There are two camps at the opposite sides of the mountain that is the big screen reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: the Nickelodeon-demo that the film is predominantly targeted to, and an older TMNT crowd who have been crying bloody murder ever since it was announced Michael Bay was producing the film with an underlying threat of giving the iconic heroes in a half shell alien origins.
Well it turns out the target audience should be pretty happy with the film, and I’m pretty sure the over-thirty crowd will find much to bitch about (but will go see the movie regardless, so hey, the movie studio still wins). Personally I was pleasantly surprised to be superficially entertained on the check-your-brain and just enjoy it as the summer spectacle it’s meant to be taken for.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have come a long way since their humble beginnings in 1984 on the pages of the Mirage Studios black and white comic book series created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. There have been many incarnations since then, and clocking in with thirty years of history you’ll find that most fans probably followed a different interpretation of the four turtle warriors named after Renaissance artists.
For me, my first taste of turtle power was through the late ’80s animated series that ran for nearly a decade and the campy live action films of the early ’90s. The pizza loving, wise-cracking Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael have never been out of the spotlight, and have enjoyed another renaissance of their own following a smart big screen CGI feature and a successful new animated show on Nickelodeon.
But like many properties before it, the mega budget CGI-laden movie reboot is inevitable. Like every fan, I’ve been curious what modern effects could do when bringing the Turtles to life with performance capture getting better and better. After turning Transformers into a multi-billion dollar film franchise, Michael Bay took TMNT under his wing of Bayhem, and not surprisingly, bred similar results.
New York City has a crime problem, and it stems from The Foot Clan, who have been terrorizing the town. Intrepid News 6 reporter April O’Neil (Megan Fox) wants to earn hard news cred and move past her fluff coverage on the lifestyle beat. During a Foot Clan hit, she witnesses a large powerful vigilante make mince meat of the high trained gang members, and along with her cameraman Vernon (Will Arnett), is adamant on getting to the bottom of the story. Obviously April manages to track down the team of vigilantes, who turn out to be giant talking turtle warriors.
The Foot Clan is led by Shredder, a Japanese samuarai who get his way when he’s wearing an enormous suit of armor equipped with an insane array of various sharp weapons. Shredder has an ally in Eric Sachs, a former scientist who is now a prominent NYC tycoon, and together they plan to bring the city to its knees. To get into the further intricate details are unnecessary here, but needless to say it’s up to the Turtles and O’Neill to save the city.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles firmly delivers on spectacle, but not on substance or story. When I’m wearing my figurative summer movie hat and these days actual 3D glasses, I’m far more able to just sit back and enjoy a high octane technically proficient big screen joy ride, and that’s what this is. It’s also the same reason it will disappoint fans who are not enjoying the TMNT animated adventures on Nickelodeon.
Director Michael Liebsman delivers a lot of the expected visual assault, lens flare, ’80s film aesthetic homage, well timed out humor and thankfully the seamless CGI acrobatics Turtles fans want from their heroes in a big budget film of this caliber. But the script by Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec and Evan Daugherty ultimately can’t get a firm grasp on what the film should be. By committing to set it in the real world, they then over task themselves in trying explaining every single thing in a logical way. At the end of the day, in a film of this nature there is a boatload of leeway with the fantasy element. They screenwriters then unnecessarily tie the entire main cast together in an over complicated and convoluted origin story.
Did Anakin Skywalker really need to build C3P-O? Did seeing Yoda fight along side Chewbacca actually add to their characters? The same scripting sensibility is prominently at work here. Every single plot point is over explained. For me, if a guy is bombarded with Gamma rays and when angered turns into a raging green monster, I’m fine with that simple leap of story faith and don’t need over an hour of psychological analysis. Turns out nearly everyone in the main cast is connected in some way. It adds very little and makes this real world feel even more ridiculous, you know when you have talking ninja turtles and a giant rat is their sensei.
As with Transformers, we are not parking our asses in the theater for the human element. TMNT unfortunately gives way too much story time to Fox’s April O’Neil and Arnett’s flirting cameraman/partner. Granted in the rules of screenwriting we need a gateway character, but O’Neill is such a focus of the film it’s frustrating, despite the blatant big screen eye candy that Megan Fox exudes. It doesn’t help that Fox’s acting chops even seem stretched past their limits with the story as well. The Turtles’ iconic villain Shredder is reduced to an one-dimensional baddie under that ridiculous suit of CGI armor, and frankly his ultimate diabolical goal was lost on me by the middle of the film.
What is good? Well the Turtles’ humorous nature is well played and they look friggin’ great on the big screen. Sure there is hub bub on their bulky new CGI look (with those creepy green infant faces), but their differing winning personalities shine and their seamless movements courtesy of performance capture/CGI glory does not disappoint. They’ve come a long way from the man-in-rubber-suit days, but are still capable of becoming victim of a soul less hi-tech virtual world, especially when it comes to the action centerpiece of the film in a extended chase sequence down a snow covered mountain. The various fight sequences shot with performance capture on real locations work and feel much better in bringing the Turtles to life.
Overall the film feels hollow under its shell. Visually it’s what you would expect from a movie overseen by Michael Bay. The picture and booming layered sound design in the NYC theater was amazing, and makes a great case for the mandatory viewing of summer tentpoles on a big screen. Tweens and teens won’t have the issues us older cranky Turtles fans will have with the film, but frankly we aren’t the ones in the prime target zone. It works well as what I think the filmmakers intended it to be. Would a full Dark Knight-esque version have been better? To some yes, but not for the Saturday afternoon masses. The story definitely should have been less concerned with real world logic and gone full throttle into comic book fantasy land. More action, less science.
I took it for what it was, the good and the bad. If you commit to not wrapping your brain around the script’s over effort in logic, ultimately Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is safe escapist summer entrainment with enough impressive high-flying action and likable reptile heroes that will at least allow you to leave the theater with a big smile on your face. To selectively quote Marty McFly out of context, “This is an oldie where I come from… But your kids are gonna love it.”
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hits theaters in 2D and 3D on August 8th.
REVIEW RATING: ★★★★★
Director: Johnathan Liebsman
Starring: Megan Fox, Will Arnett, William Fichtner, Johnny Knoxville, Alan Ritchson, Noel Fisher
Screenwriters: Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec and Evan Dougherty
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Rated: PG-13
Running Time: 120 minutes
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