TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (2014)

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (2014)

Tagline:  Mysterious. Dangerous. Reptilious. You've never seen heroes like this.

(Action, Adventure, Comedy) [PG-13]

Of course, you've all tasted the five-cheese pizza. But this... cheesemongers have speculated its existence for centuries. Da Vinci's original masterpiece. I submit to you... Novantanove Formaggio, The 99-cheese pizza!

This movie was done in part as a 30-year celebration of the existence of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which started out as a comic. 

In this one, a group of thugs named “The Foot Clan” is terrorizing New York. It is discovered that a group of elusive vigilantes are fighting back. Reporter April O’ Neil (played by Megan Fox best known for the TRANSFORMERS series) has a brief run-in with them and is convinced they are her childhood pet turtles. Now they are like 6ft tall and are ninjas. Can the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stop The Foot Clan and their leader Shedder before they completely take over the New York underground, and is there enough Pizza Hut to feed them all in the process?

One of the big complaints about this thing was the design of the turtle's faces. In fact a LOT like what happened in the SONIC franchise, fans actually put out better-looking designs than what we got in the movie. For me, this is an issue and it does take some getting used to when you watch it, but it didn’t ruin the movie for me. When the turtles are fighting and have their eye masks on, they look fine. Not great, but fine. I will say the younger versions shown in the flashbacks when Splinter is telling his story of their past are particularly haunting. Splinter’s design is actually a mesh of several incarnations. One of them is the massively successful animated TV version “Tales Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. Splinter is voiced by Tony Shalhoub of “Monk” Fame. The TV series had some rad voice work done by the likes of Sean Austin (Raphael) and Mae Whitman from SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD (who voice April O’Neil). I do like the original Shedder design, but his suit in this movie is epic. 

Acting-wise, Megan Fox is actually pretty solid in this role. I haven’t always felt she was the right pick for some of the roles she’s done. I also can’t say that Anna Kendrick, Jane Levy, or Elizabeth Olsen, who all also tried out for the role wouldn’t have done just as well. I do like Will Arnett in this as the driver who helps April O’ Neil. I also really liked William Fichtner as an awesome villain as the head of Sacks Industry. 

A few interesting things I noticed watching this movie. April O’Neil gets fired from her job as a reporter for telling the truth. That seems to be pretty much the standard in major media news outlets these days. Telling the truth will definitely get you fired. Hell even telling the truth on your social media feed can get you fired. I also noticed how awesome and amazing New York looks in certain shots in this movie. It’s almost hard to watch in a way knowing what the city has become in the past year. We also get a scene in this where the turtles realize they are bulletproof. Maybe this was a thing in other incarnations, I am not an expert on the turtles, but this seems new. We are not just talking about their shells which would be a cool thing to know, their skin is also bulletproof in this movie. Due to the scene, I believe it’s chalked up to a mutagen they were given, but it’s interesting nonetheless. Finally, this movie's villain plot is extremely similar to THE AMAZING SPIDER man which came out 2 years prior. 

The fight scenes are all pretty good, especially the showdown between Splinter and Shredder, but the final battle is a bit plagued by Michael Bay’s spin-o-rama camera direction. I love when this happens in his films when the central subject is standing still, but during fight scenes, it’s needlessly dizzying. 

Overall this movie is pretty solid for an intro to a series, but as a stand-alone, I can see why after 30 years in the making, fans would have been expecting more. Fortunately, we’d get that later. 

I give this one a 4 out of 7. We got a pretty fun movie overall and I like re-watching it when I get the chance. I just didn’t hate this as much as some did and this is coming from a dude that saw all three original films in the theaters. Just the open, closing animation, and song were fun if that was all this movie was. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF PARAMOUNT PICTURES AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

A look around the series...

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS

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