Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) Review (1 Viewer)

[Yavin]

Alright, so this is a Michael Bay produced reimagining/reboot of the classic comic/cartoon/film franchise, directed by Wrath of the Titans director Jonathan Liebesman and starring Megan Fox, Will Arnett and William Fichtner. But don't discount it just yet...

The reviews for this have been tepid, but for TMNT fans, there's actually a lot to like about it: it sticks surprisingly close to comic/cartoon canon (they're not aliens!); the Turtles are handled very well and their distinct personalities are just as you might remember them; and there's some great Turtle-on-Shredder action. Consider it one of the better Michael Bay produced films.

Here's an excerpt from my full review:

Like the live action adaptations of G.I. Joe and Transformers, it tries to balance a sense of nostalgia for the property with the rush of adrenaline that accompanies such a modern reimagining. Gone are the old, full-body Turtle suits crafted by the legendary Jim Henson's Creature Shop; these new Turtles are a quartet of six-foot-tall green giants, rendered entirely with the aid of CG and state-of-the-art motion capture technology. As a result, they're now as nimble as Spider-Man but as physically imposing as Batman, yet they still retain their inherent — well — Turtle-ness.

Their individual personalities, and the way those personalities complement and clash with one another, are a huge part of what makes the Turtles such endearing characters. And not only do those personalities shine through — with Leo ever the stoic leader, Donnie the brainy science geek, Raph the macho surly type and Mikey the wise-cracking joker — but they completely outshine all of the human characters as well. That's not to say that Fox doesn't do a commendable job as April, Arnett isn't a reasonably reliable comic relief or Fichtner isn't suitably creepy as the link between April and Shredder, but it's wonderful to see that all the cutting-edge special effects in the world haven't turned the Turtles into a soulless mass of pixels. In fact, quite the opposite is true.

As for the action, it's all part and parcel of what you might expect from a Michael Bay production that's helmed by Wrath of the Titans director Jonathan Liebesman. Although the early battles with the Foot are executed with moderate restraint (with the Turtles' movements evoking the stealthiness of the Dark Knight), things quickly ramp up from there, with the high points being a dizzying chase down a snowy mountainside (involving a semi-truck and a small army of Humvees, no less) and a confrontation with Shredder (who, incidentally, happens to be hulked out in a massive robotically-enhanced suit laden with blades) atop the roof of a downtown skyscraper. In short, there's a definite sense that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles belongs to the same family tree as Michael Bay's Transformers, but the spectacle works because it plays to the characters' cartoon/comic book roots.

4 out of 5. There are two core types of moviegoers who will gravitate to this new Turtles film — those who grew up watching the pizza-loving foursome's movies and TV show in the '80s and '90s and today's kids, who are too young to even remember the previous film franchise — and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles caters to both, subtly reinventing the iconic characters for contemporary audiences while paying ample homage to Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's original creations. If you dig TMNT, there's no reason why you won't enjoy this film.

 

[Stephen Brooks]

I desperately wanted to like this movie, but I just couldn't. Decent actors, and Megan Fox, uttering horrible dialogue. No interesting human characters at all. Fart jokes. Foot soldiers that aren't even ninjas and use machine guns. Bulletproof turtles. Complete lack of any martial-arts mysticism. I'm not really sure it's better than Secret of the Ooze, and it's not even remotely in the same league as the 1990 original film or the CG animated TMNT. There were a lot of kids at the showing I saw and none of them really seemed all that excited. I hope their parents take the time to show them the original films.

 

[Michael Elliott]

I took my son, my girlfriend and her kids to see it and we all enjoyed it. There were certainly some flaws but overall I thought the film was fairly entertaining as long as you didn't take it too serious. I'd rate it behind the original movie but I still liked some of the stuff they did here. The bad was obviously Fox who simply has an acting range below what you'd see in most homemade porn movies. The first fifteen-minutes were pretty bad and especially with the editing and the fast turtles. Once things started to slow down I thought the backstory was good and I enjoyed the turtles and the rat. The Terminator Shredder was pretty poorly done and especially after they built up his "human" character so well. The mountain sequence was way too bland for its own good.