I am a massive Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan, I was full of praise for the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as well as 2007’s TMNT. I thought that Mutant Mayhem was a blast and I was excited for a new series that would follow on from the events of that movie. This is a Paramount Plus exclusive and I re-subbed to the service specifically for this.
How to Download Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released on August 9, 2024, on Paramount+. You can download or stream the show from this platform. Click on the Download button at the end of this review.
The Movie Review
Now, Paramount Plus is that one streaming service that is too far for me, and while subbing to it was the only way I could watch Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, their terrible app and customer service is ensuring I won’t be sticking around. I was shocked at how badly what is a huge exclusive for them was handled.
Now, if you are in the USA from what I understand, Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles aired on August 9th as scheduled. Here in the UK, the launch of this was a mess, it was still listed as airing on August 9th, but I was not able to actually watch it until August 12th! Their social media channels were of no help at all and did not really seem to care! I hate that I had to give them money so that I could watch this show.
Anyway, enough of my ranting about how bad Paramount Plus is! The good news is that Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a fantastic show! To be honest, I have liked every incarnation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and this one does so many things right. I will say that you do need to have seen Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem before you watch this, but as that is a great movie, do not see that as a bad thing.
The show starts off so well with a little bit of story and then the first four episodes give each Turtle a chance to shine and show events from their point of view. My favorites are Donnie and Mikey, I also greatly appreciate the New Kids on the Block reference with the title, Donnie Hangs Tough. The episodes have that perfect blend of action, humor, and world-building and it all leads to finding out who this crazy mutant hunter Bishop is.
One thing that Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles does really well is make the Turtles feel like teenagers. It is hard to explain, but I often have thought that the Turtles in other series feel older than teenagers, this show here manages to nail the “teenage” aspect of things really well.
Also, I have to say that having the people of New York City actually know about the Turtles and other mutants makes for a rather interesting dynamic too. Seeing people not completely freak out or ask for selfies or even the cops asking for help from Donnie with a book they are writing! It all makes for a fun take on the Turtles.
The animation and the whole style of the show are awesome. The animation is slick and it looks more 2D than the movie did, but I actually prefer the way this show looks over what they did with Mutant Mayhem and that is coming from someone who loved Mutant Mayhem. The action scenes are great, but it is the way they are able to convey all different kinds of emotions on the Turtle’s faces that I really love.
The one downgrade has to be the music. To start with the intro does not have any lyrics in the theme song! How can you have a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show without a rocking theme song? It is also lacking the epic licensed soundtrack that Mutant Mayhem had, but to be fair, this was to be expected. The voice cast is great and I like how the Turtles actually sound like kids. I also got a huge kick out of the way Splinter “spoke” in the show.
