Quickie Review:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT), the title is pretty self- explanatory on what this movie is about. Nevertheless here's the gist, a group of teenage turtles who are mutated and have ninja skills must fight their biggest foe Shredder, and save New York City. To a non-fan of the cartoons and comics, this sounds like a ridiculous plot, and it is. There are also human characters that were completely unfunny and throwaway. However, what keeps this movie from being a complete failure are the turtles themselves. There is a lot that is wrong with this movie, but turtles give some shred of integrity to the movie.
Full Review:
Full disclosure here, I am aware of TMNT but I am not a loyal fan. I think even the people who have no interest in watching TMNT are fully aware of all the online negative reaction both pre- and post-release. I follow many bloggers and youtubers, who's opinions I deeply respect that have said they didn't like it or in extreme cases found it to be horrendous. The movie released late here so I was aware of the general consensus beforehand. For that reason I was fully prepared to expect at best 4/10 or even less. But I must admit, I didn't find TMNT to be a great movie but much better than I had anticipated.
Let me touch upon what I did like, the turtles. Say what you will about their designs, but I find it hard to find any fault in their personalities. When there are CGI characters involved it is easy to jumble them together and make them generic. Thankfully that is not the case. Each of the turtles have great distinct personalities. So when you see them interact, they bicker and banter like any siblings do. On top of that they are all genuinely funny, especially Michelangelo (the yellow eye band). He had many funny lines but one in particular near the end had me bursting with laughter. The actions sequences were also generally well done. Yes there is the occasional shaky-cam action but it is balanced with scenes that are smooth long shots that are detailed and well-choreographed.
Now let's talk about what is wrong with the movie. My biggest annoyance were the human characters. Megan Fox as April O'Neil to no surprise was just there to stare at everything that was going on because when she opens her mouth to speak, she is just as monotone as it gets. Give the sound guy in this movie a raise for taking out all cricket chirping sounds that must have happened after every line from Will Arnett. His character was supposed to be the comic relief Notice how I said "supposed," because every "joke" he had was just followed up with an awkward silence in the cinema. Then there is the overly convoluted and coincidental plot, where for some reason every character is connected somehow. If you give the evil plan by the villain any thought it will just implode to its core. That brings me to the villain himself, Shredder. The filmmakers needs to understand that just making the villain look scary is not enough. A fruit fly hovering over a banana has more understandable motivation than Shredder did the entire movie. For all I know his motivation was to make Edward Scissorhands jealous. He was just a giant faceless robot with glorified Swiss army knives for arms.
I went on bit of a rant there, but I think the majority would agree with the negative points I have made. I think all the negativity I heard previous to watching the movie helped me to expect the bad characters, the thin plot, and the forgettable villain. And so like I said I was prepared for that and was ready to accept it. All I wanted was some good turtle moments and cool looking action, which TMNT did deliver. That may explain why I'm rating this movie not high, but higher than the general consensus. I completely understand the negative reactions, and if you look at my little rant I agree with it all. Still I think if you go with managed expectations, you will leave (at the very least) not completely hating the movie. Look at the bright side, it's not directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
Check out more on my movie review blog The Stub Collector: http://thestubcollector.wordpress.com/
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT), the title is pretty self- explanatory on what this movie is about. Nevertheless here's the gist, a group of teenage turtles who are mutated and have ninja skills must fight their biggest foe Shredder, and save New York City. To a non-fan of the cartoons and comics, this sounds like a ridiculous plot, and it is. There are also human characters that were completely unfunny and throwaway. However, what keeps this movie from being a complete failure are the turtles themselves. There is a lot that is wrong with this movie, but turtles give some shred of integrity to the movie.
Full Review:
Full disclosure here, I am aware of TMNT but I am not a loyal fan. I think even the people who have no interest in watching TMNT are fully aware of all the online negative reaction both pre- and post-release. I follow many bloggers and youtubers, who's opinions I deeply respect that have said they didn't like it or in extreme cases found it to be horrendous. The movie released late here so I was aware of the general consensus beforehand. For that reason I was fully prepared to expect at best 4/10 or even less. But I must admit, I didn't find TMNT to be a great movie but much better than I had anticipated.
Let me touch upon what I did like, the turtles. Say what you will about their designs, but I find it hard to find any fault in their personalities. When there are CGI characters involved it is easy to jumble them together and make them generic. Thankfully that is not the case. Each of the turtles have great distinct personalities. So when you see them interact, they bicker and banter like any siblings do. On top of that they are all genuinely funny, especially Michelangelo (the yellow eye band). He had many funny lines but one in particular near the end had me bursting with laughter. The actions sequences were also generally well done. Yes there is the occasional shaky-cam action but it is balanced with scenes that are smooth long shots that are detailed and well-choreographed.
Now let's talk about what is wrong with the movie. My biggest annoyance were the human characters. Megan Fox as April O'Neil to no surprise was just there to stare at everything that was going on because when she opens her mouth to speak, she is just as monotone as it gets. Give the sound guy in this movie a raise for taking out all cricket chirping sounds that must have happened after every line from Will Arnett. His character was supposed to be the comic relief Notice how I said "supposed," because every "joke" he had was just followed up with an awkward silence in the cinema. Then there is the overly convoluted and coincidental plot, where for some reason every character is connected somehow. If you give the evil plan by the villain any thought it will just implode to its core. That brings me to the villain himself, Shredder. The filmmakers needs to understand that just making the villain look scary is not enough. A fruit fly hovering over a banana has more understandable motivation than Shredder did the entire movie. For all I know his motivation was to make Edward Scissorhands jealous. He was just a giant faceless robot with glorified Swiss army knives for arms.
I went on bit of a rant there, but I think the majority would agree with the negative points I have made. I think all the negativity I heard previous to watching the movie helped me to expect the bad characters, the thin plot, and the forgettable villain. And so like I said I was prepared for that and was ready to accept it. All I wanted was some good turtle moments and cool looking action, which TMNT did deliver. That may explain why I'm rating this movie not high, but higher than the general consensus. I completely understand the negative reactions, and if you look at my little rant I agree with it all. Still I think if you go with managed expectations, you will leave (at the very least) not completely hating the movie. Look at the bright side, it's not directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
Check out more on my movie review blog The Stub Collector: http://thestubcollector.wordpress.com/