For as long as I can remember I have loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My first exposure to them was through renting the VHS videos that I would find in my local King Soopers. I loved everything about it, the premise, the characters, the action, the villains, the humor, I loved being a turtle fan.
But it wasn't until I was around seven that my older step-brother showed me the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, and it blew my tiny mind. The turtles were in live action, there was swearing, there was Casey Jones, there was Shredder and Splinter and the action was sweet. It was everything a seven year old turtle fan could want and it's one of my favorite memories I have of watching a movie and one of the best memories I have of watching something with my older step-brother.
So when I heard that a brand new turtles film was in development, I got pumped! And then over the months the pumped feeling went from "I'm so excited" to " This could work I think" to "Okay I'm not sure" to "Can it at least not suck too bad?".
Yes I am one of those people who has been dreading the arrival of this film. From Transformers director Michael Bay producing the project, to hack movie maker Jonathan Liebesman directing it, to plastic actress Megan Fox starring in it, to the design of the Turtles looking absolutely awkward and ugly, I was going into the film with the lowest of low expectations. And while the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film is not that bad, as a whole it is still a horribly wasted opportunity.
THE SECRET OF THE OOZE
April O'Neil (Megan Fox) is a reporter for Channel 6 news who is tired of doing human interest stories and wants to really break into more high profile stories. So she decides to investigate the militia group known as the Foot Clan that has been working in the shadows of New York for years now and seems to be up to something.
While she is investigating the Foot Clan, she comes across a group of four gigantic mutant ninja turtles named Leonardo (voice of Johnny Knoxville), Donatello (voice of Jeremy Howard), Raphael (voice of Alan Ritchson) and Michelangelo (voice of Noel Fisher) that have also been helping to defend the streets of New York from the Foot Clan and their mysterious leader the Shredder (Tohoru Masamune).
Soon she also comes across the turtles leader Splinter (voice of Tony Shalhoub) and realizes she's actually a part of a much bigger plan that will bring her, her camera man Vernon (Will Arnett) and the Turtles into conflict with the Shredder for the fate of New York City.
If there is one phrase to summarize this story it would be "Chopped Up". This story feels like it's gone through rewrite after rewrite after rewrite and it really shows in the final product. There are tons of plot holes, the villains plan makes absolutely no sense to the point where I forgot what it was almost immediately after it was presented, characters enter and exit scenes with no reason on more then one occasion. It's clear that the final script has been the subject of fan outrage due to some of the earlier decisions made and is so unsure of itself and what to do with it's characters.
And yes the film does exactly what everyone was so afraid that it would do, it focuses a lot more on the human characters and relegates a lot of the turtle action to the back ground, and that doesn't have to be that big of a problem. Unlike Sam Witwicky in the Transformers movies who was created for the movies and was an annoying character from the start of the first Transformers movie. April O'Neil is already an established character, she already has established traits and characteristics that I enjoy. I love April in almost all of her incarnations, I wouldn't mind a Turtles film that followed her around a lot. But sadly this isn't really April O'Neil, this is Megan Fox playing April O'Neil.
Sadly Megan Fox still has not grown as an actress from her time in Transformers and continues to be just as stilted and stiff as ever. There is no passion in her voice at some of the most key times and barely any emotion is able to come through on her face or body in times of extreme drama or duress. Though sometimes the character of April is able to shine through her dull acting. Maybe she is trying to get a picture of something at the worst time or maybe she says something that is trying to get more information out of someone. That's when it really feels like April but those moments are few and far between.
The Turtles them selves however, I'm pleased to say, are actually my favorite part of the movie. Before the film came out, I really didn't enjoy their look. Maybe it was the weird nostril holes on their face, maybe it was all the stuff that they slapped on them to make them look more distinguished, maybe it was that they made Donatello a lot more stereo typed in his geeky look, maybe it was that they were eight feet tall now. Just something bugged me about it and I wasn't looking forward to staring at them for the entirety of the movie. But I actually quite enjoyed them. The motion capture is quite good and all the voice acting is top notch. Even Johnny Knoxville at some point disappears into his character and manages to sound pretty good. And eventually I even managed to get used to their new look.
The problem that I have with the turtles however is that they just aren't developed enough in this film. The reason they have all that new armor and gadgets and necklaces on themselves is that it's in a vain attempt to add more character to the turtles cause the script sure isn't doing it. Leonardo is the leader but theres never any development there, there is no time when he acts like a Leader really, they all just follow him because he is Leonardo and he leads. Donatello is a geek and he shows that off but that's all he is and Michelangelo is the horny party guy that is always hitting on April which does nothing but serve to annoy the audience with how old it gets (and it gets old really fast).
The only one that gets any kind of development is Raphael but it's so underplayed and if you blink you may actually miss it. It's mentioned once in a throw away line that he can't wait to leave the team and be on his own and then it's never mentioned again until the last five minuets of the movie. And what we are left with is characters with no substance and a team with no chemistry. They bounce off each other in their dialogue, but there is no sense that these are brothers that have spent all these years together. There is no scene of Raph and Mikey talking together or Donnie explaining something complicated to Mikey or Raph and Leo Butting heads over leadership. The best scene in this movie is the elevator scene right before the final battle because it actually feels like the turtles being the turtles and being brothers. But most of the time they are given little to no development and I don't think that would have happened if the film focused more on them in their own movie.
The Supporting cast in the film is decent. I thought Will Arnett was fine in his role as Vernon, he didn't annoy me too much, though he was the one to get most of the groaner lines (I don't think I've ever heard the term "Heroes in a half shell" be more forced). Whoopi Goldberg as Bernadette was sadly underused and felt like a glorified cameo. Splinter is okay, Tony Shalhoub does an alright job voicing Splinter though I do feel like this Splinter is a bit too harsh for my liking. I just don't enjoy him as much as I have enjoyed other Splinters like Hoon Lee and Mako (and it doesn't help that Splinters CGI in this is ugly as sin).
And then there is William Fichtner as Eric Sacks, a character that has absolutely no point in this film. This is another way you can tell that a lot of this script was rewritten into oblivion. It seems like Fichtner was in fact supposed to be Shredder in this movie from the back story that is given, but due to fan outcry about turning a Japanese character into a white guy, they turned Eric Sacks into an original character. In doing so the character lost everything he was supposed to do in this movie. If you are wondering why I haven't brought up William Fichtner in this review until now, this is why. He has no purpose in this film that couldn't be easily done by Shredder with a few more rewrites. The only good thing to come out of this useless character is that Fichtner is obviously having the time of his life playing this character. Hamming it up doesn't even come close to describing him near the end of this movie and manages to make a useless character the funniest thing in the movie.
The worst character in it sadly is the villain Shredder. Shredder is usually one of the best villains the Turtles have ever faced. He's cunning and manipulative, He's devious and menacing, he's smart but he's also one of the best at fighting. Heck in the IDW comics single issue that was devoted to him, he actually managed to take over Hell itself. But in this movie all he wants to do is take over New York so that he will have money and power. Though the question arises of why? Since he already has money and power at the beginning of this film. He's just not interesting and comes off as kind of an idiot at points. He fights Raphael and beats him to an inch of his life and then leaves for absolutely no reason. It's not like he had to be somewhere or that Raph had reinforcements coming in, he just leaves Raph alive for no reason. And when he gets into his armor, you can tell there is a little bit of Michael Bay in this film even though he only produced it. The armor is over crowded with knives and spikes everywhere and it looks more cumbersome then effective. In fact Shredder is still supposed to be a ninja in this film but he looks more like a Samurai then ever before. I can't imagine a ninja jumping around on rooftops in that thing and not expecting to get noticed.
The action in the film actually managed to surprise me because if there is one thing that Jonathan Liebesman and especially Michael Bay are good at doing, it's make action scenes really boring. It's always stuffed with explosions and CGI and a shaky camera that never lets you get a good look at the action that is going on and after about forty minuets straight of that it just leaves you begging for it to stop. But in this movie, aside from the first really big fight in the Turtles lair, the action is actually pretty well shot and edited together. There's a good fight on a mountain side that is actually very thrilling and manages to get each turtle in on the action and give them a moment to shine. And there's another scene on top of a building that has the turtles fighting the shredder and it's all done in this very nice circle pan around them that I found very well done and thrilling.
The music is decent and has some nice touches to it but it's nothing to memorable. That is however for magnum opus that is the song at the end called Shell Shocked by Juicy J. This wonderful bit of rapping expertise most of the time has absolutely nothing to do with the ninja turtles at all aside from some references and some jackass naming his orange Lamborghini Michelangelo. I'm sure that in time this song will go down with all the Ninja Turtles fan favorite songs like Turtle Power and the Ninja Rap and in no way will be forgotten as soon as this film leaves the theaters (I really wish sarcasm was able to be transferred through the written word cause I'm trying my hardest to be as sarcastic as possible with this).
SHELL SHOCKED (SPOILER WARNING!)
YES! That is right, this section is going to be dealing with plot spoilers in the film so if you don't want to spoil this film for your self. Then just jump to the next part! If you can't tell from my review, I didn't like it and this part just goes into a few specific points about why I didn't and one of those points has to do with the ending. So if you don't want to be spoiled then skip this part.
There are things in this film that just bother me in a lot of ways and really drag the movie down for me. This could be just me being a huge fan and being let down but I feel that some of these things do need to be addressed.
At the end of this movie they try to throw in a very lazy moral about family and how it's important but like I said before, the turtles almost never come off like brothers. They come off like four bros in a fraternity house then anything else. And their interactions and relationship to Splinter doesn't come off as a father training his sons, it feels like a master teaching his students. And that just is not who Splinter is. He should be a mix of both sensei and father, but he only comes across as a sensei who just so happens to be stuck with these four turtles. And when Splinter is in trouble and the turtles are yelling to help him and keep calling him dad, I just am not able to buy it.
I said in the beginning that I am a huge turtles fan but a problem I've always had with the origin story is how they explain how Splinter managed to learn Ninjitsu. None of the explanations have ever fully worked for me so it really depends on how moderately believable it is. A Ninjitsu master that is transformed into a rat, okay that one is decently plausible and works alright. A rat that watched a Ninjitsu master for years and is a master himself when he is mutated, okay that's really pushing it as far as believability goes. An ancient warrior and his four sons are reincarnated into a rat and four turtles and the rat remembers everything about his past ancient Japanese life, Okay that's weird but maybe I can buy it. But this movie may have the stupidest explanation of them all.
Splinter is a normal rat who is mutated and one day found a book on Ninjitsu and decided it would be good parenting material. And from one book, Splinter is a Ninjitsu master within fifteen years and is able to go toe to toe with the Shredder who has been learning it all his life. From one book he was able to become a master. It never says that he did more research after he found the book, it never even hints that maybe he went out and tried to observe actual Ninjitsu masters, no he just learned it all from one book. By that logic the turtles them selves should be at Splinters level then, if all it takes is reading this one damn book and training for it then the turtles should already be at his level. And it really sucks because with one or two more lines of dialogue it could have been wiped away "I found a book on Ninjitsu so that I could train my sons to protect themselves. I then studied masters of the technique for years and soon was able to teach it to my sons." The stupidest explanation for how a rat learned Ninjitsu and you found it, way to go writers.
And the last thing I'll bring up is the final fight scene in this movie, not because it's a bad fight but because it's completely unoriginal and pretty much straight up stolen from two films. The first one it steals from is "The Amazing Spider-man". I really can't even believe how similar the two scenes are in terms of what happens and what's at stake and where they are. It's like the writers were all sitting around one day and didn't really know how to do the fight scene but really wanted to homage the original films ending and the Amazing Spider-man was on TV and they said "Eh screw it let's just do that". But that is just a minor gripe and just something that I happened to notice since I such a big movie watcher.
The other film that it seems to straight up steal from is the first Transformers movie in the way that April is the one that beats the Shredder just like how Sam beat Megatron in Transformers. The heroes are fighting the villain, the villain is kicking the heroes butts, the human characters come in to fight the villain and manage to take them out when none of the giant robots or ninja turtles could. And like I said at the end of that movie, Bull S%!^. I'm sorry, this is another fan gripe but April should not be the one to take out the Shredder when none of the Turtles could or Splinter could for that matter. Shredder is the biggest baddest villain in TMNT lore, easily able to go up against all four of the turtles and barely even call it a work out, and a small twenty something woman is able to kick a sword into this huge bulky armor that he has? This point does nothing but make Shredder look like an idiot who can't even take on a twenty something year old woman and makes the turtles look like huge dumb asses who couldn't even take that guy out when there are four of them attacking him. It also makes April look like a Mary Sue esq. character that is always able to defeat what the turtles can't in this movie, just like it did for Sam in the Transformers movie. It was as much of a BS ending to the Transformers movie and it's just as much of a BS ending to this movie.
This film reminds me a lot of the first Transformers movie. Even though this film gets a lot of stuff wrong, there are tiny glimmers of hope, a few scenes and elements where it really does start to feel like a TMNT film. So who knows, maybe the next film will have more of those kinds of scenes and we will have a much better movie. As for this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, these heroes in a half shell just aren't worth your time or money.
April O'Neil (Megan Fox) is a reporter for Channel 6 news who is tired of doing human interest stories and wants to really break into more high profile stories. So she decides to investigate the militia group known as the Foot Clan that has been working in the shadows of New York for years now and seems to be up to something.
While she is investigating the Foot Clan, she comes across a group of four gigantic mutant ninja turtles named Leonardo (voice of Johnny Knoxville), Donatello (voice of Jeremy Howard), Raphael (voice of Alan Ritchson) and Michelangelo (voice of Noel Fisher) that have also been helping to defend the streets of New York from the Foot Clan and their mysterious leader the Shredder (Tohoru Masamune).
Soon she also comes across the turtles leader Splinter (voice of Tony Shalhoub) and realizes she's actually a part of a much bigger plan that will bring her, her camera man Vernon (Will Arnett) and the Turtles into conflict with the Shredder for the fate of New York City.
If there is one phrase to summarize this story it would be "Chopped Up". This story feels like it's gone through rewrite after rewrite after rewrite and it really shows in the final product. There are tons of plot holes, the villains plan makes absolutely no sense to the point where I forgot what it was almost immediately after it was presented, characters enter and exit scenes with no reason on more then one occasion. It's clear that the final script has been the subject of fan outrage due to some of the earlier decisions made and is so unsure of itself and what to do with it's characters.
And yes the film does exactly what everyone was so afraid that it would do, it focuses a lot more on the human characters and relegates a lot of the turtle action to the back ground, and that doesn't have to be that big of a problem. Unlike Sam Witwicky in the Transformers movies who was created for the movies and was an annoying character from the start of the first Transformers movie. April O'Neil is already an established character, she already has established traits and characteristics that I enjoy. I love April in almost all of her incarnations, I wouldn't mind a Turtles film that followed her around a lot. But sadly this isn't really April O'Neil, this is Megan Fox playing April O'Neil.
Sadly Megan Fox still has not grown as an actress from her time in Transformers and continues to be just as stilted and stiff as ever. There is no passion in her voice at some of the most key times and barely any emotion is able to come through on her face or body in times of extreme drama or duress. Though sometimes the character of April is able to shine through her dull acting. Maybe she is trying to get a picture of something at the worst time or maybe she says something that is trying to get more information out of someone. That's when it really feels like April but those moments are few and far between.
The Turtles them selves however, I'm pleased to say, are actually my favorite part of the movie. Before the film came out, I really didn't enjoy their look. Maybe it was the weird nostril holes on their face, maybe it was all the stuff that they slapped on them to make them look more distinguished, maybe it was that they made Donatello a lot more stereo typed in his geeky look, maybe it was that they were eight feet tall now. Just something bugged me about it and I wasn't looking forward to staring at them for the entirety of the movie. But I actually quite enjoyed them. The motion capture is quite good and all the voice acting is top notch. Even Johnny Knoxville at some point disappears into his character and manages to sound pretty good. And eventually I even managed to get used to their new look.
The problem that I have with the turtles however is that they just aren't developed enough in this film. The reason they have all that new armor and gadgets and necklaces on themselves is that it's in a vain attempt to add more character to the turtles cause the script sure isn't doing it. Leonardo is the leader but theres never any development there, there is no time when he acts like a Leader really, they all just follow him because he is Leonardo and he leads. Donatello is a geek and he shows that off but that's all he is and Michelangelo is the horny party guy that is always hitting on April which does nothing but serve to annoy the audience with how old it gets (and it gets old really fast).
The only one that gets any kind of development is Raphael but it's so underplayed and if you blink you may actually miss it. It's mentioned once in a throw away line that he can't wait to leave the team and be on his own and then it's never mentioned again until the last five minuets of the movie. And what we are left with is characters with no substance and a team with no chemistry. They bounce off each other in their dialogue, but there is no sense that these are brothers that have spent all these years together. There is no scene of Raph and Mikey talking together or Donnie explaining something complicated to Mikey or Raph and Leo Butting heads over leadership. The best scene in this movie is the elevator scene right before the final battle because it actually feels like the turtles being the turtles and being brothers. But most of the time they are given little to no development and I don't think that would have happened if the film focused more on them in their own movie.
The Supporting cast in the film is decent. I thought Will Arnett was fine in his role as Vernon, he didn't annoy me too much, though he was the one to get most of the groaner lines (I don't think I've ever heard the term "Heroes in a half shell" be more forced). Whoopi Goldberg as Bernadette was sadly underused and felt like a glorified cameo. Splinter is okay, Tony Shalhoub does an alright job voicing Splinter though I do feel like this Splinter is a bit too harsh for my liking. I just don't enjoy him as much as I have enjoyed other Splinters like Hoon Lee and Mako (and it doesn't help that Splinters CGI in this is ugly as sin).
And then there is William Fichtner as Eric Sacks, a character that has absolutely no point in this film. This is another way you can tell that a lot of this script was rewritten into oblivion. It seems like Fichtner was in fact supposed to be Shredder in this movie from the back story that is given, but due to fan outcry about turning a Japanese character into a white guy, they turned Eric Sacks into an original character. In doing so the character lost everything he was supposed to do in this movie. If you are wondering why I haven't brought up William Fichtner in this review until now, this is why. He has no purpose in this film that couldn't be easily done by Shredder with a few more rewrites. The only good thing to come out of this useless character is that Fichtner is obviously having the time of his life playing this character. Hamming it up doesn't even come close to describing him near the end of this movie and manages to make a useless character the funniest thing in the movie.
The worst character in it sadly is the villain Shredder. Shredder is usually one of the best villains the Turtles have ever faced. He's cunning and manipulative, He's devious and menacing, he's smart but he's also one of the best at fighting. Heck in the IDW comics single issue that was devoted to him, he actually managed to take over Hell itself. But in this movie all he wants to do is take over New York so that he will have money and power. Though the question arises of why? Since he already has money and power at the beginning of this film. He's just not interesting and comes off as kind of an idiot at points. He fights Raphael and beats him to an inch of his life and then leaves for absolutely no reason. It's not like he had to be somewhere or that Raph had reinforcements coming in, he just leaves Raph alive for no reason. And when he gets into his armor, you can tell there is a little bit of Michael Bay in this film even though he only produced it. The armor is over crowded with knives and spikes everywhere and it looks more cumbersome then effective. In fact Shredder is still supposed to be a ninja in this film but he looks more like a Samurai then ever before. I can't imagine a ninja jumping around on rooftops in that thing and not expecting to get noticed.
TURTLE POWER
The effects in the film are about 50/50. Like I said before, the Turtles are fine once you get used to them. I'm still not the biggest fan of their designs and some of their accessories still leave me scratching my head at points (how do Raphs sunglasses not fall off or how does that thing on Donnies back not get crushed under him) but i never found them too ugly to look at and got used to them quickly enough.
The same can not be said for Splinter. He is hands down the worst design in this film and he never comes off as anything other then creepy and nasty looking. I'm guessing what they were going for is what would it actually look like if you mutated a rat and it became human like, but it never comes off as anything other then creepy looking. He should be at least a little bit approachable and decent looking (heck the Jim Henson version even managed to pull that off with a puppet) but this Splinter is just butt ugly from beginning to end and you never feel like he is actually there on screen cause the CGI is so bad.
The action in the film actually managed to surprise me because if there is one thing that Jonathan Liebesman and especially Michael Bay are good at doing, it's make action scenes really boring. It's always stuffed with explosions and CGI and a shaky camera that never lets you get a good look at the action that is going on and after about forty minuets straight of that it just leaves you begging for it to stop. But in this movie, aside from the first really big fight in the Turtles lair, the action is actually pretty well shot and edited together. There's a good fight on a mountain side that is actually very thrilling and manages to get each turtle in on the action and give them a moment to shine. And there's another scene on top of a building that has the turtles fighting the shredder and it's all done in this very nice circle pan around them that I found very well done and thrilling.
The music is decent and has some nice touches to it but it's nothing to memorable. That is however for magnum opus that is the song at the end called Shell Shocked by Juicy J. This wonderful bit of rapping expertise most of the time has absolutely nothing to do with the ninja turtles at all aside from some references and some jackass naming his orange Lamborghini Michelangelo. I'm sure that in time this song will go down with all the Ninja Turtles fan favorite songs like Turtle Power and the Ninja Rap and in no way will be forgotten as soon as this film leaves the theaters (I really wish sarcasm was able to be transferred through the written word cause I'm trying my hardest to be as sarcastic as possible with this).
SHELL SHOCKED (SPOILER WARNING!)
YES! That is right, this section is going to be dealing with plot spoilers in the film so if you don't want to spoil this film for your self. Then just jump to the next part! If you can't tell from my review, I didn't like it and this part just goes into a few specific points about why I didn't and one of those points has to do with the ending. So if you don't want to be spoiled then skip this part.
There are things in this film that just bother me in a lot of ways and really drag the movie down for me. This could be just me being a huge fan and being let down but I feel that some of these things do need to be addressed.
At the end of this movie they try to throw in a very lazy moral about family and how it's important but like I said before, the turtles almost never come off like brothers. They come off like four bros in a fraternity house then anything else. And their interactions and relationship to Splinter doesn't come off as a father training his sons, it feels like a master teaching his students. And that just is not who Splinter is. He should be a mix of both sensei and father, but he only comes across as a sensei who just so happens to be stuck with these four turtles. And when Splinter is in trouble and the turtles are yelling to help him and keep calling him dad, I just am not able to buy it.
I said in the beginning that I am a huge turtles fan but a problem I've always had with the origin story is how they explain how Splinter managed to learn Ninjitsu. None of the explanations have ever fully worked for me so it really depends on how moderately believable it is. A Ninjitsu master that is transformed into a rat, okay that one is decently plausible and works alright. A rat that watched a Ninjitsu master for years and is a master himself when he is mutated, okay that's really pushing it as far as believability goes. An ancient warrior and his four sons are reincarnated into a rat and four turtles and the rat remembers everything about his past ancient Japanese life, Okay that's weird but maybe I can buy it. But this movie may have the stupidest explanation of them all.
Splinter is a normal rat who is mutated and one day found a book on Ninjitsu and decided it would be good parenting material. And from one book, Splinter is a Ninjitsu master within fifteen years and is able to go toe to toe with the Shredder who has been learning it all his life. From one book he was able to become a master. It never says that he did more research after he found the book, it never even hints that maybe he went out and tried to observe actual Ninjitsu masters, no he just learned it all from one book. By that logic the turtles them selves should be at Splinters level then, if all it takes is reading this one damn book and training for it then the turtles should already be at his level. And it really sucks because with one or two more lines of dialogue it could have been wiped away "I found a book on Ninjitsu so that I could train my sons to protect themselves. I then studied masters of the technique for years and soon was able to teach it to my sons." The stupidest explanation for how a rat learned Ninjitsu and you found it, way to go writers.
And the last thing I'll bring up is the final fight scene in this movie, not because it's a bad fight but because it's completely unoriginal and pretty much straight up stolen from two films. The first one it steals from is "The Amazing Spider-man". I really can't even believe how similar the two scenes are in terms of what happens and what's at stake and where they are. It's like the writers were all sitting around one day and didn't really know how to do the fight scene but really wanted to homage the original films ending and the Amazing Spider-man was on TV and they said "Eh screw it let's just do that". But that is just a minor gripe and just something that I happened to notice since I such a big movie watcher.
The other film that it seems to straight up steal from is the first Transformers movie in the way that April is the one that beats the Shredder just like how Sam beat Megatron in Transformers. The heroes are fighting the villain, the villain is kicking the heroes butts, the human characters come in to fight the villain and manage to take them out when none of the giant robots or ninja turtles could. And like I said at the end of that movie, Bull S%!^. I'm sorry, this is another fan gripe but April should not be the one to take out the Shredder when none of the Turtles could or Splinter could for that matter. Shredder is the biggest baddest villain in TMNT lore, easily able to go up against all four of the turtles and barely even call it a work out, and a small twenty something woman is able to kick a sword into this huge bulky armor that he has? This point does nothing but make Shredder look like an idiot who can't even take on a twenty something year old woman and makes the turtles look like huge dumb asses who couldn't even take that guy out when there are four of them attacking him. It also makes April look like a Mary Sue esq. character that is always able to defeat what the turtles can't in this movie, just like it did for Sam in the Transformers movie. It was as much of a BS ending to the Transformers movie and it's just as much of a BS ending to this movie.
HEROES IN A HALF SHELL
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles isn't as horrible as I thought it would be but it's still a horrible disappointment and a let down for fans of the franchise. It's a clunky, uneven, poorly paced mess of a film that isn't sure of what it's story is and doesn't have the any time to flesh out it's characters.
I guess that I can see kids enjoying it, but even then it could be a stretch considering that so much of the beginning of this film focuses on the human characters that I can also see kids checking out of this film ten minuets in. It's just not a film that seems to know who it's audience is. It wants to please old school turtles fans with nods and winks to the past but then goes out of it's way to throw in a fart joke or a terrible line for kids.
What I would do is show your kids the first TMNT film because even though it's not a fantastic movie it is certainly a movie about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and focuses on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
This film reminds me a lot of the first Transformers movie. Even though this film gets a lot of stuff wrong, there are tiny glimmers of hope, a few scenes and elements where it really does start to feel like a TMNT film. So who knows, maybe the next film will have more of those kinds of scenes and we will have a much better movie. As for this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, these heroes in a half shell just aren't worth your time or money.
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