Director: Jeff Rowe
Cast: Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown, Jr., Nicolas Cantu, Brady Noon
Have I Seen It Before: Nope…?
Did I Like It: As long as the answer is, indeed, “nope,” the film feels fresh and likable. The Turtles feel like they are finally living up to one of those key words in their moniker, and feel like real teenagers for the first time (and I include the original Mirage comics in that comparison). They’ve got girl trouble. They imagine that High School will solve all of their problems, and can only latch onto that delusion as long as they are not, in fact, in High School. They have very specific opinions about superhero films, even though they are surely in one themselves. They mess around making videos displaying their nascent skills. Hardly the art of invisibility, but they are some of the admittedly many fun sequences in the film. Each of the voice actors chosen for the roles also sound like teenagers, with Donatello (Abbey) sounding as if he is demonstrably the youngest of the four*.
The proceedings also manage to avoid leaning on Shredder or the Foot Clan. One might hear that and have images of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993) running through their heads. Fear not, this manages to bring all of the weird (minus Krang) characters who popped up in the action figure line, with their bright colors, and fundamental strangeness. That is, up until the very end where the film feels like it is almost unconsciously compelled to foreshadow a sequel with the Shredder as the main antagonist.
That’s what’s weighing the film down, ultimately. It has disappointing flirtations with being derivative. The film’s feeling—and even many of those aforementioned strong points—owe so much to Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and its sequel that Jon Watts might be able to make a case for a producer’s credit. Throw in more than a little of the vibe from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and its sequel, I couldn’t help but enjoying myself, while at the same time wishing that someone might make a movie that uniquely harnesses the Turtles, but then again, I suppose we’ll always have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990).
*For some reason—and it may have been established in some other version of the characters—I always thought Michaelangelo (Brown) was the youngest.