Today I bring you my review of the Michelangelo action figure from the Playmates Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toy line. I mentioned in my Donatello review that I didn't like the design from the Rise cartoon or the associated toy line and that I may get the rest of the turtles but not much else. Well about a month after my Donatello review I was at Five Below with my wife and they had Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael for sale at five dollars each. It was almost fate, the three turtles I needed at a price I was willing to pay so here we are.
Unfortunately, I find most of the issues I had with Donatello I have with Michelangelo. Without using a stand he is hard to stand up. Mickey's legs are positioned weird, you can't stand him up with his legs straight. I really don't understand it because Donatello's legs are built the same way. The only difference I can see is that the little strip of plastic between his legs is a little thinner than on Mickey.
Mickey does have the same articulation as his brother, his head turns. He has shoulder, elbow, and wrist articulation on each arm and each leg have a joint at the waist, knee, and ankle. All this makes him fairly possible, he does have some stability issues with more exaggerated poses.
Just like Donatello, Michelangelo comes with lots of accessories. He has two nunchuck like weapons, I don't know what they are but there are two of them. He also comes with a big sausage link, I know it's some kind of weapon similar to nunchucks. He also comes with a working orange skateboard that I think is his best accessory. Just like his brother, Michelangelo also has two three-pointed ninja stars. The skateboard is a solid orange color, the weapons are made of translucent orange plastic, and the ninja stars are silver. The skateboard and stars look cheap but fine although I'm not a fan of the translucent weapons.
I like the skateboard the most because Michelangelo's foot slides nicely into a big peg on the skateboard. The wheels on it work and it is probably the perfect accessory for Mickey. In Rise of the TMNT Mickey is an artist and is always spraying graffiti all over the sewer so his toy came with some stickers of his graffiti that you can stick wherever you want. This is a great little accessory.
One of the biggest problems with this action figure is his paint application. Before I begin I want to state that I removed him from his factory packaging and immediately examined and took pictures of him, nothing I'm commenting on was done by me, it is all as he came from the factory. His mask has some black residue on it around his left eye, the right eye has something like glue where the mask and skin meet up that is shiny. He also has some black marks around his body, the worst being on the back of his right hand.
The worst is the orange paint used on him, whoever applied it was very sloppy. First off he has an orange mark on his left calf, the orange wrapping around his feet is very sloppy, and around his knee pads is the worst of it. I understand that this is a 10 dollar figure aimed at 4+ aged kids but have some respect for your company Playmates, or at least the TMNT franchise itself. These figures just aren't good enough. I think the last wave of action figures and cartoon was done much better.
One last thing I will mention about Michelangelo is that a lot of the plastic around the edges is very rough looking. I can't remember seeing this on other action figures before on both new or vintage figures.
I understand that these are toys and they need words on them to let you know who made them and when. This has always been on toys and it is something we've grown to live with and understand. Most of the time toymakers hide these words on the bottom of a toy or somewhere out of the way to hide it as best as possible. For some reason, Playmates printed all this on his belt where it crosses over his shell on the back. It looks terrible.
In the end, how do I feel about this Michelangelo from the Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles??? Disappointed again. I'm not happy with this cartoon or toyline. These toys just feel cheap compared to the last series. Those old figures had no problems standing up on their own. They also didn't have all the paint issues that these figures have. I like the number of accessories these figures come with. I remember complaining that those older figures were great but they usually came with only their weapons and one extra accessory. They seemed to rectify that with Mikey coming with six accessories as well as stickers. It seems to in order to justify that cost they put less money into the action figures themselves and it shows. I give Michelangelo from the Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a 4 out of 10. Unless you collect all the TMNT figures released I would say pass on these.
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