Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

This article will regard the following films:

• Mutant Mayhem (2023)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
• Out of the Shadows (2016)
• TMNT (2007)
• Batman vs. the TMNT (2019)
• Secret of the Ooze (1991)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

I’ll be looking into these films in precisely this order for my own reasons. Also, I should point out this is not a comprehensive list of TMNT films. There are a few others I’ve either not seen yet, or are actually part of a series but were later marketed as a standalone movie… drives me nuts when they do that.

It’s amazing to me how many manifestations of these guys there are. Every couple of years there’s a new version. They were huge back in the eighties. I feel like that hugeness must trickle down to the children and grandchildren of the original fans so there’s still call to keep them going.

I was way into them. I had all the toys and watched all the shows. Stupidly I gave all my TMNT toys to a kid down the street where I lived. Today those babies sell for about twenty bucks a figure even without the accessories and what not. When I gave them away I was growing up and trading my toys for more grown up things (don’t ask me what. Seriously, I don’t have an answer for what “more grown up things” would be.)

Today I find myself bored with most “grown up” things, experiencing imposter syndrome in many situations I find myself in. As re-amassing a huge collection of ninja turtle figures is neither practical nor affordable for me, my artwork fills that void instead. I suppose that’s a very adult attitude to take on. I do collect a toy or two. My wife would call that a gross understatement. But I didn’t grow up enjoying football or most other sports, pastimes acceptable to many as being for both kids and adults. I like what I like and eventually I realized “growing up” wasn’t defined as looking cool and pretending to be mature, it’s taking care of responsibilities and enjoying whatever you want to enjoy. If anyone scoffs at my interests they can shine it up real nice, turn it sideways, and cram it.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)

I actually wanted to see it in theaters but time did not permit. I thought the notion of particularly younger turtles was interesting. The other iterations barely seemed like teenagers if at all but in Mutant Mayhem they were confused immature adolescents trying to figure themselves out. It was a fresh twist on the story that I think should have been there from the beginning. Though to be fair, what was regarded as a “teenager” back in the 80’s was wholly different from 2023, hence the surfer dude voices and totally tubular exclamations from the original movie and cartoon.

I can’t stand what they (gnomes) did to April O’Niel. Make her black, make her a kid, make her overweight. I don’t care about any of that. Personally, I just thought a clumsy nervous April who is prone to puking in front of cameras was weird and gross. I can’t think of anything more interesting to do with her though so maybe this was the way to go?

I didn’t mind switching up Baxter Stockman a bit and introducing Super-Fly. Baxter was never interesting enough for me to care what anybody did with him. Plus Super-Fly’s plot was a great catalyst to introduce a bunch more mutants really fast, which I appreciated. Shredder would maybe introduce a couple mutants now and then throughout the films but mostly he was all about the ninjas. Ninjas everywhere!

Unfortunately, the designs for a lot of the mutants were not appealing to me. The toys associated with the film were even more disappointing. Ironically, I’d regard them as childish.

These weren’t action-figures, they were weird little plastic figurines that appeal to no one. Even my son thought they were uninteresting.

Splinter (Jackie Chan) was very funny, but it was a little jarring hearing an obvious Chinese accent coming from a typically Japanese character. I thought his romantic involvement with Scumbug was an absolutely insane choice. What was Seth Rogan thinking!?! I don’t care if this version of Scumbug is a guy, girl or anything in between or outside of those, it’s a disgusting mutant cockroach! What about it would be attractive to Master Splinter!?!

Ultimately, I liked the movie though and I’m interested in the sequel. I’m sure Shredder will be a three feet tall, four feet wide, blonde kid who farts a lot but I’ll deal with that when we get to it.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

Hey, Michael Bay screwed up Transformers real good, let’s see how he’ll screw up Ninja Turtles…

Ah… it’s royally. He screwed them up royally.

Where do I begin with this monstrosity? Uwe Boll makes better movies than this guy, and it’s clear Uwe is only making movies to get tax breaks in the Netherlands.

I experienced major uncanny valley issues with the look of these turtles. I think it was the lips. Maybe I’m just used to the original film but my brain had a hard time reconciling these cgi abominations into a “live action” film.

William Fichtner was clearly being set up to play Shredder but complaints that he was not Japanese led Bay to retroactively change his character to a stooge. At the very least it would have made SOME sense to turn him into Baxter Stockman but nope. It made the whole film wonky and it jerks the audience around; one of my biggest pet peeves.

Fichtner was just going to be Shredder, he wasn’t going to be playing a Japanese man. These complaints didn’t alter the fact that Splinter was still voiced by Tony Shalhoub who descends from a Lebanese heritage. Again, so long as they’re not presenting as Japanese or doing a Japanese voice, I have no complaints.

I don’t know exactly what I wanted Shredder to be in the end of this film, but a giant blocky transformer-like version of the Silver Samurai from The Wolverine, was not it. Boo! Boo on this whole movie!

I’m not sure if it’s Megan Fox I can’t stand or Michael Bay’s “use” of Megan Fox. Someone is making some choices that objectify her and it doesn’t belong in a movie for kids or a movie for adults to which they might bring their kids. Having a pretty girl play April O’Niel is fine. Heck, having a not so pretty girl play April, is fine too. Fox’s body is exploited in these AND the Transformer films. It is an uncouth display. It is gratuitous.

Out of the Shadows (2016):

Ohhhhh, Bay made a sequel. Greeeeeeaaaaat.

Every complaint about the last film pretty much applies to this one too. Thanks for making my job easier, Mike!

I don’t care that they switched out a lot of actors from the last film to this because I don’t care about this movie.

I did appreciate the inclusion of Bebop and Rocksteady FINALLY! For 1991’s Secret of the Ooze, the original creators of TMNT weren’t particularly keen on Bebop and Rocksteady as they had been created for the cartoons and weren’t in the original comics. They got replaced with Toka and Rahzar, two infantile mutants who were just kind of annoying.

So we’d would have to wait 25 years to see Bebop and Rocksteady in “live-action”. It’s a pity too. It would have been interesting to see these guys done with practical effects back in the day. Nevertheless, they looked pretty cool in this.

We also finally got to see Kraang for once. I gotta say, it seems like Michael Bay actually started listening to fans to figure out what they wanted to see on screen so I’ll give him some kudos for that. I still don’t remember liking this movie very much, but he tried.

Casey Jones sucked in this. Just had to get that off my chest.

Also, Tyler Perry’s portrayal of Baxter Stockman was stupid. Okay, I’m done now.

TMNT (2007):

TMNT might be a perfect movie. I really have zero complaints about it. It definitely knows who its audience is (kids who like fun and action) and caters to them perfectly. The character designs especially for the turtles is cartoony but not too cartoony like we saw in Mutant Mayhem. The music was awesome. The villain was not Shredder but was still pretty interesting and complex. I always appreciate a villain with whom the audience can sympathize to some degree. The story was multifaceted but not over complex.

Splinter was voiced by the legendary Mako. Doesn’t get any better than that! Casey Jones was cool. April O’Neil was probably the perfectest representation of herself. She wasn’t a buffoon. She wasn’t overly sexed. She even gets into the action a bit which pits her against Karai.

Oh, Karai was cool too. She was represented in the 2014 and 2016 films as well but in this film she’s leading the Foot Clan in Shredder’s absence. What happened to Tatsu? Seriously, I can’t remember.

The plot point about rounding up the monsters was a bit pedestrian and seemed like a videogame collect-a-thon but it didn’t really slow the film down as much as you’d expect. I cast an accusative sidelong glance at Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

I loved how this film acknowledged the existence of the original three live action films (as illustrated in the above pic)! Way to pay respects to the classics!

Great movie. I want to watch it again right now.

PART 2 of 2 COMING SOON!!!