Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Released:  August 8th, 2014

Rated:  PG-13

Studio:  Paramount Pictures

Staring:  Megan Fox, Alan Ritchson, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, Noel Fisher, Will Arnett, Danny Woodburn, William Fichtner, Johnny Knoxville, Tony Shalhoub

Directed by:  Jonathan Liebesman

Written by:  Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec, Evan Daugherty

Personal Bias Alert:  big Ninja Turtles fan as a kid, dislikes Michael Bay

6 of 10

           

            The dumbest idea I heard throughout the pre-production of this film was when they announced they were going with the title Ninja Turtles.  It beats out all the other ridiculousness (aliens, Brett Ratner) because it shows an inherent misunderstanding of their product.  They are TMNT.  Teenage.  Mutant.  Ninja.  Turtles.  The silliness is stated right in the title, and any effort to minimize or move away from that would be a fatal misunderstanding of why kids love it and why adults hold on to it.

            Now before everyone starts jumping down my throat about the Michael Bay bias, I know that he was not the director of this film.  It’s all the better for it, as Jonathan Liebesman brings a far more solid understanding of storytelling to the production than Bay has proven capable of in years.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has a straightforward, coherent plot involving the turtle’s origins that is remarkably well paced.  Unlike Bay’s films, it’s not bloated, it doesn’t expect us to have a twenty minutes attention span, and it’s not trying to be serious.  I’m not arguing that it’s in any way remarkable.  In fact, it’s a very safe, blockbustery plot, but it’s a solid effort that blows Bay’s Transformers:  Age of Extinction out of the sewer.

            The brand is what I and many others clad in t-shirts and homemade costumes were coming for, and this film doesn’t disappoint.  We’ve all, filmmakers included, agreed that this is supposed to be a cheesy good time, and any fears that they were going to make the turtles too serious is assuaged early on.  The humor largely revolves around poking fun at the silliness of the product, and the jokes come fast and furious at the beginning of the film.  It’s here that Megan Fox shines.  No, she’s still not a great actress, but she’s often shown comedic chops and a willingness to make fun of her own vapid image.  This version of April O’Neil is perceived very similarly to Fox’s own image, which makes for comedic scenes that work due to Fox’s intimate familiarity with the jokes.  I have to give her credit for having a tough shell; there’s not many actors or actresses who have taken the barrage of criticism she has and come out able to laugh about it.

            The turtles themselves are rather generic, maintaining their basic characteristics from previous iterations without getting anything added.  Leonardo is the leader, Michelangelo the goofball, Donatello the brains, and Raphael the rebel (and my personal favorite).  Their size is really the only thing that’s changed.  They used to be equivalent to humans, but here, with the aide of motion-capture animation, they are muscle-bound behemoths.  Luckily, their strength isn’t that big of a factor, leaving their ninja skills firmly intact.

            There’s really one word to sum up this whole thing:  safe.  It doesn’t meddle with the TMNT formula and takes no chances with its story.  While not special, it does nothing terribly wrong, and its competency compares favorably to this summer’s Transformers and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  That’s a pretty low bar, but this film wasn’t shooting very high.

Other Notes:

Ø  The one thing they did mess up was Splinter.  He never looks like a rat, always seems mildly disgusting, and simply doesn’t look real.

Ø  I can roll with the turtle shells being bulletproof, and not with their ability to shoot the bullets back out of their shells.

Ø  Apparently Raphael’s sunglasses are immovable.

Ø  Were the canisters the foot clan were trying to steal at the beginning of the film labeled nitro ethanol?