With 4 comic crossover mini-series, the Injustice 2 DLC and this animated movie we now have four different Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle universes that have crossed over with Batman / DC Universe. Like with the Power Rangers / TMNT crossover; I am a fan of both franchises but I don’t think either of the two universes mix well to crossover either through dimensional portals or living in the same universe. The actual movie I liked it a lot even if I didn’t love it but enjoyed the universe they created. As a batman movie it’s fairly mediocre but as a TMNT movie it’s fairly decent since overall; They got the TMNT characters more right than say the batman characters, but both were handled well, so i’m happy.
Even with so many characters that they crammed at least almost all got a small time to shine. You don’t see the personalities of the turtles too much, especially Donnie/Raph but it’s fine. The voices were all good except for Shredders which at times threw me off. Shredder was simply badass, I actually thought Shredder was going to job to batman in a “clean” fight but overall Batman needed help so it was cool and Shredder beats Batman in the first round. A menacing but still grounded Shredder is all I’ve ever wanted to see and finally we got one here. I just didn’t think about the anti-mutagen, they were just throwing it around in the end as if it were something you could get at the stores when it’s always relegated as something rare but it’s what the movie needed to work so I don’t mind it
At least you know the batman rogues will all become human again so the universe is not “changed forever” and I guess we can think shredder became human again with it somehow. Mikey, not all his jokes landed but he wasn’t obnoxious so i was happy with that. Raph was his usual angry self but because he didn’t talk much it also wasn’t obnoxious. Leo was handled very well as usual and Donatello sadly got the short end of the bo as usual.
Damien / Robin can also be obnoxious but they toned him down here. Batgirl was handled ok, she is rarely handled great though. Batman was fine for the most part and Joker was handled badly but I didn’t want too much joker in the film so I was happy. The violence felt organic as well as the more mature setting since it was still fairly light.
The character designs worked much better in motion as well since they look so awful in still images even if some like Donnie still look bad. Seeing the batman rogues mutated was actually much cooler than I thought and it worked really well. The batman villains mutated was cool in a way to see their “inner animal” so to speak and it worked well. As a batman fan it kind of sucks that they’re just used as fight fodder when all of those are iconic and cool enough to be bale in their own adventure but for a single movie it was an interesting way to highlight them all, especially since it was what I was mostly scared the movie would do wrong. Joker Shredder ending is not something I wanna see in a sequel but as an ending we don’t see more of it’s ok.
I am not a fan of the implications of the TMNT being in the DC universe but whatever I’d love a full series of TMNT with these TMNT and that Shredder, I feel an actual show could make use of the darker setting but at the same time let the turtles be a bit more light hearted without being in Gotham city. That design of Barbara Gordon would make the perfect April O’Neil as well. A Batman show with these designs would be fine but not my ideal but man I can only salivate at the thought of a TMNT show done in this style, it’s what I’ve wanted and maybe a better version than say TMNT 2k3, they already have a better Baxter and that’s a tough thing to say.
I do hope we get a Batman VS TMNT 2 cartoon film down the line as I’d love to see more of this, maybe Batman going to NYC and fighting some of the turtles rogues? In the meantime I will think that the end credits depicting different Batman and TMNT team ups even with other DC superheroes and the Justice League as canon to this movie’s universe even if nothing else is made. I mean it makes sense for these turtles who live in Batman’s universe to get involved in DC crisis events right? Apparently they’re making a toyline from DC Direct so a sequel could happen even if all I want is an animated series in this style. For more of our TMNT articles make sure to click here.
