There were a lot of bad reviews that came out about the latest Michael Bay production, although to be honest at this point I think people are just set out to hate whatever he puts his name on.  I first saw the trailer when I sat down to watch Godzilla and even though I can’t remember what the cartoons were about, I was still hit with that nostalgic punch in the gut.  The whole thing just spoke to my inner child.  Plus, I was intrigued that Michael Bay hired Megan Fox again, even though she bad-mouthed the hell out of him a couple of years ago.

Here’s the round-up of Jonathan Liebesman (Wrath of the Titans)’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Please note that there may be spoilers.  Read at your own risk.

THE STORY:

April O’Neil (Megan Fox – Jennifer’s Body) wants to be a serious newscaster, reporting only the most of hard hitting news for the masses of New York.  Unfortunately, she’s too pretty for her own good and no one is taking her seriously, not her boss Bernadette Thompson (Whoopi Goldberg – Ghost), not even her camera man Vernon Fenwick (Will Arnett – The Lego Movie).  When a group who dubbed themselves as the Foot Clan, led by an extremely strong ninja named Shredder (Tohoru Masamune – Inception), April does what any striving journalist does: she snoops around without back-up.  She somehow stumbles upon a whole operation that involves mutated turtles with fantastic ninja skills who also happen to be teenagers – Raphael (Alan Ritchson – The Hunger Games: Catching Fire), Michaelangelo (Noel Fisher – Battle Los Angeles), Leonardo (Pete Ploszek – Parks and Recreation, voiced by Johnny Knoxville – Men in Black II) and Donatello (Jeremy Howard – Sydney White) – who, under the tutelage of a mutated rat they refer to as ‘Dad’ – Splinter (Danny Woodburn – Mirror Mirror, voiced by Tony Shalhoub – Men in Black) – are in on the fight against the Shredder and his foot clan.  April never expected that the mutated creatures are somehow linked to her past, but when the mysterious rich benefactor Erick Sacks (William Fichtner – The Dark Knight) informs her that this is so, she finds little reason to believe it.

THE GOOD:

1. The teenage stereotypes.  I loved that they nailed teenage angst (Raphael), teenage nerdiness (Donatello), teenage horndog-ness (Leonardo), and that all-too-familiar teenage longing to be treated as a grown-up (Michaelangelo).
2. The humor.  Well, mosty the ones from the turtles at least.  Their dialogue, despite the occassional cheesiness, was executed well and showed the camaraderie that only kids who are still in the process of growing up together can possess.  There was this bit where the turtles rode an elevator and had to wait for a while to reach their floor.  What do they do?  They start randomly beatboxing, of course.  Because that’s just what boy teens with extremely short attention spans do.
3. Will Arnett.  Gyah, there really is nothing that this guy can do wrong (except maybe the whole divorce with Amy Poehler, but you know).  He provided the much needed realism from the human characters, and despite his being unfairly relagated to a secondary character, you can’t knock his successful efforts in not making his Vernon come off as a creepy dirty old man.
4. The special effects.  This being a Michael Bay production, of course the CGI would be extremely good (although maybe because he wasn’t the director, there weren’t as much explosions).  I honestly thought that the turtles would be all CGI but it’s a nice surprise to see they went with motion capture.  I mean, I can’t even imagine how it was to film a movie with half of the actors dressed up like this.

THE BAD:

1. The extreme close ups of Megan Fox’s face.  She’s smoking hot, yes, and that body is just to die for.  But the zoomed up close, her face sort of looks like rubber.
2. The predictable plot.  This was one of those movies where the audience is always two steps ahead of the movie.  If it weren’t for the excellent characterization of the turtles, this would’ve been a pain to sit through.
3. Who the fuck is Shredder?  Again, I say that I can’t really remember what the cartoons were about and a little backstory on the dude would’ve been helpful.  Why was he so ridiculously strong?  Were those burn marks?  What happened to him?

THE UGLY:

1. The lazy plot.  I understand that the film makers changed the original story that had the turtles turn out to be aliens, but this story wasn’t really any better.  It’s just extremely lazy to hinge everything on April, you know?
2. It’s just not up to par with the other superhero movies out there.  The biggest problem I found with this movie is that while it is sufficiently good, it just isn’t good enough.  I can totally understand why it got bad reviews and had I seen this right after I watched Guardians of the Galaxy, I would be pretty pissed too.  It’s like the equivalent of the first Iron Man movie and at this day and age, that just wouldn’t cut it.

All in all Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a pretty entertaining movie.  Unfortunately, no amount of quirky dialogue from the turtles can save the thinly written plot.  It’s still pretty fun to watch, and if you have kids, they’ll probably enjoy this more than the recent Marvel movies, which, let’s admit it, were made more for the adults than the children.

THE VERDICT: 6/10.

*All photos are lifted from the film’s IMDB page.