Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Year: 2014
Genre: Sci-Fi Comedy/Sci-Fi Action
Directed: Jonathan Liebesman
Stars: Megan Fox, Will Arnett, William Fichtner, Tony Shalhoub, Whoopi Goldberg
Production: Paramount Pictures

I wish I was a fly on the wall the day Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was conceptualized. Better yet I wish I was there when it was pitched as a comic-book and cartoon franchise. Despite being completely absurd, the franchise as a whole has some serious legs chugging along through multiple re-imaginings and mediums. Yet this reincarnation of the boyhood staple, helmed by Jon Leibesman and produced by king of panem et circenses Michael Bay is just listless, characterless and crude. Bay’s trick with Transformers (2007-Present) has been baiting its audience for years in the hopes that with each inferior sequel maybe one day they’ll be one that brings it back to the heights of the first. But with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles there’s no such bait.

Welcome back mindless T&A

April O’Neil (Megan Fox) is a tough and resourceful news report…no scratch that, she’s just a news reporter who stumbles onto a plot by the infamous crime syndicate the Footmen. Before she can get the scoop on their plan, a clandestine group of assassins appear out the night and foil the Footmen’s plot, whatever that initially was. Now April is on the hunt for the mystery men in the night with the help of her trusty…no tenacious…smarmy…that’s the word, smarmy cameraman Vernon (Will Arnett).

I suppose there’s not much point in the mystery; the assassins are in fact the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There’s Donatello the smart one (you can tell because he wears glasses), Rafael the hot head (you can tell cause he’s always pissed), Michelangelo the funny one (you can tell cause he cracks wise), and Leonardo the leader (you can tell because he’s all leader-like). Not only that but the turtles and their master Splinter have a very special and unlikely connection to April, a connection that may lead to their ruination.

Not that any of this matters since the turtles, their history, their preoccupation with the Footmen, their shadowy leader Shredder and Shredder’s plan to create destruction and mayhem are all prerequisites that are seemly tossed in like yesterday’s late homework. No this movie isn't about character development and plotting; it’s about explosions, car chases, fistfights and lots, and lots of shaky-cam. Through Megan Fox’s at times questionable choices, we as the audience tour through set piece after set piece with everything moving too fast to be recognizable. It’s like being drunk at a carnival rushing through the rides five minutes before closing time; its jarring, its dizzying and nothing sticks other than half-ingested popcorn to the ground.

This just isn't gonna end well...

Jonathan Liebesman wishes he had Michael Bay’s visual flair which might have actually been the perfect for TMNT (I seriously mean that without any sense of sarcasm). Alas instead of Bay’s telephoto lens pans, his optical zooms and his grand-scale explosions, we’re faced with Liebesman’s shaky-cam which fit in Battle: Los Angeles (2011) but not here, no not here. Seriously is this guy the Herod of tripods? Does he walk around studios and decapitates them all until one there finally appears a special tripod and absolves him from the sin of deflating a movie franchise?

Little known fact: JC actually a tripod

I guess this movie was popular enough in the Cineplexes to warrant a sequel which in spite of this mess, I’m rooting for. But unless the creators can give there actors and amphibians more than one broadly rendered trait, beef up the story to meet the action and actually show said action in an entertaining way I’m afraid we’re going to have TMNT 2: Secret of the Ooff!

Guys...this has been done before

Final Grade: F