Warning! Contains spoilers!
Remember the days when news of a
cherished childhood franchise getting a movie wasn’t met with a mixture of scepticism
and excited expectation? Those were good times. But since then many a fandom
has been burned on the altar of cinema while the unwashed masses were left
clutching shattered dreams of what could have been. It’s all about big money. It’s
not personal. But when Darth Bay washes away your pristine action figures and
first edition comics in a tsunami of Hollywood cash it bloody well feels personal.
You have to grow some thick skin and remember that you have gone to the cinema
to be entertained, not to have your ego placated. Now that that baggage is out
the way – show time!
April O’Neil (Megan Fox) is a
Channel Six reporter with nothing going for her except a shaky camera phone and
super model level good looks. She is desperate to break the story on a group of
illusive outlaws calling themselves ‘The Foot’. As the Federal government shows
no sign of helping the nation’s largest city deal with a paramilitary terrorist
group acting with impunity, it falls to big business to assist the NYPD. Eric
Sacks [Warning! Obvious villain alarm!] steps forward to pledge support from
his bioweapon and cybernetic warfare company. But before he has to sign any
cheques the Foot Clan suffer several unforeseen setbacks. Four unknown vigilantes
have scuppered the baddies on several occasions while leaving nothing but some
anime inspired graffiti as a calling card. Turns out these masked heroes are
none other than four mutated turtles, raised in the sewers by a ninja master
rat. Realising April to be the young girl who saved them from a burning lab,
they team up to defeat the Foot Clan and save New York from a robot samurai
called Shredder. After that it all goes a bit CGI and big budget with
inevitable links to a future sequel.
The movie title promises four
things so let’s work through the list;
Turtles – Probably. I couldn’t
tell you the difference between a turtle and a terrapin but I will give the
film makers the benefit of the doubt.
Ninja – Yes. Splinter the rat
taught himself Ninjutsu thanks to a handy booklet thrown into a sewer and from
this he instructed his adopted children. If it had been a Queensbury boxing
pamphlet, things could have been very, very, different.
Mutant – Hell yes. Our
protagonists are eight foot tall, bipedal, talking turtles. What is interesting
here is that the chemical used to cause this transformation is key to building
a super bio weapon. For reasons.
Teenage – most defiantly.
Although this Turtles movie breaks our heroes down into high school stereotypes
rather than actual characters. Leonardo is the parents favourite and jock. Raphael
is the rebellious Kevin and Perry type. Donatello must therefore be the nerdy
computer geek. Finally, that leaves Michelangelo to be the one with ADHD.
But was it fun? The movie isn’t
so much action packed as it is action smeared. Don’t get me wrong – lots of bad
guys get messed up, but I’m struggling to remember a particularly impressive
fight scene. It does that block buster thing where most of the action is too
fast to follow or takes place in semi-darkness. Partly this is caused by robbing
‘The Foot’ of their ninja heritage. Rather than set piece melees, the Turtles
must dodge between mussel flashes and machine gun fire. Paradoxically, this
removes all sense of threat as bullet holes are a lot harder to shrug off than
the odd kick or punch. Despite this the matchup between Shredder (the robot samurai)
and Splinter (the ninja rat) is pretty sweet. It’s a classic old vs. new with
Splinter delicately tidying away his geta and reverently unsheathing a katana while
Shredder powers up Stack industries newest suit of knife throwing robot armour.
Why would Stacks industries even build such a thing? I bet there were a few
marines in the audience wishing they had had suits like that in Fallujah.
Now that I have brought up the
subject of violence it might be time to add a fifth descriptive note to our
heroes. They might be teenage, mutated, ninjas and or course turtles but they
can now pull off psychopathic. While they mostly smack up and knock out ‘The
Foot’ in each encounter, on several occasions the Turtles flat out murder some
of the villains. This even happens on one occasion when the heroes realise the
baddies are using none lethal weapons! I’m not opposed to the idea of whacking hoodlums
but it’s a little disconcerting that our teenage protagonists don’t even bat an
eyelid (do turtles have eyelids?) at taking human life.
Giant turtles and talking rats
wouldn’t be weird if there wasn’t anyone to point and scream. The human characters
do a fine job of helping/hindering the heroes. Arguably, April O’Neil is
actually the main character and Megan Fox carries it well. Will Arnett nails
the part of funny cameraman side kick and William Fitchner rocks it out as the
evil Eric Sacks. Fundamentally, the human characters ground the movie in a
vital way – they constantly remind us that the entire premise of the film is ridiculous.
This could have been managed inappropriately. It’s a little inconsiderate for a
movie to become a roast of its source material. Rather, its handled quite fittingly
with enough gags to be funny and not discourteous.
‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ is
as fun as a 99 cheese pizza. Enjoy it with friends for a significantly better
experience.
I give ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles’ three Brian faces out of five.
Cowabunga!
