The Week In A Bad Education Towers #49

Hello you! Another week done, a week off work celebrating the birthday of the youngest. This involved a trip to the cinema, crazy golf, a train adventure to Weston Super Mare and a water pistol/hose fight.

Back to work tomorrow. Boo etc.

Years ago (like nearly ten which is frightening) I went to the cinema to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. No, not that one, the Michael Bay one. And I ended up writing a big long review that essentially tried to make the point that this wasn’t a film about my Turtles, these were new Turtles for my son and that you had to let things go to be re-made for new generations. Because if you don’t let things be re-made then they’ll turn in on themselves and fester and atrophy, chasing after a moment thats gone. I had my Turtles, now they were being passed on to someone else.

The film wasn’t great though, lets make that clear. It just wasn’t for me, it was for my son.

Well, nearly ten years later, here we are again; another Turtles film only not live action. And in the typical current nostalgia fashion it, at first glance, is all about re-hashing that original Turtle vibe from back in the day pretty much one for one. We’ve had this all over the place; Top Gun back again with pretty much the same film, Disney remaking its old films pretty much one for one, so why not the Turtles? They were huge, sure we can squeeze some more money out of them.

Which this film does, but also doesn’t. Say what?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Mutant Mayhem is a very long title, but is also a film; its a new rebooted adventure for our martial arts trained amphibian friends, hewing closer to the look of the 80s cartoon by way of the original comics. Our turtle friends are tired of living in the sewers and long to be out in the world, but maybe they aren’t the only mutants around? Who can tell.

Firstly; the look of this film has is clearly in debt to the Spider-Verse films as the success of that has enabled other film makers to really push the limits of CG animated art styles. And thats brilliant; go back ten years or so and everything was seemingly stuck in that DreamWorks/Pixar house style, but in the last few years that has really changed. The directer previously worked on The Mitchels vs The Machines which has a similar hand drawn look to it but this film takes that style and pushes it into amazing places; it has a claymation style vibe to it along with crazy hand drawn accents that pop off the screen. Its stunning, like really properly amazing to watch. If you really want to, compare this to the last theatrical animated Turtles film, TMNT and see how far things have moved on.

This is somehow matched by the voice cast; the Turtles are all teenagers themselves and are brilliant. A lot of the voice recording was done with them in the same room which lends a great rhythm to their voices. The interplay feels so natural it lifts everything up massively. Then you add in all the ‘proper’ famous people with their cameo roles who are all great too and you have a superb cast who nail it.

The film bounds along, has brilliant set pieces and the soundtrack is top drawer as well. The score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is brilliant, and then the needle drop songs are all brilliant as well.

It should be really annoying; here’s a film re-hashing and re-packaging all the lazy nostalgia beats so the old people in the audience (me) are all happy and drag along their kids to see what we used to have in the good old days. But the film is smarter than that, it takes those beats and makes them feel new. It gives you the nostalgia rush whilst also doing something new at the same time.

Its easily the best Turtles film, probably the best (or joint-best) looking film of the year and also one of the best sounding. Well done all round.

A train trip to Weston Super Mare was a lovely way to spend a day. We found a great Toy and Game shop that sold lots of cool suff. Photo evidence!

You know what I didn’t find though? A decent retro arcade. Sure, there were a few fun cabs on the pier (and I didn’t go upstairs which is where I normally find the pinball machines if they have them) but was there a place full of decent arcade cabs? Nope, there wasn’t. You’d think there’d be somewhere like that especially at a seaside resort but no, apparently not. Just loads of ticket and redemption machines. Sigh.

I fixed more Joy Cons! Well, a Joy Con. I also need to send it back to Scott now that I’ve fixed it. Sure I’ll get round to that soon. Yep, no time at all.

In the meantime, got audio to record for other videos and really should get on with that Zardoz video.

There we go, another week gone, more time slipped through my fingers as I move inexorably towards oblivion.

Anyways, bye!