Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

Oh come on, it's not actually that bad! I mean, if we accept from the outset that there's nothing at all original about this apocalyptic "Batman"-style thriller, then we can just get behind our heroes in an half shell and enjoy the ride. Bumpy? Well yes it is. You see, "Shredder" (Tohoru Masamune) and his dastardly "Foot Clan" have taken control of New York City. To make matters worse, "Splinter" has been attacked and he and all but "Raphael" turtle-napped. Now the game is afoot. Rescue them all then with the help of feisty reporter "April" (Megan Fox) and her savvy cameraman "Vern" (Will Arnett) apply their ninja skills and get to grips with the evil that now governs their city. Nothing at all original, no, but there's plenty of action and the odd bit of witty dialogue - usually from "Michaelangelo" - is included as leader "Leo" and the sharpest of the bunch - "Donatello" - have to come up with and execute a cunning plan in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Of course there's a message for us too. Some gently moralising stuff about inter-reliance, team building, loyalty - and, of course, there are plenty of sagely interventions from their rattish guru. It was entirely logical for Hollywood to capitalise on these global phenomena and to be fair, though it's pretty poor, it's no worse than a great many derivative efforts that the 2010s CGI factories churned out to keep the production lines in full flow. True fans may get something more from this, but for the rest of us - well it's not really up to much at all.

I have to say that this was a rather “meh” experience. It certainly was not an improvement over the original. Why try to rewrite a story that was actually not bad when you cannot be bothered to spend some effort on it? The new story is sloppy and it is rather clear that whoever wrote it got only two directives: Make sure that Megan Fox gets a lot of focus and if you do not know what to write then cram in some special effects. There are a lot of special effects in this movie!
It is obvious that Megan Fox’s ego have had a lot of influence on the movie. To the extent that you might wonder if this movie is about the turtles or about Megan Fox. She might be the wet dream of some less discerning teenagers but her acting skills leaves somewhat to be desired. Okay, okay she was actually not too bad in this movie but then it was not to difficult to shine in this movie either.
There are a few moments when it looks like it is going to turn interesting. For instance when the shredder is first introduced and punishes some of his underlings but rather quickly he is reduced to just another “special effect” when they slap this robotic shredder suit onto him. Come on, he is supposed to be a skilled martial arts combatant, not some freak in a robotic suit.
Splinter was just sad. Some lab rat that picked up martial arts from a book he found in the sewers! What the f…? That ruined a lot of the movie.
The turtles themselves, being already pushed back somewhat into the background by Megan Fox desire to be in front of the cameras most of the time, are bland to say the least. They are immature, even for a movie like this, and the jokes are simply unintelligent and mostly not very funny.
I was about to write that, if you like special effects and do not care for much of the rest, then you will probably like this movie but when I think back even the special effects where often only mildly interesting. They were perhaps not really bad but not very impressive either. The truck ride down a snowy slope was just silly and some of the scenes where actually rather underwhelming for instance.
On the whole, to me, this was a mildly entertaining movie that could have been much better if someone with basic intelligence had been asked to write the script in the first place. There are actually five (!) people credited with writing this movie and maybe that is the problem. Too many cooks!