Review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016) by Douglas M — 11 Dec 2016

TMNT: ousted from the shadows.

"We are four brothers from New York who care about the city", this is how the beloved quartet of ninja turtles introduce themselves to the world when coming out of the shadows in the second installment of the new live action films produced by Michael Bay.

The characters originated from comic vignettes in the late 80's as dark mysterious heroes living in the shadows of New York who fight crime-commander Shredder and its clan of ninja soldiers, called the Foot Clan. The series were adapted for TV, and a more colourful fun-team of crime fighters appeared, who also, love to eat pizza and scream cowabunga! Very original characters who everybody loved...oh, and the opening titles' song was a hit too.

The film does better than its predecessor from two years ago. This time, we see in action more characters from the franchise-something fans will enjoy seeing in the big screen-we have Casey Jones, played by Adam O'Neil (Arrow), Bebop and Rocksteady.

The story is action packed, almost to the point of feeling vertigo, but with less intriguing detective work, something unique to the 90's movies and even the cartoon series. The story develops and leads up to a clichéd apocalypses takeover of the city lead by Shredder and its Foot Clan, who are equipped with expensive gadgets and cool ninja Tron-look-alike outfits.

Definitely a lack of profound character development-not surprising for this type of movies. The story made me feel disconnected and a bit indifferent or bored at times, despite the amazing array of action scenes, but enjoyed the casual bits of nostalgia from the original TV show with straight soundtrack references and inclusion of well-known new characters. Still, the sad part: the turtles try too hard to be funny and cool.