Review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) by Jizuri2 — 11 Aug 2014

I saw this movie for the third time last night. The first time I shook my head at all the cheesy lines and counted the seconds til the turtles came on. The second time, I felt even worse about the acting but still thought the animation and how the turtles were presented was really cool.

Last night I proclaimed my unwavering love for this movie.

Each and every scene and line from this movie is derived from the cartoon that I grew up watching with a lot of the dark comic book elements. No, it doesnt have the best script, or the best acting, or make all that much sense when you cut it into slices. But we're talking about teenage mutant ninja turtles. It is, by nature, meant to be over-the-top and be COMPLETELY based in a comic book world, where anything and everything is possible.

The action, the lines, delivery and all the elements from each and every scene look and feel like they are straight out of a comic book. The people working on this project did a phenomenal job of really bringing those scenes to life. Are lines like "I didnt have a voice then, but I thank you now." and " drain all of their blood... even if it kills them" strokes of movie-writing genius sent from movie heaven? "Of course not", will say you experts. But they are exactly the types of lines that would be in ANY comic book.

What Leibsman and Bay did was exactly what I dreamed about, and spent countless hours as a child imagining with my 4 action figures. They brought those tiny plastic toys that I used to splash about in my bathtub, animated them to look really cool (and made them into characters, not just 4 same-sized guys with different bandanas and a letter on their belt) and put them on the side of a huge friggen mountain. Are you kidding me? Ive waited for 22 years to see something this big and this fantastic with these guys in it. It was PERFECT.

The Shredder gives me the willies every time I see him (even the third go-round). Sachs is that under-cover bad guy that I absolutely hate. April is trying to be more in the world than just a hottie, she wants to make a difference. Splinter looks a little weird, but he is truly the father and a unquestionable badass.

It was everything that a NINJA TURTLES movie should be.

With all this being said; if youre going to be upset because the origin story is a little different and eric sachs sounds too close to oroku saki for your taste and robot shredder isnt "authentic" enough and that the turtles are actually 4' in the comic but look like professional hockey players in this movie... Then do what you want to do. Go buy the ticket see the movie and then write about how awful you thought it was for whatever reason you want to. Or don't. Whatever.

BUT if you love the ninja turtles and remember what it was like to play the games and have the toys and watch it after school, then go see this movie. DO NOT WAIT til you can see it on dvd or netflix. It is worth seeing on the big screen.

P.S. The subway fight is really really REALLY cool.