Tartarughe Ninja

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.

It seems like Megan Fox's job was just to stand there and look pretty, just like any other movie she stars in.. because that's all she can seem to do. I mean her expressions were emotionless and unbelievable and her acting was terrible. She ruined an otherwise decent movie for me. Being a TMNT fan growing up, I was pretty disappointed.

Otherwise the movie was OK. I don't like that they made all the turtles different heights.. I mean, why was Raphael so huge? I don't understand the glasses on Donatello either, they should have used goggles or something like that because they don't have ears. The faces looked strange.. would have been happier with more turtle-like faces.

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.

Folks, it's no exaggeration when I say this one is bad. And I'm not just reviewing it as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. The Ninja Turtles are a lore. Every telling of the story deserves its own version, like Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, or Batman. Adam West, Michael Keaton, Christian Bale, and Ben Affleck all play different versions of Batman in different universes. Though I have a version of the Turtles I like best, I can set aside that prejudice for this review. It's just a very awful film. It's so bad, I don't understand how the current rating stands at 6 stars.

The movie has no real sense of identity, like the filmmakers really had no idea what to do with it. Where are the Turtles going to go? What are they going to do when they get there? Is it going to be spring time or winter? Should it be in the city or in the mountains? Low to the ground in dark settings or high up on roof tops in broad daylight? Are the Turtles stealthy ninjas or mini-Hulks that just needlessly destroy stuff? And are they main characters or secondary plot pieces? Is April O'Neil tech savvy, or does she still conduct interviews with pen and paper? (Through the first half-hour, perhaps even by the end of the film, you'll have a tough time convincing yourself the title shouldn't have been "April O'Neil: The Movie.")

It's very evident that the writers did not know how to work with "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." Again, this has nothing to do with a faithfulness to any kind of version of TMNT. Just, really, they had no clue how to make those four elements work. They're not so much teenagers as they are just dumb. The movie lets the Turtles aspect be self-implied. The Mutants part as well, though it does play loosely into the plot (heh, just kidding, there is no plot). The idea of ninjutsu, though, is a complete afterthought. Seriously, it's just sandwiched in there somewhere and plays no relevance to the story whatsoever, nor has an identifying presence for any character, even Splinter or Shredder.

Yeah, Shredder. That's a whole other useless incorporation. The guy is somewhere between a clunky Power Ranger villain (the ones in great big suits that don't move very well) and Bane from "Batman and Robin." He doesn't even fill the main villain role. That "honor" would go to William Fichtner's character, Eric sounds-like-sex Sacks. Shredder's just a tool. His appearance, fighting-style, and overall awkwardness are all loud, awful reminders of how the filmmakers knew nothing about ninjutsu or how to use it. "You know what? Just make 'em fight with ninja weapons, put lots and lots of blades around, and be sure the word 'Japan' gets into someone's origin story somewhere. Close enough."

Yes, the Turtles are kind of funny, but it's completely incidental. There were times when the movie tried to force something humorous, but in the theater I was in, no one laughed. And I was in a packed house. Their personalities are nothing but typecasting: Leo is the serious control-freak, Raphael the brooding B.A., Michelangelo is a goof-ball, and Donatello is the inventive... nerd! Yeah, nerds are inventive, right? Let's make him a snorting, glasses-wearing dork! You know what, just make him Simon from Alvin and the Chipmunks. You never feel like you get to be a part of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They're just kind of there. The viewer is more watching from April or Vern's vantage point, never fully involved in the brotherhood.

There's a whole lot more stupid that goes on for the sake of convenience: like Donatello's bo able to flip over an SUV, or the fact that an iron construction beam can't support the weight of Leo and Donnie, but Raph who comes to their rescue can (what, are they as heavy as semi-trucks?). Watch out for the abundance of product-placement. This is a Michael Bay produced film, remember. At one point, Splinter pretty much monologues a Pizza Hut ad.

In closing, I want to leave you with this, because until we get this, these horrible, ridiculous movies will continue to get made. In an interview with an MTV whoever, TMNT producer Michael Bay said that he doesn't care if people think his movies are bad. Speaking specifically about the latest Transformers installation, "They love to hate, and I don't care. Let them hate. They're still going to see the movie!"

This movie is a poo-pile of a film. I'm intentionally avoiding the usual puns like "it was a shell-acking" or "I left the theater shell-shocked" because, again, my affinity for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has nothing to do with how bad this movie is. As long as we keep paying to see what we know is going to be a bad movie, they'll keep getting made. And it doesn't matter that they're bad, because we'll pay for it no matter how bad it is.

Or maybe these movies keep getting manufactured because there is actually a niche of people who like them. After all, it has a rating of 6 out of 10 stars...

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.