'TMNT' Review

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Review:

Dumb Fun With a Sprinkle of Nostalgia

BY IAN TAN

Michael Bay now owns yet another kids-cartoon-turned-movie film franchise, this time in the form of the beloved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. With the Transformers franchise under his belt, and given their poor critical reception, audiences were extremely skeptical about how this Michael Bay produced reboot would fare. Just a reminder – Bay is PRODUCING this movie, not DIRECTING it. There have been one too many people labeling this as “just another Michael Bay movie” when as a matter of fact it isn’t. He’s had his fun with the billion dollar grossing Transformers: Age of Extinction already. Sitting in the director’s chair for 2014’s TMNT movie is Jonathan Liebesman, who previously helmed the terrible Battle: Los Angeles and the underwhelming Wrath of the Titans. Now that worries me more than Michael Bay producing this movie. Adding to the fan-rage was the fact that Megan Fox was cast as the inquisitive April O’Neil, which seems like a huge miscasting decision. With nearly every reason to hate this movie comes the question, does it really suck?

Thankfully, this film is not a total disaster. It’s far from perfect but it’s not the piece of complete junk we thought it was going to be. Fans of the titular turtles will be pleased to see that a good deal of the turtles’ characterizations and interactions in this film are in fact very similar to the way they were in the cartoons. Michelangelo still cracks a joke every second he gets a chance to and loves pizza more than anything, Raphael maintains his rebellious ways and ideals, Donatello is still the one with the brains, and Leo continues to be the big brother of the group. It’s pleasing to see that the filmmakers chose to maintain these characters’ personalities and keep the overall tone of their dialogue similar to that of the cartoon. In fact, the Turtles are the best part of the movie, and provide fans with a nice sense of nostalgia. I did have a few gripes about the Turtles however, one of which are their designs. Being reimagined and brought to life on the big screen by CGI and motion-capture, the turtles do have a good touch of reality to them, which can be a little unsettling to look at as they sometimes look a bit too human for turtles. Another thing that bugged me was the casting choice of Noel Fisher as Michelangelo. In the cartoons, Michelangelo served as probably many fans’ favourite turtle of the bunch. Here however, I felt that he came off as rather unfunny and at times irritating, with half of his jokes falling flat. Also, none of the turtles get enough dramatic weight and/or character arcs as they did in the cartoons and other incarnations. Several personality traits are merely mentioned but not incorporated fully into the overall story of the Turtles throughout the movie. Speaking of story, this movie’s plot is paper-thin and feels like an extended 100-minute version of a script that was meant for a 30-minute TV episode. Furthermore, the movie’s final showdown could not be more identical to The Amazing Spiderman’s.

The human characters here are nothing to shout about; some are downright terrible (Will Arnett as Vern ­­­Fenwick) while others are decent (William Fichtner). I will say this though, Megan Fox was (thank goodness) not awful as April O’Neil. She sure isn’t the best person to be casted as the character but there are times when she does put some effort into her scenes, and it pays off. This is probably one of her better performances, even if that’s not saying much. In terms of design and costume, Shredder is likely to please fans, but from a character standpoint, Shredder is given nothing to work with as a player in the movie’s plot, giving any villain related exposition and play to William Fichtner as Eric Sacks, who is serviceable in the film but not as menacing or intimidating as he could have been.

As for the movie’s special effects, they do look more polished than they did in the trailers. Granted, they still feel like video game graphics at times but given the subject matter at hand, it isn’t really that big of a deal. The sound mix on the other hand, is quite amazing and definitely lends a lot to the action scenes that the movie has to offer. Multiple sounds travel from every corner of the hall and make for a very pleasing cinematic sound experience that really complements the onscreen visuals and action. Here, Liebesman steps up his action game with some excitingly fun action sequences that feature multiple spinning camera shots (Michael Bay influence there) that really take audiences on a pretty fun ride that almost feels like you’re on a roller-coaster, better seen in 3D. One scene in particular involving the turtles spinning around Foot Clan vehicles while facing an avalanche is a real standout.

On the whole, 2014’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a fun, dumb movie aimed mainly at kids who don’t care about interesting or strong characters, or a story that makes sense. Long-time fans of the Ninja Turtles will be happy with its treatment of the Turtles and will remind them of those Saturday morning episodes, and while the movie does have some well-executed action and a great sound mix, it isn’t enough to make up for it’s numerous flaws and lack of story-telling creativity and character development.

Final Rating

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles gets 5.6 stars out of 10 – Fun but flawed.