So in 2009, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary and as such, the event was celebrated not only with a change in ownership from Mirage Studios to Viacom, but also resulted in Turtles Forever, a film that serves as a crossover between the 2003 cartoon Turtles and the much beloved cartoon Turtles from the classic 1987 cartoon. And then it was released onto DVD. Unfortunately, the DVD release is a very barebones release that only includes the film and not much else in terms of features.
The Good: The only good that could be said about the DVD is that the film itself is top-notch fanservice and a satisfying conclusion to not only the 2003 incarnation of TMNT, but in a way, also closes out an era of Turtle-dom that dates back to its origins in 1984. The 87 Turtles aren’t voiced by the original actors, but they sound close enough if not a bit too goofy. Still, it’s a fun little movie that is a celebration of what’s come before as much as it is an ending.
The Bad: The DVD itself is slim pickings; only packing the film and chapter selection. Not even captions or alternate languages. Also the film is the edited version and not the uncut version that is supposed to feature eight minutes of additional material. It’s not a bad film and without having seen the longer version, I don’t know how much I’m actually missing here… but man, what a missed opportunity to include a more complete version, even if the extra stuff might seem a bit extraneous.
Overall: Turtles Forever got a cheap-o DVD release and given what it represents, I do wish more was done to give this a better treatment. Even a trailer or two would’ve been nice. Still, having some form of Turtles Forever in a consumable format is nice to have and the DVD is pretty cheap, so if you haven’t seen this one and find the disc laying around somewhere, why not give it a shot?
dtm666 