Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Like many other people, the original 1990 "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie has a very special place in my childhood. Even if the movie wasn't all that great, it was fantastic for what it was trying to be. Now we're in 2014, where our beloved turtles have been given a whole new lick of paint with a straight-up reboot and have the daunting task of winning the long time TMNT faithful over. Needless to say that for the most part, I am one fan that was not entirely won over.

First and foremost, the Turtles. What is the fundamental premise of the TMNT? They're wise-cracking, pizza-eating, energetic teenagers that just so happen to be mutated ninja turtles that fight crime. The Turtles are goofballs, but in 2014, it's a little bit of a different story. There's still the humor, the jokes and comedy, but now the turtles are massive 6-foot-tall, muscle-bound turtle-men who have a very gritty feel to them, and when they're not in action, look way too real and off-putting. If they weren't green and didn't have shells, the Turtles would literally just be your average hulking action heroes. This franchise is about giant turtles who do martial arts. It's a goofy concept. Giving the Turtles a gritty makeover seems to miss the appeal of the characters in a fundamental way. However, despite the poor design choice of the Turtles, they really are a joy to watch. It might be a lot more serious than you'd expect from TMNT, but the Turtles are still wildly entertaining and more action-fueled than ever with the help of solid effects and choreography that bring the Turtle action to life. If you can withstand the eyesore that the Turtles' design brings, then there is still a lot of old school TMNT magic to revisit.

For the movie's main plot, you have what is essentially the most painfully basic, generic action story that a film can get. The movie is so predictable, it's almost laughable. What is also very disappointing is that the Turtles are no longer fighting crime, even though that's what is essentially believed, but a basic supervillain. Yes, the ultimate TMNT villain Shredder is in the film, but not only does he not get the screen time or proper development he deserves, he's basically cast aside as a secondary villain to the "I'm rich but have to get richer" villain that is Eric Sacks. It's disappointing to not be able to see the Turtles fight their way through dozens of foot soldiers like the old days, with all of the witty remarks during combat intact. There are still funny lines sputtered during combat, but the action scenes are so limited that there's simply not enough of it.

Not helping is the horrendous casting of Megan Fox as April O'Neil. In 1990, April O'Neil was the hot shot news reporter that made the amazing discovery of the Turtles and she developed an amazing bond with them. She was important to the story no doubt, but wasn't essential in the Turtle's story. Fast forward to 2014, and now April is nothing but the center of attention for everything in the movie, even essential back story information about the Turtles. Megan Fox amazingly gets much more screen time than the Turtles, and every time she comes on screen I cringe until our shelled heroes return. Not every action movie has to have an epic story line or to feel gritty and real. TMNT is supposed to be all about the opposite, but the unfortunate presence of producer Michael Bay is clearly felt in the direction of the film. From the camera shots, to the serious tone of the action to the slow motion parts, this movie has too much of a focus on seriousness, when it should be taking itself very lightly.

Like I stated earlier, despite the off-putting design and feel of the Turtles, they still are a lot of fun to watch and are the lifeblood of the film. What is missing, however, is the strong character development of the Turtles. There isn't enough down time in the movie to really get to know them. Some of the best moments of the 1990 film were in the form of the Turtles hanging out, making jokes, eating pizza and training together. That chemistry was not felt as strongly in the new TMNT and the movie just assumes that you all ready know who and what each Turtle is all about. But all you really find out is that one is a jokester, one's a tech geek, one's the leader and one has anger issues. More down time and better character development would've given the Turtles the extra boost to make them the incredibly entertaining bunch they're meant to be.

Being such a huge TMNT fan, I wanted to have higher expectations for this reboot. But with Megan Fox and Michael Bay attached, the poor look and design of the Turtles, along with the general off-setting feel of the film, I had to come in with lower expectations. There are some wonderful action sequences and the Turtles bring enough pop to the movie to make them likable and fun, but sadly, my low expectations were met in this failed attempt the reboot a childhood classic.

5/10

Here we go…

So Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the reboot to the ever so popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Directed by Jonathan Liebesman for some reason and produced by Michael Bay, also for some reason.. You all know the story by now. 4 mutated turtles grow up in the sewer raised by a giant rat who knows martial arts and trains them so they can protect the city from Shredder. No difference in this movie.

So the movie opens up in sort of a graphic novel type animation telling the story of the turtles which I'll admit was a nice nod to the original source material from which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came from. From there we meet April (Megan Fox) who's trying to get a story about the evil foot clan that have been terrorizing the city. She then witnesses the turtles stop them and follows them to get evidence of their existence. The turtles stop her and return to their master who says they need April's help. I won't spoil why. From there they must work together and stop Shredder from releasing a toxin on the city.

I wanted simply one thing from this movie after all the crap I've seen from it over the last few years. I want the turtles to be the turtles. I want them to reflect how they were in the 2003 cartoon preferably. A darker take but still humorous and likable. I grew up on that and the 80's cartoon and 1990's movies. Thank the lord I got that. The turtles are the best part of this movie. They deliver some funny lines although not everyone of them hit. Like you can feel that the jokes were modeled for kids which the whole movie is basically. It's like a big toy commercial. Or a Crush soda commercial. Or a Samsung phone and tablet commercial. Yeeeeah lot of product placement in this movie. Very obvious at that. Anyways as for the other characters we have April O'Neil played by Megan Fox who was alright. I really wish they worked on her dramatic screams though because those were just awful. We also have Will Arnett as her camera man who I guess is supposed to be the comic relief in this movie but literally does not have one funny joke in the whole thing even though you can feel you're supposed to be laughing but I didn't even smirk. It was like watching a stand up comic bomb his performance. Splinter was an enjoyable character. You could really see how he tied this family together.

Now if there's one thing I like in a movie it's a good villain. Did I get this? No. No I did not. Shredder has no character to him at all. In the 2003 version of him he got all this character development and I learned the motivation behind why he did what he did. In this he's literally just a guy who wants to make money. Or at least help Eric Sacks (William Fichtner) make money which is a very stupid motivation in my book. Usually villains steal money for the purpose of something bigger but in this.. they just want money. Which Eric already has because he lives in a freakin castle on top of a mountain! How much more money does he need?! Sigh.. Shredder was just so one dimensional and uninteresting. I was so let down by this.

Well what about the effects? They're actually pretty good. They did make the turtles sweat a lot though. Like A LOT. But it looked nice so I was happy about that. One downside is the CGI went down a little when interacting with humans. Like in Transformers 4. Not much to say other than those two things because I didn't focus on it much.

One last thing and I know every reviewer is saying this but it can't be said enough. The climax of this movie literally is the end of The Amazing Spider-Man only in the day time. Seriously watch The Amazing Spider-Man before you see this and see how similar it is. It's crazy.

Going in if you know this director and producer you're not expecting anything amazing. I went in with extremely low expectations and they surpassed them but only very very slightly.

I give it a 5.5/10.

The theater had a bunch of 10 year olds who thought the movie was amazing so at least they hit their target audience. But as a long time Ninja Turtles fan I left disappointed and wanting a little more. If it earns back the money maybe a sequel will be better. It won't but a guy can dream.

Now before I begin this review let me clear the fact that this MOVIE is aiming for the new younger audience. This movie is not focusing on aiming for the fans of the past generation. So lets look at it this way.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is directed by Jonathan Liebsman and Produced by Michael Bay. It stars Megan Fox as April O'Neil, and 4 turtles who don't look that good with the CGI. With this kind of set up, its already predictable that this would be a disaster.

As I watched this movie in a theater packed with a tremendous amount of children. I guess I could say, this movie was entertaining for me. The stars of the movie are, hands down the Turtles especially Mikey. They stole the movie in every scene they were in, and I would watch a 1 hour movie with just all of them goofing around and making jokes. However, in fact the movie often negates the fact that the turtles are the main subject in this movie, it circles it's story mostly around April O'Neil. As for her character, I found her annoying at many times. And because Michael Bay has something to do with this movie, Megan Fox had to do scenes for the "benefit' of Bay as usual. Going back to the turtles, I think that they had nailed them and captured everything that we loved about them, the movie is worth watching because of them. The Villains are one of the weak points of this film. Shredder is a very dull, boring and predictable villain. He is only there for what I believe is fan service. Other than that, his motives are unclear and the reason he is in this movie is for the battle scenes.

As for the story, it is filled with unbelievable amounts of cliché. Because of this, I had no choice but to be irritated at times or sometimes these scenes gave no effect to me whatsoever even if the main intention of the scene was entirely different. The evil plot of the villain, was downright cringe worthy, plot holes were circling from there and there. . Clichés and plot holes aside, the story is what I would imagine for children and all of us were to look it that way, then I guess I could say the plot was alright I guess. The action sequences were just OK, there were some that were interesting and some that was incredibly DIFFICULT to watch. I know Michael Bay didn't direct this, but My God. Every Michael Bay action-cliché is in this movie. The Slow Motion, Explosions, Attractive Women and the incredibly shaky camera. I almost felt dizzy watching some of the action sequences.

At the end of the day, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a great movie to watch if you want bonding times with your kids or if you're totally high or craving for some pizza. In my opinion, it won't ruin your childhood, in fact it might even remind and bring back old memories of your childhood, with the many references being made in this movie. The kids will love this movie and I recommend everyone to bring pizza while watching it.

A dull and boring villain, a mediocre plot filled with a massive amount of clichés and Michael Bay style action sequences. without the Turtles, this movie would be pure trash.

Verdict: 6.5/10

I'm not even quite sure where to begin with this movie. I mean, I had decent hopes for it. Leading up to it, so many people seemed to be taking it way to seriously. I mean, come on. Its about giant talking turtles who fight crime. Its not supposed to be that serious. Hoo, boy.

I guess I'll just start by saying this (spoilers ahead), the changes they made to the origin story don't make any goddamn sense, both in terms of simple logic and quality narrative structure. They completely removed any connection between Splinter and the Shredder, so say goodbye to any emotional connection or tension that that would have brought. And this version Splinter wasn't the ninja master, Hamato Yoshi or even a pet/student of Yoshi. In fact, Yoshi seems to have been omitted completely. So, how does Splinter become a ninja master himself? He reads a book. I'm not even joking. After both he and the turtles mutate he finds a book and teaches himself. And it wasn't even at the very beginning. I mean when Splinter begin teaching himself, the turtles are already walking and talking. He not only learned all of ninjitsu but also somehow mastered it, without any instruction or sparring, in less than ten years? AND he taught it to the turtles? BULLSHIT.

The turtles themselves are one of the few not-terrible parts of the movie. All of there individual personalities are right where they should be but we are also kind of short-changed on the amount of interaction they have with each other. A bunch of brothers together, getting up to shenanigans? What a great, natural way to have conflict! But no, the movie follows April way too much.

All of that is indicative of a larger problem with the writing. Both of the villains are BORING. The pacing is uneven and a lot of the dialogue is forced and ham-handed, Michelangelo was the worse in that respect. And believe me, I get it. Mikey is the loud mouth, party turtle. But is is possible (kind of necessary) that if a main character is annoying, to also be likable. Yes, it possible. Severus Snape. Perry Cox. Deadpool. These are all characters that are bad or annoying people but still likable as characters. After a few minutes of listening to Michelangelo, I just wanted him to shut the hell up.

It doesn't get any better with the villains. I don't remember the last time I watched a movie with such boring villains. Instead of just sticking with one main villain, the Shredder, we now have two...for some reason. WE have Eric Sachs, who is a rich scientist/industrialist and the Shredder, an evil ninja master with no personality. Eric Sachs is working for the Shredder for money? But isn't he already like a billionaire with a castle on a mountain and his own skyscraper?Doe he need more money? What the hell for? Shredder is the most shallow and one-dimensional out of this whole damn movie. We're not really told anything of his back story or shown any of his motivation for anything. The foot clan is also no longer a group of ninja warriors, they're...guys with guns. Completely useless guys with guns (that'll be relevant later).

They also unnecessarily tie April, Sachs and April's dad into the turtles' back story...for some reason. We don't even really meet April's father. And April is the one who saved them from the lab fire that killed her father...or wait, was it Eric who killed her father? The movie seems to confused on that point. And instead of keeping the baby turtles (like any little girl who likes animals would do) she...dumps them in the sewer? What the hell? The who thing is convoluted and doesn't make any damn sense.

April O'Neil is uninteresting and stupid. Seriously, I mean she is unintelligent. She is supposedly an educated journalist but spends so much time trying to convince he boss of a "story" of talking, crime- fighting turtles without one single goddamn lick of evidence. Vernon Fenway is apparently supposed to be the comic relief but none of his jokes are funny and his sole role in the film seems to be driving April around. And why the hell is Whoopi Goldberg in this? She had like six lines. Why is she here?

The camera-work was clichéd and chaotic. There were times when the camera was moving around too much for you to easily follow the action. There is also a serious lack of cool martial arts fights for a NINJA Turtles movie, which is not surprising when you turn their main antagonists from ninja into guys with guns. I also couldn't even begin to take the Shredder serious in the action scenes. Are those giant swiss army knives on his hands? What the hell?

Finally, the one thing, in my opinion, that sort of breaks the movie the most is that they made the turtles too damn powerful. Yes, the turtles are kind of superheroes. But wasn't being a bunch of kick-ass ninjas enough? No? You gotta give them super strength too? AND MAKE THEM BULLET PROOF!? Remember the previously said bit about the foot being a bunch of guys with guns? Yeah...you might see where I am going with this. It was bad enough to see the turtles throwing cars around and shattering concrete with punches. On some level, the audience needs to believe on some sort of fundamental level that the heroes are danger, that the threats that they face have meaning. Without that, there is no tension, no real conflict and with that...no excitement. No story.

This movie nuked the fridge.

When the first Ninja Turtles movie came out in 1990, it was an ABSOLUTE BLAST to watch, simply because it was a faithful adaptation of the comic books with character development and stunning visuals to boot; no thanks in part to Jim Henson's workshop of wonders.

I've skipped out on this movie when it was first released, but having just watched it now, I could say with all honesty that I was entertained for the most part, but said enjoyment was marred by the underdeveloped characters; just like it was in the first Transformers movie directed by Michael Bay and even though he only produced this film, his influence clearly is felt throughout this film; especially in the script, which is filled with tired, cliched dialogue and plot twists you can see coming a mile away. The end result is a widely derivative and phoned in experience.

Aside from that, I enjoyed the fight scenes, which are a plenty, though strangely and surprisingly enough, aren't as numerous and overblown like the Transformers films, but they do their job admirably.

But the biggest problem with the film is lack of character development. It's a shame that Megan Fox gets more screentime than the turtles; barely does Kirai and Shredder get any development and as a whole, the film feels disjointed and unbalanced. The original film had a nice balance between character development and action, something this film sorely lacks. Nobody expects Oscar-winning material in a Ninja Turtles movie, but at the very least, flesh out the characters more other than let one of them hog the spotlight for a significant amount of time.

So in conclusion, I suppose the film was entertaining on it's own merits, but ultimately, it was underwhelming.

Sad really, because I was really looking forward to a return to form from the titular reptilian heroes.