Arriving on the big screen this week courtesy of Nickelodeon and Michael Bay’s (“Transformers”) Platinum Dunes production company and directed by Jonathan Liebesman (“Wrath of the Titans”), “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” – heretofore referred to as TMNT 2014 – brings everyone’s favorite martial artist reptiles to the big screen in blockbuster style.
The film opens with a brief animated sequence
that lays the scene for the adventure to come. In a nutshell, the city
of New York is in the grip of a crime wave that police and public
officials have proven powerless to stop, and Chanel 6 News reporter
April O’Neil (Megan Fox, “Transformers”) has a hunch that a group known
as the Foot Clan is to blame. Unfortunately, neither April’s cameraman
Vernon Fenwick (Will Arnett, “The Lego Movie”) nor her boss Bernadette
Thomson (Whoopi Goldberg) shares her suspicions.
When April’s nose for news puts her on the trail of the Foot, she finds
herself crossing paths with the last thing she ever thought to find: a
quartet of 6-foot tall, crime-fighting turtles that – coincidentally –
have a link to her past. When April’s colleagues dismiss her encounter
as being the product of an overactive imagination, she seeks out the
counsel of old family friend (and billionaire scientist) Eric Sacks
(“Prison Break’s” William Fichtner). As fate (and another coincidence!)
would have it, Sacks knows more than he’s letting on, and it isn’t long
before April and her new turtle friends are thrust headfirst into a plot
that threatens the entire city.
Right off the
bat, it’s safe to say that one’s ability to take a title like “Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles” at face value depends either on one’s tolerance
for the patently absurd or one’s pre-existing affinity for the
characters. Indeed, it’s safe to say that the majority of people who’ll
be turning out to see this film will rest firmly in the latter category
(Heaven knows that this writer was one of those who looked forward to
seeing their animated adventures every Friday night back in the early
nineties).
Dreamed up in 1984 by Peter Eastman
and Kevin Laird, the turtles were introduced as an intentionally
ridiculous take on the grim n’ gritty comics in vogue at the time.
Independently published, the little black and white comic book was a
surprise hit, eventually leading the duo to quit their jobs to head up a
business empire that has, thus far, yielded roughly half a dozen comic
book series, three separate animated series (the latest of which is
still ongoing), a bizarre two-episode animé miniseries from Japan, a
live-action TV series (the less said, the better), three live action
theatrical films released in the 90’s (to diminishing returns), and one
tepidly-received computer-generated movie in 2007.
These days, everybody has their favorite versions; in much the same way
that the first James Bond or Batman one sees tends to inform a person’s
perception of those characters, the heroes in a half-shell have had so
many iterations over the years that it’s tough to label any one version
as being more “definitive” or “valid” than any other.
Perhaps in acknowledgment of this, “TMNT 2014” picks and chooses
elements from versions past while putting its own spin on our mutant
heroes’ origins. Where this one stumbles is its insistence on having
everything from the villain’s plan to the turtles’ radioactive origins
centering entirely around April O’Neal. While this may seem like an
economical mode of storytelling in theory, it comes across onscreen as
lazy and contrived, with the unfortunate overall effect of making the
world the turtles inhabit very small indeed.
The narrative quibbles, however, pale in comparison to the lapses in
logic the filmmakers expect the audience to accept, ranging from the
inane (expert-level martial arts skills being acquired from a book) and
the insane (main villain’s plan to release a biological agent in a city
while he is still in the city) to the just plain stupid (fighting to
secure a compound that can save the life of someone who has the compound
in his blood the whole time anyway).
Much has
been made of the manner in which the main characters have been
overly-redesigned (you know you’re in trouble when the Krispy Kreme
donut versions of your main characters are better looking), but one
thing that “TMNT 2014” does get right are the turtles’ individual
personalities and the manner in which they interact with each other.
Even if they’ve been re-imagined to be hulking (especially Raphael)
monstrosities, these ARE the turtles you know and love: Leonardo leads,
Donatello does machines, Raphael is cool (but rude), Michelangelo, of
course, is the party dude. Curiously, the film takes no time to
introduce these characteristics, much less their individual names, so if
you’re going in without prior knowledge, you may find yourself lost for
a stretch.
On the human side of the equation,
the jury’s still out on whether it’s Megan Fox’s inherent lack of talent
or her plastic surgery that renders her face inertly expressionless
through a majority of the proceedings. Noted comedians Arnett and
Goldberg are sadly wasted in minor roles, as is “SNL” alum Abby Elliot,
in a cameo as April’s roommate.
Admittedly, the
central conceit of the property has always been pretty bonkers, but
something the filmmakers overcompensate on is their efforts to justify
it, when they probably should directed their energy toward other areas
(ie. cast, script, etc). Honestly, the film is at its most effective
when it surrenders to the core concept’s goofy charms (as opposed to
being embarrassed by it), and it is in those moments that “TMNT 2014”
gets closest to actually being fun. Two sequences that stand out to show
how much we’re missing are a physics-defying chase down the side of a
snow-covered mountain that rivals “Desolation of Smaug’s” barrel scene
for sheer giddy ridiculousness, and the final rooftop confrontation with
the turtles’ perennial nemesis, The Shredder (who now resembles a Swiss
Army knife by way of Megatron).
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