Hello and welcome to an unscheduled appearance of The Comic Shop!
I had a chance last week to check out the new "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie. While I find it to be an extremely flawed film I think that it got the essence of the "TMNT" franchise right. Let's bang through this movie in the good, the bad, and the ugly style.
The Good:
Nothing will ever change my love of the Jim Henson crafted suits in the original movie. They were the stuff of "movie magic" legend. If you have the old movie on dvd, or pop it up on netflix take a minute to appreciate the tiny intricate details of the original suits. They are a true work of modern day art and should not ever be forgotten. That said, I did not mind the CGI in the new movie. While CGI is a medium that dates itself faster than old school puppets and wires ever could it gives filmmakers the chance to do things with the characters that would be next to impossible for a guy in a rubber suit.
I also like the individual renderings of the brothers, as they now have more personality than before. It's a little thing but it helps to give further definition to the turtles. In previous movies one major complaint was that Raph was the only one that went through any character development, but that is not the case here.
I'm more surprised to be writing this than you are reading it but I did not mind Megan Fox as April O'neil. While she is not the best actress in the world I didn't think she was any worse at the role than Judith Hoag or Paige Turico. In fact April really was given a lead role in this film and helped to drive the events of the movie. They made some really convenient and odd choices about her history with the turtles and objectified her constantly but that will be filed under UGLY and we will get to that later.
Sure the humor was juvenile at best, but it fits what one would expect from a group of teenagers so it wasn't too out of the ordinary. I thought a lot of it was actually quite good considering the source, but I can see why people would take issue with it. A lot of jokes in the original film were more keyed to the adults in the audience, but this version is complete fan service to the young people.
It was cool to actually see them use their weapons and once again that they each had their own particular set of skills. I really like the team aspect that they each brought something unique to the table. It has what we have come to expect from these types of movies with the team dynamic being done so well in "Avengers" & "Guardians of the Galaxy".
The Bad:
Who in their right mind thought casting Johnny Knoxville as the voice of Leonardo was a good idea? While I could say the same about Corey Feldman's Donatello in the original I thought he actually did a good job of getting down the innate humor of the super intelligent turtle. Knoxville's voice was a constant distraction for your humble blogger, and I found it quite grating as the movie continued on. I would hope in future movies they hire a more nondescript actor to voice the lead turtle, hopefully someone that isn't as much of a jackass.
I did not like the character design of Splinter in this movie one bit. He looked like some kind of rat/dog/horse hybrid, and while plausible due to mutation (I guess) the prehensile tail was a bit much. While what I said about the CGI turtles is still true, because we saw Splinter go toe-to-toe with the Shredder, Splinter is a character (much like Yoda) that was leaps and bounds better as a puppet. I can't really explain it, because it's more of a personal preference.
Speaking of the Shredder, I probably would've filed it under good if their original intent was to have the Oroku Sake Shredder in the movie instead of the Eric Sakks (William Fichtner) reinvention of the character. I love William Fichtner as an actor, and I completely expect him to take the Shredder mantle at some point in this new franchise. I just think the way they shoehorned "japanese guy in the shadows" into the movie was cheap and clumsy.
The Ugly:
First.....This is a pretty full category because there are a LOT of things that I had gripes with. The main problem that I had with the movie was that it falls under the pretty common nowadays problem of having the "sin of convenience". Oh, April had the turtles as pets and they were injected by her father and Eric Sakks with alien ooze to concoct a mutagen that would cure a disease that Sakks planned to release in a false flag attack on NYC. I've written here before that I am absolutely fed up with this lazy version of storytelling. It's hard to explain why April cares about the turtles...lets just make them her pets. It's stupid. Granted it's no worse than a rat learning ninja skills from his owner and then happening upon the turtles and the mutagen in the sewer. A LOT of convenience for my tastes, but I try not to nitpick too heavily because the turtles were created to poke fun at the absurdity of comics in the 80's. It's just frustrating for me that they feel it is necessary to create these emotional and relational tethers between characters. Sometimes in life just random shit happens and people have to react to it, and guess what it makes for interesting stories.
Second.... Sakks' dialogue is about the dimmest crap I have ever heard. He literally says "I want you to drain all of their blood even if it kills them". I'm no scientist, but I'm pretty sure it'll 100% kill them to have no blood. There are many more examples, but this was the first one that came to mind.
Third.... The objectification of April was inappropriate and unnecessary in my mind. We all get that Fox's best attribute is her good looks, but it is not needed in the plot to call constant attention to it. Whether it's Verne (Will Arnett) staring at her ass at an inopportune moment, or April's former pet Mikey oogling her like a horny teen there is wayyy to much of this movie in service to objectifying April's looks.
Fourth...The plot of this movie is an amalgam of the unnecessary parental back story from "Amazing Spider-man", the release of a toxin from a tower to threaten a city from "Amazing Spider-man", the false flag we have the cause & the cure scenario from "Mission Impossible II", "V for Vendetta", and many others. The magic blood from "Star Trek: Into Darkness" also made an appearance. So more or less it seems the writers took all of their ideas from semi-recent movies that they saw.
Wrapping up.....That's all about I have left to say about this film. I have seen sites like Kinja, and Rifftrax call "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" the worst movie of 2014, and I can understand where they are coming from. I will say; however, despite it's faults it captures the essence, and the inherent silliness of the franchise. I went out and bought a cheap copy the week it came out, and I am happy with my decision. Ultimately, dear reader it is up to you what you like and don't like. This was the only remake I saw in 2014 and it was totally worth it for me. Watch it for yourself and make your own decision!
P.S. I took some time on Xmas day to get into the first issue of IDW's mega TMNT-Ghostbusters crossover event, and I loved it. I will have to give IDW some of my money love in the future to catch up with two of my favorite things from my youth.
Happy reading and I will see you next time at The Comic Shop!!
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