Starring: Megan Fox, Will Arnett, William Fichtner, Johnny Knoxville, Whoopi Goldberg, Alan Ritchson, Noel Fisher, Pete Ploszek
Directed by: Jonathan Liebesman
Synopsis: When a kingpin threatens New York City, a news reporter find a quad of mutants which makes an alliance to unravel Shredder’s plan as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
I was born on the 12th August 1980. The Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles pitched up in cartoon form towards the end of that decade and basically took over the world. I had action figures, I played on the arcade game, I danced to Turtle Power by MC Hammer and I went to see the feature film twice at the cinema (by now they were given back their more ‘dangerous name’ NINJA turtles).
They were great. Funny, full of energy, wise-cracking, had some decent catchphrases and all had their own personalities (Raphael was my favorite for some reason, seeing as he is the miserable one I don’t know what that says about me). By the time the next couple of movies turned up I was too old and ‘turtley’ over all that nonsense (sorry, but I’m sure every review of this has included a ‘turtley’ pun). So a small part of my now 34 year old self was quite happy to see a reboot appear. Now, here is where I say “until I saw Michael Bay had a hand in it”. That is the common line, to hate Michael Bay. I differ here from everyone else, in that I have NEVER actually seen a Michael Bay movie. Not on purpose mind, but, purely because all the movies he has made to date literally haven’t made me want to watch them at all. Which I guess, in a roundabout way, does mean I dislike Michael Bay as much as everyone else?!
Anyway, with that in mind, and the reviews to back it up, I wasn’t expecting much from TMNT. Well, I actually thought it was OK. Not great by any stretch, and kind of annoying in places, but I thought some moments were quite fun and some of the action scenes were engaging enough. The story is fairly similar to the original film, in that April O’Neil (this time played by a plastic faced Megan Fox) senses a story emerging about some guys taking out the evil foot soldiers invading the city. When she sees them, and they are talking turtles, everyone naturally thinks she’s a bit crazy. But, like all good superhero movies, soon the world see’s that she was right, and we have some new heroes to hang our hopes (and prejudices) on.
The movie rattles along at a decent pace, it’s mostly stupid of course (talking turtles and rats) and the Turtles are slightly more eccentric and annoying than their nineties selves. They have also been given a 2014 ‘beef up’ like all good reboots. The worst example would be Shredder and the fact he has turned into a Robot. Very odd. And I have to say, finger pointed at the old movies as well. WHERE IS KRANG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He was a key ingredient in the cartoon but has never featured in any of the films I’ve seen. With CGI as it is now, it couldn’t be hard to recreate a brain in the middle of a robot could it??? Come on Hollywood!
All in all, not the disappointment I was expecting, but obviously as you would think, far from perfect.
