Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie Review | by tiffanyyong.com

Recommended Audience: Fans of Megan Fox, Will Arnett, William Fichtner, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Thriller/Action movie fans

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie Synopsis

The city needs heroes. 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 (Megan Fox) and her wise-cracking cameraman Vern Fenwick (Will Arnett) to save the city and unravel Shredder’s diabolical plan.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Viewer Rating: 3.5/5 ***

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie Review:

Just like Disney’s Mickey Mouse, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are part of our childhood memories. Although I was never a fan of the turtles, I recalled my brother having this gigantic Ninja Turtle cake for his 5th birthday celebration at our childcare centre. The cake was perhaps the most vivid recollections of the turtle heroes, as my brother had to make do with the cake as the shop did not have our favourite Mighty Morphin Power Rangers back then.

To me, this is basically a version of the Spiderman + Captain America 2 plot using Transformer’s classic babe. April O’Neil thinks her father’s lab partner Eric Sacks is the good guy and tells him everything about the TMNT (like how Peter Parker told Dr. Curt Connors/Lizard about the discovery). So Sacks wanted the turtles’ blood for the mutagen which is the antidote to the deadly virus they were planning to release (Harry wanted Spiderman’s blood for his illness), and had Shredder to release the toxin and fight the turtles (if you remember how the Winter Soldier fought Captain America on the Helicarriers).

When I watched this movie, I didn’t expect much when the online review was only 13%. I had to give credit to the film for the few funny moments (one of them is already on Youtube ie. the elevator beatboxing scene) and the cheesy one-liner jokes delivered by the “young-at-heart-but-not-in-looks” turtles especially Michelangelo’s (voiced by Noel Fisher) amusing teenage crush on April. While Megan Fox looks perfectly sexy (in Transformers too) in the film, there were loopholes in the story line which made her look silly. For a lady to run towards the scene where people are held hostage is plain silly for a reporter-wannabe, and I can’t think of a reason good enough for her to risk her life to climb up buildings to take photos of the “vigilante mutant turtles” with sound on. Erm, reporter?

April’s cameraman-and-boyfriend-wannabe Vernon Fenwick (Will Arnett) did not have much scenes, but his acting skills was by far, the best (since the turtles and rats are CGI).

This might be a great family or teenage film, but adults might not be sated by the few humourous moments and nice (but not great) visual effects. Oh ya, you might want to smuggle a slice of pizza or go a post movie meal at Pizza Hut!

Do You Know?

The film was originally to be called just “Ninja Turtles”, but the “Teenage Mutant” part was put in to please the fans when they expressed negative feedback about it. The undercover code name for the filming of the movie was “Foursquare”. This name was told to anyone who asked what was being filmed to keep the secret.

Ernie Reyes Jr., who starred in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991) (and acted as a stunt double for Donatello in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)), pitched a stunt video to Michael Bay so that he could be martial arts consultant on this film.

April O’Neill has on a yellow jacket throughout the film. This pays homage to her appearance in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987), where she prominently had on a yellow jumpsuit.

This is the first TMNT live-action film to feature the Shredder’s adopted daughter Karai.

Eric Sachs mentioned testing the mutagen on rabbits. This is a homage to “Usagi Yojimbo”, a comic about a samurai bunny. Yojimbo and the Turtles have teamed up on several occasions.

Casting for Foot Clan roles were held when the Ninja Turtles 25th Anniversary Shell-Ebration stopped at Los Angeles. The people being cast were ordinary people on the street. In nearly all TMNT media, Leonardo wields twin ninjaken (shorter swords with straight blades) often incorrectly referred to as katana (longer swords with curved blades). In this film, Leo wields actual katana and they are correctly identified as such.

The other Turtles tease Raphael about using his “Batman voice”. Will Arnett was the voice of Batman in The Lego Movie (2014)

Behind The Scenes and Interviews

Check out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Official Website and Facebook Page!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is out in cinemas on 7 August 2014.

xoxo

*Disclosure: No monetary compensation was received for the movie review.