With a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie on the way this week that can only mean one thing: new action figures from Playmates Toys! With the license to produce toys based on TMNT becoming easier to obtain in recent years, Playmates has become a bit of a punching bag in the toy community. Some of that is justified, but some of it really isn’t as Playmates has primarily been a company making toys for kids to play with. Sure, they’ve made attempts at collector grade stuff over the years with varying levels of success, but the company’s bread and butter is making toys that kids can beat up and parents can acquire at an affordable price. There’s room in the world for such an approach, especially in light of the loosening licensing restrictions, and Playmates does it pretty well.
Because the company is focused on non-collector action figures, I’m usually able to ignore whatever Playmates is putting out. It’s stuff that’s just not for me. Even their vintage reissues aren’t really on my radar as I lived that already, but whenever a new version of the turtles shows up the temptation to add them to the ever growing collection is often there. I sometimes resist the pull as I did for the Bay turtles and the Rise ones, but when the toys come out and are pretty cheap it’s hard to ignore.
And that is the case with the new lineup of figures based on the upcoming Mutant Mayhem film. That movie features the four heroes with a newish look. They’re instantly recognizable as the four turtles, but they’ve been altered enough to have their own flavor. And overall I would say those designs are fine. Yeah, there are things I like and don’t like (which we’ll get into when we talk about the figures), but they’re not repulsive like some other versions of the turtles have been. They’re also not and likely never will be my favorite interpretation, but the 2012 turtles weren’t either and yet that show is one of the best TMNT things ever!
The inaugural wave of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the new film started showing up at retail a few weeks ago. Because of my insistence on only posting TMNT stuff on Tuesdays, this post is a little dated, but I’m guessing these figures will be shipping all summer long. The figures come on blister cards with artwork from the film on the front and even on the cross-sell on the back. You still get a little I.D. card for each character that can be snipped from the back and really not much has changed when it comes to the approach. The inaugural wave contains the four turtles, Splinter, and some baddies, but I only went with the turtles. Maybe I’ll come back for more after seeing the film in August, but probably not.
The line is basically a 5″ scale toy line where the characters really don’t even scale with each other. This is in keeping with what Playmates typically does so if you’re after a line with a true scale, this isn’t it. There also looks to be a little more effort put into the actual turtles, maybe because Playmates views them as the figures that will make or break the line, and they’re at least not all the exact same height. The shortest is Mikey who stands at a tick over 4.25″, next is Leo and Donnie at 4.5″, and finally Raph at 4.75″ is the tallest of the four. The main driver of their look would appear to be the classic animated series. All of the turtles wear colored bandanas and various pads and wraps. The belts are black with an initial on the buckle and weapon storage as well. Leonardo is the only one that gets a shoulder strap and each turtle is colored with a different shade of green with Donatello being the palest and Mikey the darkest.
Where things are changed is really the general shape and accents. These turtles are fairly lean and not as chunky as many of their predecessors. In terms of shape, they feel most like the 2007 turtles from the film TMNT, but with each turtle having a different head shape. Michelangelo’s is the most extreme, as the film’s trailer points out it looks like a watermelon. There are other little differences as well. Leo has some sculpted ninja stars on his belt while Donnie is adorned in “techy” stuff. He has a fanny pack and cell phone slung around his waist plus some glasses and headphones he can either wear or just have dangle around his neck. Raph has the full skull cap which is reminiscent of his Rise persona and he even gets some 90s inspired pouches on his belt. Mikey’s design is the most straight-forward as his only real embellishment is a painted belt buckle. He should have braces, but Playmates opted not to attempt them for some reason.
The sculpts overall are pretty solid. There doesn’t appear to be much of any reuse between the four as there are lots of subtle differences. Raph is the most chunky which appears to be accurate to the film. His chunk is mostly in the torso, but the arms and lower legs are a bit thicker too. Playmates opted to outline the eyes and mouths on each figure in black which really helps to make them pop. Aside from that, paint hits are kept to a minimum and are limited to the various pads and painted details of the belt. Would these look better with fully-painted bodies? Sure, but it’s not what they’re going for. I do wish the plastron on each turtle had some paint, especially Raph’s with its scarred portion, but the presentation is solid. They might be the best looking set of turtles Playmates has done since the originals.
Articulation-wise, these guys are very similar to what Playmates has been doing since the 2012 toy line. It’s basic, but certainly better than the vintage line or the comparably more expensive Super7 ReAction brand. The head is on a ball peg and each turtle can look up, rotate, and tilt there with basically no room to look down. The shoulders are ball-hinged and can raise out to the side past horizontal and rotate around at an angle due to the shell. The elbows are also hinged-pegs so they swivel a bit and bend about 90 degrees. The wrists just peg in and swivel. At the hips, more ball-hinges which I really don’t like for hip joints, but they work okay. They swivel and will kick out to whatever the direction the hinge is facing. They don’t go very far though as the peg is too far up into the shell so no splits and no 90 degree kicks. The knees are hinged-pegs like the elbows so they swivel and bend pretty close to 90 degrees. At the ankles, just swivels like the wrists. In short, it’s decent for the price range, but ball-socket hips would have been better and likely would have cost the same. Hinges at the wrists and rockers at the ankles would be pretty nice to have as well, but again, it’s a budget line. It does make me wonder if just a ball-socket ankle would work better though, but maybe they’d be prone to separating too easily for a line aimed at children.
The accessories for these guys should feel pretty similar to longtime TMNT fans. Each figure comes with his signature weapons: sai for Raph, katana for Leo, nunchaku for Mikey, and a bo staff for Donnie. Only Donnie gets one weapon with the others being dual-wielders and I’m happy to say we get some paint on all except Donnie’s staff. It’s not amazing, but it’s better than the often monochrome approach and it’s basically just to differentiate the metal and wooden portions of the weapons. The belts all have weapon storage as well that’s easy to use with only Mikey’s being tricky. That’s primarily due to the pre-posed nature of his ‘chuks which seem to work best if you alternate the slots on his back. Of the four, I do like the nunchaku the least and it’s just because the shape is not ideal.
In addition to those weapons, each figure also comes with a classic weapons rack. They’re in two different shades as Mikey and Donnie’s are the wood color while Raph and Leo’s the metallic color. Raph, Mikey, and Leo have broken canisters of ooze on theirs with Donnie coming with the intact canister. Each figure gets a different throwable weapon and pizza slice and then a unique set of weapons. Mikey has some microphone ‘chuks and Donnie his bladed staff and some other stuff that’s pretty familiar compared with the 2012 line. It’s probably fun for kids, but for me I’ll probably just leave the sprues intact. Collectors interested in painting these things will probably have more fun with them though. Lastly, each figure comes with a pre-mutated version of himself. It’s a little slug figure colored all in the shade of green used for the character. To my surprise, the little turtles are all unique sculpts. It’s a fun little throw-in.
These turtles are pretty fun to look at and handle. They won’t blow anyone away, but I can’t imagine anyone declaring them trash. And I haven’t even mentioned the best part: they’re only 10 bucks! Yes, that’s right, for less than the cost of one Super7 turtle you can get all four. That’s an incredible deal in today’s market and hopefully it leads to good things for Playmates and the TMNT franchise. I’d love it if either of my kids threw these guys on their Christmas lists, though it’s probably not happening in my house, but not for lack of trying. There are some shortcomings with the figures: the articulation is so-so, the opacity on the whites could be better, and Mikey’s weapons also aren’t optimal. If you want better paint, there are special editions of each figure that are painted-up to look more like the film, but they’ll cost you triple what these do. The issues are easy to overlook at this price though and these guys will look great with your other Playmates figures. Hopefully the movie is just as good!
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March 6th, 2024 at 10:49 am
I got those for Christmas
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