TMNT Movie Series Two Figures Review

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle has been out for some time and was quite well received. So it has been a bit surprising that it has taken so long for the second series of figures based on the movie to reach store shelves. But they finally did in August. The new series adds yet another of the thirteen monsters from the movie, a movie version of the Shredder and of course, new versions of all four turtles. If you've seen the movie, you are probably asking, "why Shredder?" No, he never really appears in the movie save for a single still image. But it just wouldn't be a TMNT line without him. Or perhaps Karai just wanted to have a family reunion.

Packaging - 8/10

The packaging hasn't changed any for the second series of figures. Each figure is packaged in the center of the bubble with their accessories displayed around them. They did a nice job of trying to position the figures in something other than just a bland, standing pose. Of course, this works better for some figures than others. The best they could do with the Sloth Monster was positioning him at an angle. They still included small bio cards inside the packaging. I just wish they would stop glueing them to the rest of the insert so you could save just the booklet. The back of the card hasn't changed much. They replaced the images of the the Turtles with photos of the new versions and removed Karai and the Vampire Succubor to be replaced with Shredder and the Sloth Monster. A little character information on the back would be nice, but since you do get that inside in the bio booklet, I can't really fault for that.

Sculpting - 7/10

Once again the turtle variants that we get are the same molds as the original carded versions that also were included with the Stunt Rider sets. They are decent sculpts, but I don't think we really need three of them. A simple switching of the head sculpts would at least add some variety. The Shredder's only appearance in the movie was a single still image that was based more on the original Mirage comic books. And this figure isn't based on that image at all. That's actually a good thing. The figure we did get fits in much better with the new animated style than the design shown in the Movie would have. The figure has the proportions of the new animated style with a exaggerated chest and tiny waist. They also went with a slightly more understated version of his blades, particularly on the arms. They got rid of the full cape in favor of a partial one that simply drapes over one shoulder. It is a nice look. Or it can be removed if you prefer. Another very nice touch was the removeable helmet. I'm not too impressed with the face though. They made the line of the jaw far too angular in my opinion. It looks like he could split wood with that thing. The Sloth Monster only showed up in the movie for a few seconds so few would notice if it were 100% accurrate or not. Despite that, they seem to have done very well to capture the design. It is not quite a detailed as the movie though. And I can't really tell how close they got for the scale since there was never anything to reference it to in the movie. But it does seem a bit short. What I really don't care for about the sculpt is that it is based on the quick glimpse we get of the creature after it has been captured where its head is lowered all the way down until it is level with the shoulders. It would have looked a lot more menacing if they had sculpted it with its head raised up as it was before being captured. It also would have made him closer in height to the Turtles and the other figures.

Paint - Michelangelo 3/10, Shredder 6/10, others 4/10

Someone in the paint department really has no respect for Michelangelo. Yet again, the paint work on him turned out poorly. The paint work for the body, shells, belt and pads is fine. But they meesed up his head. The eyes are a bit better. At least the irises now point in the same direction. But his right pupil seems to be wandering off to the side. The real issue is that they put his helmet on too soon and it left several large areas of lime green paint along the top of his bandana. The other three Turtles seem to be of better quality. One of Raphael's pupils is off center, but it is still better than Michelangelo's eyes. The Sloth Monster has his claws and chest painted a darker brown which then feathers out from those areas. The areas around his neck that his "skin" exposes are painted purple as well. While not overly elaborate, the paint work for the body looks pretty good. But the head is left almost completely unpainted. Its stark contrast to the body doesn't work well. The Shredder has a very nice grey, black and metallic blue color scheme. It works quite well for the costume design. They also did a nice job of keeping the various borders between colors neat. They don't always line up perfectly with the sculpt, but the differences are minor. There is some room for improvement. A metallic finish for the blades would be nice. But the most noticeable oversight was the two Foot Clan insignias. Both are simply painted red. Had they given them a two tone, red and black paint scheme they would have looked much better.

Articulation - Sloth Monster 3/10, Shredder 6/10, Turtles 8/10

The movie Turtle figures have the seventeen points of articulation that the other versions of these figures have had. As I have stated in the other reviews, they the best Turtle figures yet in terms of the range of motion provided by the articulation. By comparision, the Sloth Monster is rather lacking with just nine rotating joints at the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists and hips. Making matters wors is the fact that the elbow and wrist joints are almost parallel which renders one of them redundant. And the hips aren't much better. Shredder is much better but still slightly less articulated than the Turtles. He has a couple of noteable shortcomings such as only having rotating joints for the elbows instead of hinged joints. The wrist joints don't allow you to adjust the blades on his hands to have them face forward. It would also have been nice if they had used a ball joint instead of a rotating joint for the neck so that Shredder could look down further.

Accessories - Jungle Leo & Sloth Monster 8/10, Shredder & Monster Capture Raph 5/10,
Surveillance Don 4/10, Extreme Sports Mikey 2/10

The Sloth Monster comes with a set of restraints including a collar, manacles and chains to bind them all together. As accessories go, for Playmates these are quite impressive. Each piece is sculpted with ancient "writing" similar to that shown in the movie on the stone seal. But what really impresses me is that Playmates went with real chains, albeit plastic ones, to connect the manacles and collar. The restraints do have a somewhat glaring shortcoming, they don't even come close to restraining anything. The chains are so long that the figure can easily move through its entire range of movement with length to spare. Still, they look good when attached. And considering that there isn't much else that they could have done for accessories for a character that had less than twenty seconds of screen time in the movie, it is nice to see that they went all out on the restraints.

Shredder comes with a lackluster assortment of weapons. He has two swords, a bladed staff and an oversized shield. (I'm not considering his helmet or cape as accessories even though they are removeable since they are a fairly integral part of the sculpt.) The weapons all have a high tech design to them. I have to assume that this comes from the 2003 cartoon, but it doesn't make much sense since in the movies the Shredder didn't have any advanced technology. And no matter how tech- savy Shredder should be, that shield is oversized to the point of being comical.

Of the four new versions of the Turtles, Jungle Leo easily has the best accessories. And since the accessories are the only thing that set these version of the Turtles apart from the first series. Jungle Leo is also the only one whose accessories are easily recognizable as coming directly from the movie. To recreate his appearance from the early part of the film, the figure comes with a cloak and the medalion for which he was sent to search. Both look quite good on the figure. Though it is unfortunate that most people won't understand the inclusion of the medalion unless they have read the comic book prequals or played the video game where that part of the story is explained. Of course Leo can't be unarmed. So the figure comes with his usual katana, a pair of slightly oversized machete, a whip and two throwing stars. The weapons look good. And as an added bonus, the cloak is designed to fit around Leo's sheaths so that you can still store his swords.

Monster Capture Raphael has a real mix bag in terms of his accessories. The one standout is a properly scaled Jersey Devil PVC figure. Considering that we have been buying most of the monsters produced so far one by one, many fans may be willing to buy Monster Capture Raph just to get that. Those that do should be fairly pleased with how well the sculpting on it turned out. It could use a better paint job though. Had they stopped there I probably would have been happier. But the other accessories that were included range from lame to utterly comical. The lame is what I assume is suppose to be a tranquilizer dart like the ones in the movie. But the sculpt is so bad that I mistook it for a rotten apple core for awhile. MC Raph also comes with a rifle. I guess it is suppose to be the tranquilizer gun. But it is just strange for one of the Turtles to come with a rifle. (And judging by the large ammo drums, Raph is a really poor shot.) They also recycled one of the traps from the Monster Trapper Turtles with a slightly different sculpt which works quite well with the Jersey Devil PVC. The comical part comes in the form of a pair of giant sais connected by a chain. I'm sorry, but Raph's sais should not be as large as Leo's katanas. The chain is an interesting touch. But it doesn't really make a lot of sense on sais. But with a second figure's accessories now using real plastic chain, we better get chains on Michelangelo's nunchuks.

Surveillance Don comes with an assortment of surveillance gadgets despite the fact that none of them had any real basis in the movie. The first is a new bo staff with a folding satellite dish on one end. For audio surveillance, Don has a long range microphone with headphones attached by a string. Both of these items can be stored on the large backpack that is included. That is fortunate since the backpack seems to serve no other purpose. There is also one more accessory that can attach to either the shoulder of the backpack or to the figure's bandana tail. (Why you would want to attach it to the bandana I don't know.) I'm not sure what it is suppose to be, but I would have to guess it is some form of camera. Surveillance Don's accessories are nice enough, but they don't really seem like enough to justify buying another version of what is otherwise the same Donatello figure.

Finally there is Extreme Sports Mikey. After seeing the chains used for the Sloth Monster and Monster Capture Raph's accessories, I was looking forward to seeing a set of nunchuks for Mikey with the same chains. No such luck. E.S. Mikey has the lamest set of accessories of any of the figures. There is a skateboard, helmet, a pair of nunchuks and two throwing stars. But the first Michelangelo figure already came with almost those same accessories save for the helmet. Sure these are new sculpts. But they really aren't anything better than what we already have. And if you don't already have another Michelangelo figure, this one doesn't come with a pair of the original, movie accurate nunchuks.

Value - Sloth Monster, Shredder & Jungle Leo 6/10, M.C. Raph 4/10, others 2/10

Jungle Leo, Shredder and Sloth Monster are all fairly strong additions to the movie line, even at the higher retail price of $8 each. Actually being based on the movie, Jungle Leo is a nice variant even if it is the same base figure just with new accessories. Shredder may not have shown up in this form in the movie, but it is a nice figure and gives us a version of the Shredder that fits with the movie's animation style. The Sloth Monster is not as nice of a figure, but it does add yet another of the thirteen monsters your collection. Monster Capture Raph's main appeal is the PVC Jersey Devil. If you already have the other version of the monster from the first series, buying another figure just to get one more properly scaled to the other figures may not be worth the price. The new versions of Don and Mikey don't really offer anything new other than their accessories and those aren't that great.

Happy Hunting:

The new series of Movie figures is shipping to most stores now. I got mine from Target. But I have also seen them at Toys R Us and Walmart. The later two also have them listed on their respective web sites as well, though availability can be spotty.

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