Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
In New York City, crime is at an all-time high with an urban terrorist group known as the Foot Clan on the loose. A young reporter named April O'Neill is trying to be taken seriously by her coworkers and decides to try and get some exclusive knowledge on the Foot. But she accidentally stumbles across a group of, well, teenage mutant ninja turtles, who try to protect her from the Foot and their fearsome leader The Shredder.
This reboot is able to be both mildly entertaining and absolutely laughable. It doesn't have the so-bad-it's-funny vibe as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, or the simplistic, nostalgic charm of the first two Jim Henson films from the 90's, so it just sort of falls in the middle.
The acting is pretty bad. Megan Fox is not the slightest bit believable as April, and she is just wooden, and she tries to be a strong character, and just fails miserably. Will Artnett brought comic relief as Vern Fenwick, April's partner. Johnny Knoxville is slightly miscast as Leonardo, but he's able to pull it off. Alan Ritchson is actually really great as Raphael. Noel Fisher is rather annoying as Michelangelo, who's supposed to come off as charming and funny, but here he's about as funny as Jar Jar Binks. Jeremy Howard does a great job as the nerdy Donatello. Danny Woodburn mo-caps Splinter, who is voiced by a surprisingly good Tony Shaloub, despite lacking a Japanese accent. I preferred Mako from the 2007 CG film, but Shaloub is fine. William Fichtner was supposed to be Shredder, but he's not. He plays a lackluster villain named Eric Sacks, who I suspected to turn out to be like Krang or something at the end, but nope, he's just some guy. Whoopi Goldberg is just sort of there as April's boss Bernadette Thompson. Tohoro Masamune plays Shredder, who is just awful in this movie; seriously. Taran Killam cameos as a newsroom employee, and K. Todd Freeman has a very brief cameo as fan favorite character Baxter Stockman.
I was surprised by Jonathan Liebesman's directing. He went from god-awful (Darkness Falls, Battle: LA, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) to generally mediocre (this film). Michael Bay is actually not as involved in the film as I thought he'd be, which is a plus.
The action sequences are pretty well-done, with the exception of the bland and disappointing ending showdown with Shredder. However, the climactic snowy mountain chase was fun and exciting.
The writing can be very clunky, filled to the brim with forced sentimentality, plot holes, bad jokes, and scenes where characters blatantly state things the audience could figure out themselves. There's also an awful lot of blatant product placement, although not as bad as Transformers. There are a few clever jokes for people who know the history of the franchise (including a jab about a terrible hip hop Christmas VHS special featuring the Turtles released in the early 90's, and another about the rumors that the Turtles would be aliens in this reboot).
This isn't so much a complaint about the film itself, but my theater experience. Because it's a Nickelodeon-produced film, I had to sit through a plethora of previews for terrible kid's films, including the awful-looking Spongebob Squarepants sequel. There was also a kid in my particular theater, who I'm pretty sure was one of two things- mentally handicapped, or he was just fucking around, because he was making a good deal of noise the entire time, and he was at least 9 or 10, and at one point the characters say that they are "heroes in a half-shell", and he couldn't help but say, completely out loud, "Turtle Power!"
There's also a very irritating and unnecessary rap number at the end of the film that plays over the credits which I thought was just awful. Not to mention the completely unnecessary and strange changes to the lore, like turning(Spoiler Alert, like it even matters) the Turtles and Splinter into April's childhood pets, or making Eric Sacks, this random made-up character, Shredder's apprentice and adopted son.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles doesn't have enough charm or action to constitute second viewings or even a sequel, but it's harmless. Better than either Liebesman or Bay's previous efforts (at least Bay's recent ones), but not so much that it blows expectations away, I'd say maybe take your kids or younger siblings to it if they want to, but otherwise, just stick with the originals. 2.5/5 stars.
(Image: Wikipedia)
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