Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Review (No Spoilers)

When a world in which every person uses a Nokia Lumia is terrorised by the villainous Shredder and his Foot Clan, reporter, April O’Neil, after making her SKYPE call and using her NOKIA phone as a camera, must work together with four mutated turtles, PIZZA HUT, DUNKIN’ DONUTS and their master Splinter to stop Shredder, gain acceptance and discover their destiny as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was not as bad as I expected. Going through endless rewrites and tremendous hate from fans, the film mainly astounds by its amazing depiction of the turtles. Encapsulating the spirit of the each turtle almost perfectly, the film stuck to the original characteristics of the turtles and left them unchanged despite the change of every other character around them. From the funny wit of Michaelangelo to the badassery of Raphael, the script manages to make us forget the horrible designs of the turtles’ noses and focus on the very likable personalities of these amazing characters with that short elevator sequence summing up what the turtles are all about.

Megan Fox bouncing
on a trampoline

The amazing portrayal of the turtles, unfortunately, only serves as a reminder of the lost potential of the film. Ripped right out of the Michael Bay guidelines to a movie, the well-portrayed turtles are thrown into a film in which they aren’t even the stars of their own film as Megan Fox takes center stage as a horribly casted April O’Neil. Yet again showing her inability to act, Fox had me cringing through every word she spoke which sounded like she was reading them from a page off screen. To be fair though, from her hair that stays mysteriously dry in scenes that are raining to scenes in which she literally just bounces on a trampoline, we all know what her purpose in the film is and it isn’t acting. It is unfortunate that at this day and age, right after CGI Caesar from ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ proved to be one of the most complex and interesting characters this year, a film having such likable CGI turtle characters does not have enough faith in its own characters to carry it and instead chooses to focus on uninteresting things like April’s random and chemistry-less romance with Vernon.

Warning: Turtles' design may
give your kids nightmares.

It wasn’t just Fox who did not show up for this film. Almost every character other than the turtles were one-dimensional and boring. From a really badly done Splinter to a completely pointless Eric Sacks to a Shredder who randomly walks away from fights so the turtles can escape, the script and characters were very weak. Scenes dragged while random inspirational music played to trick one into feeling something important was happening. The seasons changed from what looked like summer to winter in mere seconds just to ‘look cool’. Safe to say, this film was not very well written or directed.

There were several scenes in the film in which April tries to convince Whoopi Goldberg that the turtles are real. These scenes felt like the studio trying to convince me that this film is good and worth having a look at. After a while, it just became sad and unfunny. The film then starts throwing in many not-so-subtle references to other films and becomes a blatant ploy to pull from one’s nostalgia of the films they mention. In addition to these problems, long standing fans will probably be annoyed by the horrible twist in the turtles’ origin story and as a fan of Spider-Man watching the new Amazing Spider-Man franchise, I know exactly how they feel.

However, despite all the problems with the film, there is a glimmer of hope. The turtles are honestly, very interesting characters, and with a sequel already green-lit perhaps they may still make a good TMNT film based around them.

The best thing I can say about this movie is that I didn’t hate it. That’s the best I can do for it.