TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (2014) I have…no idea what to make of what I just saw. Going into this I already had quite a number of apprehensions and concerns regarding this whole enterprise. Namely, Michael Bay overseeing another movie based on a beloved Gen X cultural property and all the inevitable backlash associated with that. And the result is kind of terrible, but not quite the catastrophe one might expect. In other words Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen this is not. And I have certainly seen worse movies this year. What plagues this movie is just how generic it is. The plot and raw structure is largely ripped off superhero movies complete with “magic blood” and “evil gas threatening the city” clichés (see Batman Begins and The Amazing Spider-Man). The dialogue is laughable and William Fichtner and yes even Megan Fox are underutilized with cardboard thin characters with questionable motivations and some of the worst dialogue this side of an Asylum production. The Turtles themselves are hulking, overpowered monstrosities – a change made, I assume to make them more comparable to superheroes. Even Shredder is unrecognizable, looking more like one of Iron Man’s mech villains or X-Men’s Silver Samurai. What does work are a couple of the action scenes (the snow chase in particular) and the banter between our four heroes. The humor is a little more effective here than in the Transformers movies even if it is pop culture reference heavy. Basically, if action is going on or the Turtles are cracking jokes and smashing into vehicles it’s tolerable. If those things are not on screen it’s unbearable. Also credit must be given for the presence of only two explosions the entire movie. I assume this was because Michael Bay was a producer and not in the director’s chair, otherwise we would have gotten one every five minutes minimum. So surprise, surprise – shit movie is in fact, shit. It seems the definitive version of the Turtles will remain the 1990 original. Yes the one with the awkward rubber suits. And no not the sequels. By the way could we ever get a version of the original black and white comic? You know the one that was kind of dark and weird? Yeah we could Sin City the hell out of that and make an interesting film. At least it would be better than this. In regards to the movie we do have, I can only recommend seeing it on Netflix or checking it out from your local library. I cannot advise spending any money toward it. -Joshua Wayne Sheetz aka The God***n Batman youtube/watch?v=FnCTLgIAK4A
Posted on: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 23:59:41 +0000
Trending Topics
© 2015