Some kids loved He-man. Some really loved Thundercats. While I was a fan of both of those, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle’s were my favorite growing up. I had all the action figures, I watched the cartoon religiously. I went on my birthday two years ago to see the Michael Bay Produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with low expectations and found myself smiling through the film. There was enough there that made me happy. I went into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows with guarded expectations with an underlying excitement to see animated favorites brought to life (well, CGI) for the first time. Unfortunately, while there are still aspects of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows that I enjoyed, the movie seems confused with what it is and earned the rating of Not a Total Waste of Time.
Some things should stay in the shadows.
The Shredder (Brian Tee) is back, after Baxter Stockman (Tyler Perry) and the foot clan break him out of prison, with a new ally, Commander Krang (Brad Garrett), he is able to create two mutant henchmen, Bebop (Gary Anthony WIlliams) and Rocksteady (Stephen Farrelly). The four brothers: Leonardo (Pete Ploszek), Michelangelo (Noel Fisher), Donatello (Jeremy Howard), and Raphael (Alan Ritchson); team up with April O’Neil (Megan Fox), Vernon Fenwick (Will Arnett), and Casey Jones (Stephen Amell) to take down the Shredder and Commander Krang.
TMNT: Out of the Shadows suffers from a few things, but most notably is its identity. The film tries to be child friendly at times, which makes sense, but then tries to appeal to the adult audience the franchise has built-in thanks to nostalgia. The film wants to give fan service to the animated series and the comics, but is afraid then alters a fan favorite dramatically. Essentially the film wants to try to win over as many demographics as it can, but instead feels like it doesn’t know what it is and it’s off putting at times.
Add in some horrible performances or horrible writing by Tyler Perry, Megan Fox, and Stephen Amell and there are some truly head shaking moments in this film. In a film filled with CGI characters some of the fakest moments come from the live action actors. The amount of character information and backstory provided by character dialogue demonstrates the disdain for the audience the writers have and delivered poorly by the actors make it all more cringeworthy. Amell straight-up tells his police captain that he is going to be a detective as soon as the next batch of applications go through. Later he explains he learned how easy it is to pickpocket police officer while working at the prison as a corrections officer. He could have just sat in a coffee shop holding the script and read through the story rather than bother showing up on set with the way the character is written.
Getting deeper into Casey Jones and the writers Josh Appelbuam and Andre Nemec did to the character is sad. A film they brings cartoon favorites Bebop and Rocksteady to the big screen bastardized the Casey Jones character. Traditionally a vigilante inspired by the Turtle’s who uses sports equipment as his weapons of choice, is just a corrections officer with an interest in hockey. After being shamed he dons the mask for one sequence. It’s not the version of the character that should have made it to a movie that was boosting its attempt to be truer to the animated series that spawned decades of fans despite many bad adaptations.
It’s not all bad though. Michelangelo and his brothers still bring the funny and the action for the most part in exciting ways. I’m a fan of the look of these turtles despite many purists being against it. The character interactions work really well and feel like the old cartoon at times and something new and welcome at others. There are some bad moments when things just resolve themselves without any real reason, but it works to move the plot so the writers said whatever.
Bebop and Rocksteady actually were pretty great. Some of their jokes were a little childish, but the characters were actually even better than I remember from the cartoon. The moments in the film with these character are pretty enjoyable even before their mutations.
This is not a film that many people will enjoy. Young children will have a good time and fans of the series will likely have extremely mixed reactions. I couldn’t resist seeing it right away, but it did leave a fairly sour taste in my mouth when it was all said and done. Then again, I do love those turtles.
Berkreviews.com 