TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, (7 out of 10 That’s right, I said it) – Directed by Jonathan Liebesman; Written by Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec, and Evan Daugherty; Based on characters created by Kevin Eastmen and Peter Laird; Starring Megan Fox, Will Arnett, William Fichtner, Alan Ritchson, Noel Fisher, Pete Ploszek, Johhny Knoxville, Jeremy Howard, and Tony Shalhoub. In wide release August 8, 2014.
Hello internet, I’m writing to you this evening from the island of ILikedNinjaTurtles, population: me, apparently. I’ve never seen a movie more universally hated, including the worst of the “Transformers” franchise, and stuff involving Justin Bieber. Well I’m here to tell you, it’s undeserved.
I would be remiss to tell you that “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” is a perfect movie, that it’s the movie I’ve been dreaming up in my head since I was a kid, but I would be equally remiss to tell you that it’s crap, it isn’t. There is plenty of good in the movie, and for my money, it outweighs the bad, though there is some bad present.
The problem with movie experiences today is that marketing begins at roughly a year out from release, things begin getting leaked online ahead of that, and everyone makes up their minds about a movie before they’ve actually seen it. Sometimes that can be a good thing, if you walk into a theater with low expectations for a flick, you may be pleasantly surprised. The negative reactions, in that case, buffer the experience in such a way that you might enjoy it more than you would have. But sometimes mob mentality takes over, there are no better examples than this movie and another that came out in the last week, you might have heard of it, “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Please don’t misunderstand me, I would never say an unkind word about GotG, partially because I have no doubt that it’s nothing short of fantastic, and partially because of that mob I mentioned.
Marvel has been very successful at crafting well made movies, but they’ve been even more successful at marketing those movies and creating a brand, it’s hard to tell how much of the accolades are sincere and how much of them are mob mentality, everyone decided months ago that they were going to love that movie and they do. Likewise, everyone decided months ago (or over a year ago) that they were going to hate Ninja Turtles, and they do. Again, it’s hard to tell how much of that is sincere, and how much of it is mob mentality. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little worried about how this article will be received. I don’t expect death threats or burnt effigies but I do expect to be disagreed with, vehemently, and maybe lose a bit of what little cred I might have. The collective pop culture consciousness has decided it hates this movie, if you agree you’re okay to stay in the club, if you don’t you’ll be ostracized, that’s the way these things work and if you say that doesn’t influence your opinions on books/movies/music… well, I’m not saying you’re lying, but you’re probably lying. We all do it, it’s human nature, and it’s okay, I guess.
Not to mention the fact that Michael Bay was involved and it’s super in vogue to hate Michael Bay. Fuck Michael Bay right? Right! That dude could develop a cure for incontinence and hangovers and everyone would complain that it had too many explosions or was a little bit racist (one or more of those might be legitimate concerns).
Like most things, the latest TMNT isn’t black and white like the comic books from which it sprung; it’s got a mix of good and bad, which I will gladly break down for you now. Minor spoilers ahead, though I know most of you won’t give two turtle shits.
What was bad…
The first scene where you see April chasing down a story at a dock, the cinematography is vomit inducing. Perhaps it was just that I was seeing it in three dimensions but it seemed like the worst of a found footage flick, luckily it stopped after about five minutes.
Toward the beginning of the flick when the Turtles are finally revealed, and after their conversation with April on the roof (the one you’ve seen in the trailer) there is a sequence of them doing flips and all manner of sweet karate moves as they make their way back to the sewer. Once they arrive in the sewer they continue doing awesome karate and generally parkour-ing all over the place when they attempt to jump through a hole all at the same time and get stuck. The whole scene is awesome, it’s an example of everything that is right with this movie, then somebody farts, probably Mikey, because obviously. I don’t know if Bay can be blamed for the unnecessary flatulence but it felt reminiscent of everything that is wrong with the “Transformers” movies and it took the air out (no pun intended, but gladly taken) of an otherwise awesome sequence.
Just stop…
Megan Fox sucks for about half the movie, I know this probably isn’t a surprise to most of you. I realize that it’s super in vogue to hate Megan Fox and that I might sound like a hypocrite, but she legitimately sucks. The only thing I’ve ever seen her in that I liked was “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People” and I imagine that has something to do with her playing a completely vapid and talentless socialite. I’m sure she’s a perfectly nice person in real life, maybe, more on Fox later.
One of the major complaints of adaptations any time there is a reboot is the unnecessary origin story. We all know the characters right? We know what makes them tick, their personalities, how they got where they are, so why not just jump into the action? This movie, for the most part, does just that, and as a result there isn’t much character development. You’re left to fill in the gaps with the knowledge you already have and it makes some of the bigger moments lose some of their weight because they weren’t appropriately set up, specifically the threat of Splinter dying and the rekindling of the Raph/Leo relationship. Turtle fans know that Splinter is super important and they know that there has always been a conflict between Raphael and Leonardo, but it’s hard to get invested without some more background on this incarnations specific details.
All of the villain’s plans seemed poorly hatched. I’m going to sell an antidote to a poison that I’m going to spread all over the city… from the roof of my own building. I’m sure no one will notice.
Shredder is way over the top, he’s like if Freddy Krueger had a three way with a mechanical can opener and a Swiss Army knife and they all had a terrible metal baby. The fact that Shredder is actually a bad ass martial arts expert is made irrelevant by his tech.
Only slightly one sided.
Toward the beginning Leo kicks some shipping containers and they fly across the dock knocking folks into the water, later some of the Turtles are drained of most of their blood, a problem that is quickly solved via an injection of adrenaline. Science!
April has an unrealistic and unnecessary tie to the Turtles. What are the odds in a city the size of New York that you stumble upon a team of secret ninja vigilantes, and then that those same individuals also happened to be your childhood pets/daddy’s science experiments? Not likely.
This line, “We’ll drain every drop of blood from their bodies if we have to, even if it kills them.” There’s no “even if” there Sacks, draining all the blood from people totally kills them, without exception, mutant or otherwise.
Here’s the part where I tell you that most of that stuff doesn’t matter, despite the fact that I spent several paragraphs telling you about them, they are minor complaints at most, because once the movie was over there was one undisputable truth, the good outweighed the bad.
What was good…
A Ninja Turtles movie with gorgeous visuals, dialogue that is honest to the characters and often funny, and action sequences the likes of which every little kid has dreamed about since 1984.
Splinter goes all Yoda more than once and drops his proverbial cane and some serious knowledge, with his fists, feet, and tail. There are two fight scenes in particular where it is made clear that Splinter is a bad ass. First when he catches the boys out of the sewer when they shouldn’t be, he knocks all four of them on their asses, mostly with his tail, just to mess with them. Later he fights Shredder and holds his own, especially considering that Shredder is in a super overpowered mech suit. Seeing Splinter fight using his tail as an extra fist was wholly unexpected and a delightful treat.
If the writers of this movie got one thing fantastically right, it was the personalities of the four turtles, which is sort of an important element. The interactions between the four brothers are spot on, each of them have distinct personalities, coupled with the variation in appearance it is for once very easy to tell them apart. Despite my 30 year love affair with the TMNT, my Mom still can’t tell me which one is which, this won’t be a problem for parents who have kids growing up with this movie, no matter how ignorant of a totally awesome franchises they might be (sorry Mom, I love you).
Every action sequence was exactly what I’ve been dreaming of since I was a kid. The last live action Turtles movie came out March 17, 1993 and I have been waiting for another one since March 18, 1993. For over 20 years I have been imagining what it could be like to see the TMNT fighting with the benefits of modern technology and without the limits of physical suits. The movie delivered on this point in spades. Every action sequence was without complaint, in the same way that the best parts of a Spidey movie is when he’s swinging around New York, the best parts of this movie were any time the Turtle’s were kicking butt. That and…
Everything Mikey said. Literally everything Mikey said/did. His character was incredibly well used, his ability to add levity to a situation without making it feel unnatural was perfect, and it helped provide the somewhat goofy aspect to the flick that is somewhat integral to the franchise.
Donatello is effing sweet, his design is awesome, he makes a staff look cool, and that bit where he flips the truck is one of the best moments in the movie. I just really like Donatello.
I only hated Megan Fox for half the movie. You might think I mentioned this already but note the use of the word “only.” This is now the Megan Fox role I hate the least, even less so than the previously mentioned Simon Pegg vehicle. I didn’t notice it at the time but when I walked out of the movie I realized I didn’t quite hate Megan Fox anymore, it was kind of like when you have a tooth ache for a while and then it kind of just goes away, you don’t notice right away but at some point you go, hey my tooth doesn’t hurt anymore, and it’s kind of nice.
This is something I thought I would never say, for the first time in my life, I don’t hate Raphael. I know he is beloved, I just don’t know why. Raphael, historically, is a giant turtle bag of dicks. He sucks. He’s whiny and his pouting and storming off are always getting everyone else into trouble. But not this time, this time he’s the one doing the rescuing and rather than maintaining the hard ass persona he’s so well known for, we get a little peak into who he really is. They give Raph a heart and they do it in such a way that I like the character a lot more now, that was something of a feat and is impressive in its own right.
The movie isn’t perfect by any stretch. Could it have been better? Of course. But I dismiss the notion that this movie has somehow “ruined” the Ninja Turtles or is a blight on an otherwise spotless record. I am a fan of all things TMNT (in case that hasn’t been made clear); there is almost no interpretation in which I can’t find something I like. That being said, let us not forget the third live action movie… like all of it. Or the fact that “Secret of the Ooze” had an extended Vanilla Ice cameo/musical number, or “The Next Mutation” again, all of it, especially the turtle breasts and that weird dragon dude from the dream realm. Let us also remember that the 80’s cartoon, while beloved, especially by me, was goofy as hell and often didn’t make sense or had bad dialogue. For some reason we’re all willing to give them a pass because they were part of our childhood and we love them as a matter of principle.
Maybe I’m too close to this and can’t see it clearly, but I don’t think this flick is getting a fair shake. I’m not telling you that you have to love this movie out of principle, I simply say to you, don’t judge it by an unfair standard, it isn’t “Citizen Kane,” it’s not supposed to be. Go with your non-judgmental friends, or take a kid, or go alone, be honest with yourself and then tell me if you walk out of the theater with a smile. Remember what it is, a Ninja Turtles movie… a Ninja Turtles movie with gorgeous visuals, dialogue that is honest to the characters and often funny, and action sequences the likes of which every little kid has dreamed about since 1984. Some of it is unrealistic, but then again so are walking, talking, butt kicking turtles, and I’m okay with that. Feel free to disagree, I’ll just be sitting over here on my own little island, enjoying the hell out of this movie.