Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 2014.
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman.
Starring Megan Fox, Will Arnett, William Fichtner, Johnny Knoxville, Alan Ritchson, Noel Fisher, Pete Ploszek, Jeremy Howard, Danny Woodburn, Tony Shalhoub, and Tohuro Masamune.
SYNOPSIS:
Darkness has settled over New York City as Shredder and his evil Foot Clan have an iron grip on everything from the police to the politicians. The future is grim until four unlikely outcast brothers rise from the sewers and discover their destiny as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Turtles must work with fearless reporter April O’Neil and her cameraman Vern Fenwick to save the city and unravel Shredder’s diabolical plan.
Michael Bay’s name is already attached to the ruination and destruction of one children’s franchise – Transformers – so you can’t really blame people for preparing for the worst with his produced/ Jonathan Liebesman directed spin on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Bay seemingly relishes in tainting childhood memories, so why would this be any different? Thankfully though, there is a distinct difference in Michael Bay the producer and Michael made the director. It’s just that even with Michael Bay’s influence kept to a bare minimum, Jonathan Liebesman doesn’t really craft a good Turtles film. It’s all just a different kind of terrible.
Perhaps what’s most appreciative and immediately noticeable in this reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is that there is very little toilet humor. Liebesman doesn’t treat his film the way Michael Bay treats his Transformers films at all. As a matter of fact, nothing about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (thankfully) resembles a Michael Bay film, so let’s just stop talking about him.
Instead, let’s talk about how there is a good piece of entertainment residing in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles just awaiting to break out of its shell, but is incapable of doing so due to some awful design decisions. Starting with the turtles themselves, they are freakishly abnormally large, and not in the fun endearing way. In this version they possess no charm, and simply look like humongous green beasts that just happen to enjoy pizza.
The work done by their voice actors doesn’t help either, as they are far too deep and intimidating. Just picture a Ninja Turtle talking like Batman and you’ll have a perfect understanding of the butchering. Mikey is the only one that comes close to resembling a Ninja Turtle in terms of both character and voice, and quite frankly steals the show with some hilarious dialogue.
The awkward character models don’t begin and end with just the turtles though; everyone from Master Splinter to Shredder’s armor are mishandled. Shredder for example, is completely overblown with giant armor that must contain over 100 retractable blades. It’s the same problem as with the turtles. There’s no subtlety to anything, but rather the notion that everything needs to be large and over-exaggerated.
If everything just looked more in line with what we are used to, these distractions wouldn’t hinder from a film that contains some impressively choreographed action sequences. The snow mountain sequence in particular stands out as one of the more entertaining chase sequences in recent memory, and also has fairly noticeable and awesome 3D effects. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is essentially the amalgamation of great action and horrid aesthetic design. You’re left loving and hating what you see at the same time.
The plot is serviceable enough, and doesn’t make the mistake of putting its human characters at the forefront of the story. Megan Fox is absolutely terrible as April, but once the turtles are properly introduced the focus of the story shifts to them. The only real complaint I have is that the origin story – which is slightly altered – has some plot holes and wasn’t really explained as thoroughly as it could have been. Also, Will Arnett was painfully unfunny as the sidekick to Megan Fox, and added nothing whatsoever to the movie. On the other side, William Fichtner made a great villain as always, so I suppose things balanced themselves out somewhat.
Even with some fun action and a decent enough story though, it’s hard not to feel that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a soullessly manufactured film meant to capitalize on whatever popularity is left in the franchise. Director Jonathan Liebesman simply has no style to his work, which is actually worse than having an absolutely terribly offensive style like Michael Bay. This is box-checking filmmaking right here, and frankly it’s pretty forgettable. It’s hard to imagine children watching this movie and coming away with the fascination for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that the films in the 90’s elicited.
Nothing about the reboot screams that this version has a new identity (unless you count giving Donatello some advanced goggles as a form of modernization). There is no imagination or creativity here, just the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 2014 with a grotesquely updated look.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder – An aficionado of film, wrestling, and gaming. He currently writes for Flickering Myth, We Got This Covered, and Wrestle Enigma. Follow me on Twitter.
Originally published August 9, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
