"Why aren't we going with the turtles, when something bad happens you want to be with the turtles."
Michael Bay is back, quick grab all of your explosives and
run, no beloved childhood property is safe. Now I know the credits of this film
say “Directed by Dave Green” but I can’t help but think that it was Bay who
played the biggest hand in exactly what direction this movie would go. I’ve
been saying for weeks that ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ is a ridiculous
concept, by inherent design the idea is idiotic. That doesn’t mean it can’t be
fun though and the sooner Bay and his pals realised this, the sooner they could
actually make something half decent.
Shredder (Brian Tee) resurfaces with mad scientists Baxter
Stockman (Tyler Perry) to create their own mutants to take on the Turtles. Just
when the four brothers think things can’t get any worse, an extra-terrestrial
menace also joins the party. The addition of rogue Casey Jones (Stephen Amell).
To say that this latest instalment of the franchise is
better than its predecessor is to say that being stabbed in the back is better
than being stabbed in the heart, either way it is an unpleasant and painful
experience. The reason this film feels like being stabbed in the back is how it
momentarily appears that the creators have finally embraced the ridiculousness
of this concept, gone all out and made a fun and entertaining movie. That has
not happened.
What we get instead is a fiasco that beyond a few subtle
references that will undoubtedly appeal to loyal fans of the property, is a
shockingly soulless product. I feel as if even loyal fans have jumped off this
boat before it sinks (I’m going crazy with metaphors today for some reason) due
to the fact that the once likable and entertaining foursome have been turned
into CGI, steroid fuelled monstrosities. The movie leaves the impression that it
thought it could disguise itself behind a wall of fan service and references to
hide its own incompetence.
The plot is one scene of exposition after another. In fact
to call it a plot is to oversell it, this film is just one development after
another, each one lacking in drama, depth and imagination. There is no
innovation within this exposition either, it’s just a scene in which someone directly
explains one development to the audience so the characters can move into some
mindless and pointless action scene only to have another moment where the
actors might as well be speaking directly to the camera. The film thinks its
audience is incapable of even putting two and two together and actually come to
a conclusion themselves. I think we can work out that a giant alien brain
monster housed within a massively destructive robot is bad news, we don’t need
it to be spelled out for us.
In fact let’s talk about Krang and the rest of the villains.
If there’s one thing that I admired from this film it’s that they made Shredder
a human again, he is no longer some faceless bad guy who spends a majority of
the film encased in big metal suit. The only problem is that he is inevitably side-lined
for the turtles to have their climactic battle with Krang. So this film, like
the first one ends with the four CGI turtles fighting a giant robot on a
platform high in the sky. That hints at a larger problem that is taking place
here, there is no growth within this franchise nothing is changing and
ultimately it is exactly the same as every other movie in this franchise.
To this films credit, while aesthetically the turtles horrific
to look at, their characterisation is very reminiscent of the turtles many of
us had grown up with. If more of the movie was devoted to them it might be a lot
better. Sadly though, too much of the film’s screen time is occupied by April O’Neil
(Megan Fox) and her quest to convince the police commissioner that the turtles
are the good guys, and I couldn’t care less. Fox’s contribution to this film
can be deduced within a single image, in fact there it is.
We also have additions such as Casey Jones and whether it’s
through inconsistencies in the writing of his character or within the acting of
Amell but pinning down his character is the only intellectual mystery the film
poses. Will Arnett is put to better use, but even he can't save this. Surprisingly Tyler Perry is half decent, but on a side note I need to
share something I just found out. Apparently before he was signed on to star in
‘Gone Girl’ Perry had no idea who David Fincher was. He works as a director (albeit
in the loosest sense of the word) and he didn’t know who David Fincher was.
Even as just a fan of film in general that would have to mean he had never
heard of ‘Seven’, ‘Fight Club’ or ‘The Social Network, and even though ‘Alien 3’
is a terrible film he must never have heard of that either, which means he hasn’t
seen the other two which suggests he has no idea of Ridley Scott or James
Cameron are either, it’s just baffling.
The usual Bayhem, need I say more?
Result: 3/10
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