Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles review by Bobby Blakey
For years the Ninja Turtles have been a mainstay in pop culture with numerous variations on the property in live action, animation, comics and products. With the most recent series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that changed to Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the final couple of seasons, it is time for a new series to rise aptly titled Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
The latest series reimagines the iconic series and breathes new life into the classic characters, with jagged-shelled Raphael as a snapping turtle, wielding twin tonfas as his weapons; Leonardo as a red-eared slider, using an ōdachi sword; Donatello as a soft-shell turtle, sporting a tech-bo staff; and Michelangelo as a box turtle, arming himself with a kusari-fundo. Along for the adventure is the Turtles’ most trusted ally, April O’Neil, a street savvy native New Yorker, and Splinter, father figure and sensei to the Turtles. I love all things TMNT and the previous series was my favorite to date so was pretty bummed when they ended it. I was stoked to at least get a new version of the characters again and while this one is fine for what it is, it just doesn’t deliver what I hoped.
They shifted back to classic animation which is fine with me using bigger more vibrant colors to make it pop. I am even fine with the new turtle designs and glad they went to the different size aspect with their personalities. Sadly the show is so silly and cheesy it loses something for me. I know the original animated series had a lot of comedy and it worked perfectly, but this one is over the top silly and clearly geared towards a way younger audience. Maybe it was just that it followed such a great darker series makes this one feel off to me, but I was pretty let down.
Make no mistake I still had some fun with the animation and character designs and hope that maybe it will grow on me, but so far not so much. Decide for yourself and grab your copy of Rise of the TMNT that features 7 episodes from the new series when it hits DVD on March 12th from Nickelodeon.