Review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016) by Sam T — 01 Aug 2016

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is directed by Dave Green, the director of Earth to Echo in 2011, and stars Megan Fox, Stephen Amell, Will Arnett, Tyler Perry and Brian Tee as the human characters, the Turtles on the other hand are a bunch of no names. The original 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is actually rather good, it had heart, captured the turtles well and it's definitely unforgettable, let's put it that way. 1991's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Secret of the Ouze was fine, it had the vanilla ice song, but was not the same quality as the first film. 1993's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: The Quest to Make Easy Money on the other was completely terrible and a disgrace to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchis, therefore the turtles were killed on the big screen until the 2014 reboot directed by Jonathan Liebsman and like it's directed it was bad, not terrible, just bad, but if there is one thing production studio's love, it's money and the 2014 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot made lots of money, henceforth the creation of 2016's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, now let's see where this Turtles flick ranks amongst it's brothers.

The first good thing about this film that comes to mind is how they handle some of the characters, hence "some of the characters". The best characters by far in the film are Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo or the Turtles, who are awesome, so the "no names" are actually really good, Johnny Knoxville as Leonardo might be the worst one, weirdly, but is still good and captures Leonardo well, which is a good thing, but seriously though all of the Turtles are all done brilliantly, the voices are well done and so are their actions, they're just good, maybe a bit generic at parts and a bit cringe worthy at times, but overall they're handle well, not flawless and the best thing ever, but good. Another character that isn't bad is Casey Jones, played by Stephen Amell, who is fine, he has the same determination and courage as the Casey Jones that I love and is also as deep and hard-core as the Casey Jones that I love, but is certainly useless, one note and annoying at times, his voice genuinely hurts my ears at times and brings Mickey Mouse to my mind at points, but it's certainly not the worst, because that is a tie between Megan Fox's April O'Neill and Brian Tee's Shredder, firstly April O'Neill, look I don't think that I'm the only that thinks Megan Fox is a bad actor, the only thing that she's ever been good in is How to make Friends and Alienate People, where she played a actress that is bad at acting in the eyes of critics, but makes lots of money, so Megan Fox? I could go on about how bad she is, but if you've ever seen a Megan Fox film, then you've seen Megan Fox's performance in this film, it's not good, it actually kind of terrible. Secondly we have Brian Tee's Shredder, Brian Tee is an actor that I've really liked, in the Wolverine he was wooden and plain, in Jurassic World he was generic and useless and last is Fast and Furious Tokyo where he was yet again generic and cheesy, so I'm not the biggest fan of Brian Tee and in this film he is just as bad as he is in the films I mentioned before, he is wooden, one note and generic, which sounds very familiar, but seriously both Megan Fox's April O'Neill and Brian Tee's Shredder are both very bad, can be fun at times, but still very bad and unforgettable. I thought I'd leave these guys till last as a virtual desert, because Gary William's Bebop and Stephen Farelly's Rocksteady are awesome, like genuinely there is a lot of things that this film did wrong, but the one thing that they got so incredibly right and gave us this symbol hope it's Bebop and Rocksteady, they're perfectly cast, they're exactly like the characters that I grew up with and love and they're just overall well done, I never got bored of watching the and they kept the beat going throughout the run time, they're just as close to perfect as any Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles character ever.

On a technical level this film is as hit and miss as it possibly could've been. The cinematography is extremely split, there are a few really good tracking shots, like the one at start where the Turtles are free running through the city, that shot is actually beautiful and a really great way to start the film, they also utilize the wide or landscape shot, which is also really well done at times, but although there is a few really good shots here and there, there is also the classic Michael Bay troupes, that are: not staying on a shot of an action sequence for more than four seconds, constantly doing close up shots of a character's face and of course having something or someone stand in front of something or someone that is bigger than them and the bigger thing jumps into the shot in a cool way, and as always they suck. The score in this film is yet again another Michael Bay rip off, it just sounds like Linkon Park doing a more orchestral type of music, which if you haven't guessed already, it's bad, like really terrible. It's became a common joke that the Ninja Turtles look like Shrek and I'm one of the people that makes that joke, so as you may already know, the visual effects aren't good, yes it may be detailed and look well done, but it's the things that they are detailing that is the problem, because the things they are detailing look disgusting or just plain, like Shrek Ninja Turtles and Shrimp Krang. They sound design is fine, the practical effects are good and so are the stunts, but at the end of the day on a technical level the film is just fine, nothing more, nothing less, just fine.

Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec are the writers of this and I'm afraid they did a bad job, Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec have also writen Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol together, which is a very good film, that is well writen, it had the Burj Khalifa climbing scene, it was quirky and had a original style and the most important part, it wasn't stupid, although Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Out of the Shadows is very stupid. It was fine I guess, but the climax is really convoluted, spoiler warning, if you don't want any spoilers then skip to the next paragraph and they will missed out, now that's settled lets look at the climax, the first thing that real annoys me about the climax is how they treat Shredder, I know I've talked about the pure monotony and overall lameness of Shredder's character, but Shredder gets beaten by Krang pretty much clicking his fingers and turns him into a statue, which sucks, Shredder was awesome back in the day and now he's been brought down to this, improvements must be made. The second problem that I have with the climax, is how they deal with th e extremely powerful portal that can transfer through dimensions, because they deal with it by hitting it's artefact with a hockey stick and the portal closes, that part was so stupid, do I honestly need to say anything else?

Dave Green is the man who directed his film, he has also mad 2011's Earth to Echo, which was nothing special, but never felt slow or convoluted at any point in time, so was therefore well directed, and to be honest Dave Green did a good job at directing this film as well, why? Because he used the power of simplicity, therefore never coming off as too clever or convoluted, just simple, so nothing special, not at all, but still good, it sticks to a beat and continues that beat the entire way through the run time, it throws a fee curve balls in here and there to make it interesting, but never gets convoluted at any points and is always just fine, nothing special, at times good, but never bad, well done Dave Green you managed to make a plain, fine and ok directed film, bravo sir.

To conclude my thoughts on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Out of the Shadows I'd say that it is a badly acted, but at the same time some goodly acted parts. Some of the characters are excellently done and do the Turtles franchise justice, but some are the complete polar opposite and do nothing helpful to the Turtles franchise. On a technical level it's mixed, but on a writing level it's a complete miss, although the directing was a weird hit. You can look at the film and associate it with complete abhorrence in film making, but if you're of a franchise you can delve into it's fun and intriguing style, plus you'd be pleased with how they handle Bebop and Rocksteady, but at the same time it's still very stupid and a badly made film, so is it a bad film? Yes, but did I have fun with it? Kind of, as a guilty pleasure, so I'm going to give Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Out of the Shadows a 3.9/10, but if you enjoyed it, good for you, I can see many fans having fun with this film, like I did, kind of, I suppose.