Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows Review

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

Mikey: "Dude, bringing back the mohawk! Good for you!"

Bebop: "Oh ho ho! ya'll got jokes, huh?"

      Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is directed by Dave Green (Earth to Echo) and stars Pete Ploszek as Leonardo, Alan Ritchson as Raphael, Jeremy Howard as Donatello, Noel Fisher as Michelangelo, Megan Fox as April O'Neil, Stephen Amell as Casey Jones, Laura Linney as Chief Vincent, Will Arnet as Vernon Fenwick, Brian Tee as Shredder, Tyler Perry as Baxter Stockman, Stephen Farrelly as Rocksteady, Gary Anthony Williams as Bebop, Tony Shalhoub as Splinter, and Brad Garrett as Krang.

Nostalgia, here we come!

 

      The Turtles are back in this sequel to the 2014 film and, obliged to the ninja oath and their love for the city of New York, they must stop Shredder from opening a portal leading to another dimension. Shredder, with the help of his mutant henchmen Bebop, a warthog, and Rocksteady, a rhino, is in cahoots with an alien known as Krang so that they can rule the world. The four turtle brothers, with the help of April O'Neil, Casey Jones, and Vernon Fenwick, pave the way to battle Krang, but problems within the Turtle team arise and they have to fix that while the clock is ticking towards doomsday. Do they fix their problems or does Krang win? Find out next week on a new episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Mikey is me on Saturday mornings as a kid...who am I kidding? I meant as a kind of grown up adult.

      If you aren't a fan of TMNT, a brief description of the characters is basically that they're four turtle brothers who became mutated and learned to talk like a human, the only difference is that they are a bit bigger than a regular size human and they're ninjas who can kick ass. Does it sound stupid? Well it is! However, I can admit that the Saturday morning cartoons and the games were fun to watch an play, respectively. I'm a casual fan of theirs; not a super fan. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows reminded me of those Saturday morning cartoon episodes I used to watch where the Turtle Team beat the bad guys up and saved the day. There lies the problem: this film is more a longer episode of a Saturday morning cartoon and less an actual cohesive film. I don't want to just bash the Turtles, but hey, TMNT: Out of the Shadows is not a good film overall. It is fun in that there is much fan service throughout the movie, but everything else, literally everything else, is pretty much crap. Almost every scene is an exposition scene, meaning that the characters are explaining what, how, and why events are going to happen in the next scene. Every once in a while exposition scenes are OK to use just for clarification, but there are way too many in this movie. TMNT: Out of the Shadows almost treats the audience like 2nd graders. Example: Donatello, the brains of the four brothers, is characterized, in this film, like he is God or something. He explains that Krang is assembling an Earth destroying ship and they have 10 minutes or so to stop him before it's built, not to mention he knows all of the extraterrestrial elements used in the Ooze that made Bebop and Rocksteady animals so that he can reverse the transformation on him and his brothers. I understand that there a many scenes like this in a bunch of films, but these exposition scenes are found almost every 15 minutes.

What the H-E-double hockey sticks, guys? Rocksteady is also angry! Don't give away everything! I think the Turtles are smart enough to figure out what to do rather than have everything handed to them on a silver platter.

      Fan Service is really the only thing that makes the film worthwhile. I, as a casual fan, enjoyed the fan service to a degree, but I am reviewing the movie as well. I'll give this to both casual and die-hard fans: it's as cheesy and fun as the cartoon episodes. Bebop and Rocksteady are cool to have in the movie, as well as Casey Jones, Baxter Stockman, and Krang. Unfortunately, I, personally, did not like Casey Jones or Krang the most. The others are fine enough. They weren't as bad as those two, is really what it comes down to. I like Stephen Amell in Arrow (unpopular opinion, most likely), but as Casey Jones, he has no depth and a poorly constructed motivations. He goes along with everything the turtles tell him, why? Because they are the good guys, of course. I think at one point he says that he "loves this city" and "one day I'm going to be a detective". He also wants to get into April O'Neil's pants. Not one quote that phrased he wanted to go for the bad guys because he lost everything because of them or something along the lines of that. Also, Megan Fox as April O'Neil is the same as she was in previously directed Michael Bay films: only eye candy and doesn't offer good acting to the film. I also can't buy her act of being a smart reporter at all. It's like seeing right through her acting. Krang is a huge let down for me. I didn't mind that the makers put him in the film for nostalgia purposes, but really? He is a pink blob that sounds like Brad Garrett doing a horrible impression of Brad Garrett. I'm sorry Brad, you're a funny guy, but as evil talking bubblegum you are just awful. Lastly, forget about Shredder making a difference in this movie. Just forget it because you're not going to see him do much.

Look at him! Krang is a brain with a mouth that spews out crap! He doesn't even feel threatening at all throughout the movie!

      The only positive, like I keep bringing up, is the fan service, but the most fan service-y element that attracted me as a casual fan is the turtles themselves. They are more connected as a team in TMNT: Out of the Shadows than its 2014 predecessor. I enjoyed them interact with each other a lot more and they are more alike to their original cartoon characters than any other version. Radical stuff, man! I can complain about the CGI turning the turtles ugly and the fact that there isn't much "Ninja" use, like their name implies, but nitpicking is something that is off the table as compared for how poor the rest of the film is. I hear many complaints about Mikey being too dumb, but I think he is lovably dumb. Like Peter Griffin from Family Guy or Dory from Finding Nemo, I think Mikey fits into the category of being useful to the story, but intelligent as a sack of potatoes.

Bros with shells for life

      While TMNT: Out of the Shadows has the fan service that both casual fans and super fans will possibly enjoy, I don't think it saves the film, as a whole, from being a pile of horse poop that someone febreezed very lightly. If you decide to see this movie, just remember that it's a drawn out episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It isn't a well crafted movie, like one should expect. I hoped I would enjoy TMNT: Out of the Shadows more than most people's assumptions, but sadly, I think I should've listened because I enjoyed this film very little.

1.8/5

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence

Click here to watch the trailer

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is in theaters everywhere now

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