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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)
I Want to Love This Movie
This has one of the coolest concepts of any TMNT story. Sending the bros back to Japan has so much potential. Just not this time around.
Feels like they were trying to ride the Turtles in Time wave from the arcade game, and it's a solid attempt. Even the time scepter is a reference the Mirage #8 comic.
Also they brought back Casey Jones and his has some decent scenes in the movie. And I do appreciate Mikey's arc in the movie. I've always thought Mikey was at his best when he's not being the funny guy. At least in the movies.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)
Karen's Ancestor Ruined This One
The 1990 struck a nice balance of action and comedy. Whereas Secret of the Ooze is just comedy. Any sort of violence is pretty much reduced to a visual gag of some kind. Apparently enraged parents of the 90's thought that the first movie was too violent for kids. Even the Turtles personalities feel interchangeable in this movie.
Ultimately the movie feels like it's held back by the lack of technology for the time. Tokka and Rahzar are replacements for Bebop and Rocksteady, which I'm ok with (I love seeing them pop up in the video games). I don't think an animatronic Rhino or Warthog would look or be practical with what they had to work with. Professor Jordon Perry was suppose to be a Krang or something along those lines. It felt like an ambitious project. I'm glad they scaled it back, and if the movie didn't lean so hard into the visual gags and comedy, I'd probably appreciate it more. I will admit, TMNT3 on the NES gave me such an iconic Super Shredder fight, that when I rewatch Secret of the Ooze, it's a bummer that Super Shredder didn't do anything here besides start a trope.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
The Perfect Comic Book Movie.
This movie is the perfect. And it's an independent movie too. Weird to think that at the height of Turtle-mania, no studio wanted to back this movie. Turns out that was a blessing as a result we have the perfect comic book movie. Each character has a healthy amount of screen time, awesome action scenes, as well as all the quips and banter you want out of a TMNT adaption.
Jim Henson's suits are masterpieces and despite the occasional goof (seeing Donnie's suit actor in as he laughs in the cabin scene), the Turtles feel so real. Something that can't be replicated with CGI.
I can't praise this movie enough. It set the bar high. So high, that no other TMNT movie has been able to match it yet.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987)
Better Left to Nostalgia.
Pre-face: If we were just reviewing the original 5 episodes of the show, it'd easily be a 7, but the series hits some serious low points and it shows.
The more I look into this show, the more it's clear it was nothing more than a marketing took made to sell action figures. I'm sure they did they're best with what resources they had (seriously look into the work load they dealt with), but it's clear they were overworked.
The first season of the show is really well made. I'm pretty sure when people think back on this series, that's all the remember. There's an immediate decline in quality once Season 2 starts and to be perfectly honest, the series should've ended with Season 3. The deeper in you get, the more the series devolves into nonsense. There are hardly any memorable plotlines. The only one I can recall is around Season 7 when the Turtles are traveling the world.
There was some new life injected into the last few seasons of the show (Red Sky Seasons) with redesigned Turtles and less jokes in the show (I think Mikey only mentions pizza a handful of times), but by then it was too little too late.
TL:DR stick to those first 5 episodes to cash in on that 80's nostalgia, but venturing further isn't recommended.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003)
Starts Off Strong, Doesn't Hold Up At The End.
It's refreshing to have a faithful adaption of TMNT after all the shenanigans of the 1987 show. Sadly, 4Kids is attached so the series feels restricted to the younger demographic. Shame because the 2003 series starts off really strong and is a faithful and expanded adaption of the original Mirage series from the 80's. Sadly because of the censorship 4Kids is known for, what suppose to be an edgier more action orientated series comes across as cringe more often than not.
Turtles have their initial battle with Shredder, find out Splinter has gone missing, get taken to the Triceriton homeworld and participate in the Battle Nexus and have to deal with a full scale Triceriton invasion of Earth, fight the Shredder again, etc. Seeing the original stories adapted is pretty cool.
I can't recommend watching the Fast Forward and Back to the Sewers seasons as they're just nonsense and don't provide much in terms of entertainment.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012)
The Safest TMNT to Recommend
Of the numerous TMNT adaptions out there, this one feels the safest to recommend to people. And that's really the best way to describe this series. It's safe in possible way. The show always reminded me of the 2003 Teen Titans series, but rendered in 3D instead of traditional animation.
This show pulls from nearly every corner of TMNT lore and while the series tends to drag it's feet with plot points and feel padded (I'd love to see an abridged cut), the pay offs are generally worth the investment. I'm not a big fan of Donnie fawning over April for a chunk of the show, nor did I feel comfortable with Leo and Karai's relationship and some of it's implications, it gets weird. The action is solid and the adapted arcs from the comics usually hit their mark.
As expected there's a colorful cast of characters and badguys that are in rotation throughout the show, but each time a new henchmen is introduced their threat level eventually fall from 'Look Out For This Guy' to 'Punching Bag' almost every time.
After the Shredder's arc concludes (Takes 4 of the 5 seasons) we're treated to more self-contained episodes in Tales of the TMNT-inspired final season and they knock it out of the park with those episodes.