good and yeah I feel like the effects really hold up and actually look better than some of the modern effects we see here today I was also a big fan of their sewer layer it's very big and customized to their personalities which is always what you kind of want from their home I don't know if this is a negative or a positive but Splinter kind of always creeped the hell out of me this is probably the deadliest Splinter we've ever seen on screen one that would be very capable of fighting off of clan members but every time he uses his dang tail it feels like a horror movie character to me and heck even though I don't love Shredder having to be inside inside this like mechanical suit just so he can withstand up against the turtles because this film decided to make the turtles such Unstoppable hulking creatures no human person could realistically fight them because if just one of these gigantic creatures went up against a human they would definitely kill them which is why the movie needed to create this like overpowered suit for Shredder to be in just so he could stand a chance against these giant turtles so yeah even though it doesn't really feel in line with shredder it was kind of badass to look at and see those fight scenes I'm not gonna lie I guess kind of associating off from there not a big fan of the Foot Clan in this movie I think the Foot Clan getting guns as opposed to ninja style weapons is a major mistake feels like it completely goes against the whole point of Shredder and being this martial arts expert that uses hand-to-hand combat to throw down his enemies purposely having a group of soldiers that just used guns I feel is kind of boring even more so when the turtles are bulletproof and they can just fire the bullets back but I felt like this movie was really trying to insult the whole martial arts aspect of the turtles in here because I still couldn't believe they learned martial arts from a book look books are very important things you can learn a lot from them but I think learning Ninjutsu cannot be the easiest thing to learn from a book that to me had to have been my biggest eye roll when I first saw this film I kind of hate this origin story for how the turtles learn Ninjutsu and in speaking of their origin another major eye roll having April be such a connecting Factor where April had the turtles as pets I'm like okay fine I guess we can connect them that far but then to connect it even further where April's also connected to the villain of the film and sax was the one who murdered her father it just feels extremely convoluted but again coming back to it here I don't hate this movie as much as I did the first time I saw it I could definitely see why kids growing up watching this iteration would want to know more about the turtles and want to be friends with them because they are a lot of fun to hang out with all their personalities are intact and even if it wasn't perfect it was a refreshing different take on the turtles the high energy and expensive look to it will also definitely be a big factor in making this so entertaining to watch so while probably still one of my least favorite Ninja Turtle movies I can now watch this movie without getting mad oh actually last thing before we move on to the next movie the song with this movie went a long way for me back then I'll hold them down forever the sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Out of the Shadows it feels like they were really trying to learn their lesson from the first film and do as much as they could to appease the turtle fans for this one I feel like in a weird way this movie takes a lot of inspiration from Secret of the use in where it's a sequel to a movie that was maybe a lot more darker a lot more serious and this film is trying just to have fun with the turtles trying to show you a good time maybe the story's not gonna be all that great but uh you're gonna maybe be smiling as a turtle fan with everything you get thrown in here because there is a lot of fan service and I actually really like this movie I think a lot of it is because the first film did all the heavy lifting and telling the origin connecting these characters setting them up giving us a feel of this new world that now we could just dive into a new turtle story with these dudes and I think the opening sequence of them going to watch a basketball game reintroducing the turtles one by one it starts to feel like this movie is just going to be fun I want to focus in on though on some of the major changes they made for this sequel that I thought made it go a long way for me as a fan for one they changed the voice actor of Leonardo it's no longer Johnny Knoxville which I don't mind all that much but it definitely feels like a more serious Stern leader which I do appreciate April O'Neal is no longer treated as the main character from the get-go you know the turtles are the main characters here and they're given a lot more screen time they also definitely try to retcon and re-establish Shredder as the big threat of the movie even if they gave us a major downgrade in his suit this thing looks kind of goofy in no way if this Shredder tried fighting the turtles again would he ever stand 30 seconds with them the way he did in the first move it's also a film that takes full advantage of some iconic Ninja Turtle villains and puts them front and center Tyler Perry as Baxter Stockman goofy nonsensical cartoonish man but I like the fact we finally got Baxter Stockman in one of these movies Casey Jones played by Stephen Amell I think is actually one of my favorite Parts in this movie I kind of like how they rearranged his origin in making him a wannabe police officer but it was also nice that they could include Casey Jones without having to get rid of Will Arnett because although he's not a traditional turdy character his role in here is kind of funny he gets all the credit for the saving that the turtles did in the first film and becomes this city celebrity unnecessary maybe but made me laugh throughout the film and another gigantic positive for me that I thought was actually an interesting part of this movie is the moral dilemma the turtle's face in here from the beginning of the film it's established that they're getting kind of lonely down in the sewers and they really just want to live above ground Donatello eventually discovers a serum that could potentially turn them human and completely change the lives of the turtles here and I I thought this was such a great thing to introduce in the film and added some actual internal conflict for the turtles even within the team because Leonardo sees it as something they shouldn't mess with and I felt like this film also did a good job of showing how Leo even though he's the Boy Scout could end up being in the wrong sometimes wanting to keep this serum away from his brothers and take away their choice and decision on whether they should be allowed to use this serum that's something we rarely ever get to see almost all the time Leonardo is right and in this situation it was just kind of nice to see him be a little in the wrong and you completely understanding where Raphael and some of the other Turtles are coming from what are those things they're monsters we're not monsters now if I gotta jump back into some of my negatives though because it's still not a perfect movie well I do enjoy them going more of the entertaining route and trying to have fun I think the way they go about handling Crane and the inclusion of Shredder into the plan feels so goofy and cartoony it again makes Shredder just look like a henchman instead of a main villain like he should be but I don't even think Shredder should have been treated like the main thread of the film you introduced Krang in the beginning and at the end of the film and we get such little time with them you give us a big hint at the Techno drum an iconic thing in the Ninja Turtles lineup whether in the cartoons or in the actual toy if you are lucky enough to afford that because I couldn't it very much feels like it was treated as a setup for what was supposed to be the initial plot of the third movie a full crying Invasion ending it up feeling like this movie was just filled with fan service Galore to kind of regain the trust and love of the turtle fans they lost with the first film because come on even like the Turtle van is so badass in here sure it throw throws in sewer Lids that would immediately kill anyone they hit but throwing in nunchucks in the Turtle van this is kind of awesome the [ __ ] Clan also got rid of their guns and are actually using weapons I also love the design of the Foot Clan in here thank goodness they changed that Bebop and Rocksteady yeah their human designs are ridiculous but once they turn into live action things and get their Michael Bay jokes out of the way oh they were such a blast in the fight scene that they get with the turtles in the rainforest I remember that being plastered all over the trailers and myself going didn't love the first movie but I think I have to watch it for Bebop and Rocksteady I also love the direction they were headed in not even just setting up the villains for the next movie but now that the turtles are kind of known Vigilantes that'll happily work with the police by the end of this movie such a brilliant idea and would have made things so much easier for the next movie going in to me it just really goes to show you when you stick to the stuff that makes the Turtles fun interesting to the fan and they will happily watch this movie and enjoy it but I think they did so much damage to themselves the first time around a lot of the audience just wasn't willing to trust them again which is why this movie didn't do as well as they wanted stopping them from getting that third movie made that you know what after seeing this in the direction they were headed in I would have really of been down to spend at least one more movie with these guys these may not be my preferred favorite Turtles but I'm glad now I can kind of get over the hatred I had for them and appreciate the fun nature of them in the end though I think it's just great being a turtle fan because now we're about to get the next iteration of the turtles and if everything continues to go as good as things are rolling with this movie it looks like we can get three of them and what they're setting up in that film looks like so much fun and different than what we've seen before so stay here on the channel for my review of mutant Mayhem and let me know what you guys fall on these Ninja Turtle movies are they your favorite were they the ones that made you a fan or do you just flat out hate them editing everything be sure and like subscribe follow me on Twitter 360 films or on Tick Tock at 3C films but as always I'm Chris take care

Channel: 3C Films

Views: 98,767

Keywords: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles review, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3, tmnt, review, movie review, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mutant mayhem, mutant mayhem, 3cfilms, 3c films, ninja turtles, tmnt review, tmnt mutant mayhem, out of the shadows, Michael bay, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2014, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2016

Id: 6J-vVVpGLpM

Length: 28min 38sec (1718 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 31 2023