Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

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.

No matter how the name Michael Bay is attached to a fantasy adaptation, people will complain anything about the project. But as a producer, does it affect much to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Surprisingly yes. As the same as the public response about the Transformers franchise, people turned out to be ranting at the wrong stuff. At the post-viewing, maybe we can accept the heavy reliance to cartoony CGI, or the large amount of explosions, or the really poor plot. The real sin of these movies is its lack of interest to its main heroes and instead focuses on the human characters. Which is a shame, because it somewhat gets it right with the turtles, their stories are more interesting than the one we ended up seeing. The film does have some rewarding moments, but it just keeps hindering us to the less interesting parts which makes it disappointing.

It is clear that if follows the same screen writing rules of the last Bay franchise. Instead of being about the Ninja Turtles, it rather centers on April O'Neil. Instead of fearing the Foot Clan, the threat would rather focus in some evil corporal manager. Any larger-than-life characters from the source material have only left out as the secondary need of the journey: the turtles are now plot devices and the Shredder is, for some reason, a henchman. I bet the fact that Casey Jones wears a mask is the reason why we can't have him in this film. For the story of April, it might only work as a subplot. There isn't enough theme or intrigue to accomplish unlike the one from its actual heroes. There is some talk about Raphael mistreating his brothers, which is a theme that was already done better in the past TMNT movies, and Master Splinter's backstory as the turtles' father, which is only presented for expository need. They don't get the development they deserve, which makes the drama in the end feels so forced and less than effective.

April's arc would have been tolerable if it gives her more moments to actually connect with the turtles, but the only information it could provide is that they're her childhood pets, she's only using those beloved characters to her job, teasing us the much interesting world beneath the sewers. The palpable respect we may give to this film is the humor. It may not be fantastic and all, but it's not bad either, at least it defines one of its personalities. The action is obviously large and destructive, well at least we get to see more ninja action. The acting is predictable: Megan Fox's humanless expressions make her April O'Neil difficult to root for. The voice and motion-capture actors worked better for having a sense of fun in their enthusiasm.

The single greatest scene of the film is when the turtles are making a tune out of an elevator sound. That is one of the reasons why we love these characters anyway. Newcomers will still convince the fans to give up nostalgia and move on to the changes, but that doesn't mean it has to diminish it as a generic/bland action blockbuster. The film just won at the box office, so definitely there will be a sequel. The only advice we could wholeheartedly give is to have more love to the heroes. We did saw that occasionally, but we hope to have more of their sewer life with their pop cultural obsession and mass consumption of pizza, plus have interesting villains, some real and not forced familial themes, and at least a solid plot since these Ninja Turtles movies hardly ever had one. The fights were the only parts that weren't tamed from them, because apparently that is what the filmmakers are mostly interested at. It just isn't enough, and as a fan, they should have focused on rebuilding its already richer world than this.

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.

I was never a big fan of TMNT, but the concept was always a unique one. Instead of the far east style of mutual cold looks and "Yaaa!" yells, while the tough good guy fights a cruel enemy, you get these "karate kids" who are in fact mutants and they fight the almost super-human villain.

You get the tension of they having to hide in the sewers as they are still being feared by us - regular people - and the realization that as much as we admire them we also want them on the research table. Add to that the character of April - a journalist who finds herself in triangle of conflict (up yours Louise Lane!): a journalist who uncovers secrets, the confident of the turtles and (in a way) the role of the mother, who would rush to danger to help them and protect them.

This could be a great platform for a good deep movie heavily spiced with great ninja action. But instead what did we get...

1) An absurdly idiotic storyline which kinda gives you the feeling that the story writing was revolving around the already shot action scenes.

2) Action sequences which appear to be copy paste from transformers and only replaced by turtles (I don't count shredder as he always looked like a robot).

3) The role of April is basically something I would put in "Little Pony", which is reduced to nothing more then a brain dead, incoherent (she's a goddamn reporter for crying out loud!) and basically doesn't contribute anything to the good cause.

On the plus side:

1) It was nice that they emphasized the uniqueness of each turtle beyond the color of the head band. Their entire gear is crafted to their different personalities.

2) In the past movies or TV series they were always turtles fighting in human style, in here for the first time they make use of their physical turtle attributes.

Bottomline, this movie could have been so much better, and it feels like it was a wasted opportunity. a reboot I might watch, but if there is a number 2 on the way, then yeah...I'm not giving it another 2 hours of my life.

There's hardly a kid born from the 80s who has never heard of this totally bodacious group of walking, talking, pizza-eating, street-fighting reptiles. It has always been a goofy saga, but it was also hip, action-packed, and colorful. Can the same be said about the latest adaptation?

On the surface level, 2014's TMNT at least looks the part. It's a fairly breezy film that never takes itself seriously, packing on generous heapings of goofy comedy, stylish action scenes, and loads of special effects. The first half of the film takes its time to follow April O'Neil around, who inevitably uncovers the secret of the turtles' existence, and the outlandish Foot Clan plot to take over New York City. The last half of the film is pretty much all-out fighting and action, which includes a fight in the sewers, a lengthy chase scene down the slopes of a mountain, and a final showdown on top of a skyscraper. Thus, I found the last half of the film the most engaging.

It's still not without its problems though. Despite the light-hearted tone and all the jokes, very little of it made me laugh outright. The humor is quite low-brow and doofy. Action scenes will be a hit and a miss; fight scenes in the film's first half are horribly shot and edited (on purpose nonetheless). Later scenes are still hectic, but are at least watchable and fairly fun. Scenes in between try their best to keep things rolling fast and without becoming droll, but without any major emotional investment, these scenes tend to drag a bit.

Beyond the surface-level comedy and action, there's not much else to this film. The plot is pretty much a mash-up of typical TMNT fare and 2007's Transformers (also an adaptation of an 80s cartoon where human characters discover some weird life form and gets caught in the middle of a war nobody knew existed; both starring Megan Fox nonetheless). What plot the movie has is riddled with plot holes, and scenes that are simply way too unbelievable (maybe not a valid complaint for TMNT, but with the way the film tries to look believable, the film shoots its own creditability in the foot). The turtle characters are fun to watch, usually, and Splinter is one cool rat. They aren't terribly deep characters, but they are colorful, and there is just enough background to them to keep them from being total caricatures. Other characters aren't as good: April O'Neil is almost annoying as she obsesses over the turtles and shouts her findings at everybody she runs across. Her sidekick is a dork. Shredder is extremely flat, lifeless, and lacking in presence, serving little more than an excuse to have a boss fight at the end of the movie. The film draws some connections between all the characters to give their interactions more backing, but it only strains the creditability of the plot even further.

The film's photography looks good sometimes and terrible at other times. Editing is choppy. Acting is pretty lackluster from the whole crowd; Megan Fox is far from endearing despite her looks, the voice acting can be a hit or a miss, and other actors don't really take their roles seriously, for better or for worse. Writing is pretty daft. This production uses okay-looking sets, props, and costumes. Locales are pretty small-scale most of the time. Special effects vary from good to bad. Music is okay (I got to admit that I found the end credits song catchy).

This incarnation of the Turtles definitely has its flaws, but it tries to be a fun picture, and it is at least partway successful. Not everybody will be quite as easily charmed as I am, so I'm compelled to recommend approaching this movie with caution.

3/5 (Entertainment: Pretty Good | Story: Marginal | Film: Marginal)