Review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) by Agarcia732 — 10 Aug 2014

I thought this movie was going to be a steaming pile of sh%t. Yet another old kid’s property about to be ruined by Michael Bay? Without seeing it, I secretly hoped it would flop, just so I could have a personal victory against Michael Bay for making Transformers 4. I was so disappointed with Transformers 4: Age of Extinction--I had had enough afterwards from the series. The trailers got my hopes up for an entertaining-but-brainless film. Yet I was so wrong to let him fool me. And to think it made more than a billion dollars, when MUCH better films made less. With TMNT, the original trailers looked good, but the more recent TV spots had IMO stupid and kid-oriented humor. Because of so many negative reviews, I really thought this film was going to be very disappointing.

I wonder if people are really blinded by hating Bay (honestly, I don't blame them that much). I enjoyed the first three Transformers films the first time I viewed them (I was younger, P.S); but in subsequent viewings I found more and more flaws. So, to sum it up---I’m not a Bay fanboy or a hater, but I have lost faith in any future films he directs. (I also happened to like one of the animated series about TMNT that aired on TV.) However, Bay produced (he didn’t direct) TMNT. But it’s kinda funny his name is in the promo materials, and not the director’s name, Jonathan Liebesman. To all those people urging moviegoers to see Guardians of the Galaxy, I must mention that I did watch GOTG as well. It was the 3rd best Disney MCU Marvel film for me, only behind Captain America 2 and Iron Man.

I’ve been off topic so far, so I’ll get to the point. Megan Fox? I honestly think she didn’t act nearly as bad as in some of her other performances (though she probably could benefit from some more varied facial expressions!). I think she’s not the best choice for April O’Neil, but Megan Fox could’ve been a lot worse. Fox is pretty much the protagonist of this film; which probably isn’t a good thing. Not because she acted poorly, but because the movie is called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! There wasn’t as much focus on the Turtles as they should’ve been. The four Turtles don’t have much character development. They’re all something similar to basic stereotypes/archetypes. Raphael gets slightly more development than the rest of the turtles, simply because of a few lines at the end. Michelangelo is the funniest. I’d say Leonardo had the least development. Will Arnett as Vernon Fenwick is the second comic relief character, after Michelangelo. But why do they need Vernon as another silly comic-relief guy? They already have Michelangelo. So why is he in the film?. Splinter seems too harsh to the Turtles IMO. And he doesn’t seem very wise and intelligent to me. He’s just a mutated rat who learned martial arts from some book in the sewers. Really? I think that’s stretching it a bit, even in a movie about 6-foot-tall teenage mutant ninja turtles. Eric Sacks’ (whose name bears a suspicious resemblance to Oroku Saki) motivation for his evil plan is kind of a weak one—release a deadly virus, conveniently have a cure, make tons of money of it. Really? He’s already rich. He was obviously supposed to be Shredder, but I assume some last minute change stripped Eric of any real depth. Shredder is something of a weak villain as well—we never see his face. He is constantly in that robotic armored suit of his. His suit is probably too much of a deviation from the source material for many hardcore fans. And exactly why does he want to take over New York again? I honestly can’t remember. Whoever is Shredder under the suit, he certainly wasn’t originally a character to be featured in the film. Because of fan backlash, I believe he was added. Dr. Baxter Stockman is just there. Just there.

The CGI close up still looks slightly strange, but I guess we’ll have to get used to it. (A TMNT sequel is scheduled to release in 2016.) At one point, the film’s name was going to be just “Ninja Turtles”. Really? As if the original titles wasn’t self-explanatory. They really needed to come up with a simpler name? Why not just call them "Adolescent Genetically Altered Shinobi Terrapins”? It’s basically the thing.

Anyway, I liked one of the TMNT cartoons when I was a kid. (I even had a jacket with them on it!) But that doesn’t really qualify me as a fanboy. As I said before, I’m not a Michael Bay hater or fanboy. My opinion? Despite some underdeveloped characters and some plotlines and plot elements directly ripped off from The Amazing Spider-Man, I think TMNT is still an enjoyable movie. It was fun and entertained me for an hour and a half. And that’s honestly all that matters.