Turtle Power

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

Look out everyone, we have another Hollywood reboot. Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures have teamed up to give new life to the “Heroes in a Half-Shell” on the big screen. The partners also brought back the cartoon in CGI form in 2012. I am thinking that Nickelodeon is going to milk this green cow for all it’s worth.

I’m not going to waste your time with a synopsis for this film because let’s face it…my generation (90% of you reading this now) knows the origin story of the Ninja Turtles. This origin, however, is a little more faithful to the comics than the 80’s cartoon. I would tell you the difference, but it would give plot points away that are important to the story and I wouldn’t want to do that. I can tell you though, that if you enjoyed your childhood cartoons/movies you will be happy with what they did with this film.

Going to admit something, this was a very hard review to write. These 4 reptiles were staples of my childhood and I am sure a lot of your childhoods. Waking up early on Saturday mornings to catch the cartoon and then begging my parents to see them in live action on the movie screen. So when news of another chance to see the Turtles in live action again was very exciting to me. I reminded myself that this film wasn’t the 1990 version and that this was for new Turtle fans everywhere.

What ended up happening was I loved and hated this film all at once. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is exactly what it should be, a fun, fast paced, action/family film with talking Ninja animals and a guy with knives on his hand.  Every Turtle personality is exactly how I remember them from my childhood. Leonard is the leader, Donatello is the nerd, Raphael is the hot head, and Michelangelo is the skater dude. Leo and Raph argue, Donnie invents cool gadgets, and Mikey is the comic relief. They love their sensei/father Splinter and try very hard to make him proud. The action was great and there were plenty of laughs even for the kids. Even the CGI turtles looked amazing. They did a wonderful job adding detail to each Turtle to add to their personality and they don’t overdo it.

Where this movie went wrong is that it has no originality whatsoever! The screenwriters borrow themes and scenes from the other Turtle movies or other movies in general. Example, in the 1990 version the Foot Clan follows April through the sewers to track down the lair of the Turtles and attacks it. Same kind of scene happens here, though Splinter is hurt during a battle with Shredder and not kidnapped (rat-napped?). Another example is that the plot of this film is about an evil scientist who wants to disperse an airborne mutagen all over New York City from one of the city’s tallest buildings. Sound familiar? It should since that was the plot of The Amazing Spider-Man.

Of course scrapping that all away, the movie was decent throw back to my childhood because it does encompass a lot of the same elements that made the original films and cartoon such a success. I even have to give credit to Megan Fox for not screwing up her performance of April and really bringing out the character the way it should be; a pushy reporter that wants to report real news. I also thought that Will Arnett (Arrested Development) did a great job as Vernon Fenwick (April’s cameraman in the cartoon).

As I said before, I found this to be a hard review to write. I loved the way the writers treated the characters with respect and not going to crazy with 4 talking turtles and a talking rat. But the fact still remained that throughout the film, I had this nagging feeling that I had seen the plot and some of the scenes before. Maybe with a warning about the plot, I probably would have loved the film.

So to my generation of Turtle fans, enjoy the film the way you would if you were 8 year old again and try to forget the unoriginality of the script.

The Verdict: Worth Your Time, But go in without any expectations.