Film Review - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

Written by
Louisse Lopez, Year 13

Title: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Starring: Megan Fox, Alan Ritchson, Will Arnett
Rating: 1/4

When Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures announced that they were going to reboot the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film series, I was sceptical. Was this going to be another critical failure like its predecessor TMNT (2007), or could it live up to the success of the original films?

Unfortunately, it would be the former.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles follows the classic story of “hero defeats villain.” In this case, it’s the titular Ninja Turtles who must save the city of New York from the notorious Foot Clan led by the fearsome Shredder. In this film, we mainly follow the character of journalist reporter April O’Neil (Megan Fox), who seems to have had a hand in the inception of the Turtles. Why, oh why?

What bothered me most about this film is the fact that we barely follow the Turtles. We merely get a glimpse of their lives. There’s no character development whatsoever; they are pizza-loving, kung fu fighting, hip-hop rapping turtles. And that’s it. Not only that, we follow Megan Fox’s character, who, in fact, barely has an influence in this film. Her one main function is to act as eye candy for the male audience and to promote intrigue for an unnecessary romantic subplot. Even poor Will Arnett was dragged into this film, playing April’s infatuated cameraman. One would think that a comedian like Arnett would add some levity to the film. One would think wrong. Any sense of humour is lost with the poor writing that is so evident in this film.

Furthermore, while we’re being confronted with these irrelevant characters, we’re missing out on the actual ones with potential. Take Eric Sacks (William Fichtner), for example. In the first half of the film, he is displayed as the antagonist, but as soon as Shredder is introduced, he is pushed aside and almost forgotten for the rest of the film. But you know what could have been interesting? If he turned out to be Shredder. Instead, the writers reveal him to be Shredder’s adopted son (not even biological, adopted). Fichtner is made irrelevant. There could have been one intriguing character in this film, but unfortunately, we are given two vapid ones instead.

The characters are not the only issue. I went to the cinema with the expectation that this film was going to have some sense of variation from the other previous films. As usual, I was wrong. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is no different from its predecessors. Not only does it have the same heroes and villains, but it also has the same plot. (Then again, don’t all generic superhero movies do?) Normally, I wouldn’t find this to be a problem, so long as the movie compensated for it with fun action and other possible elements. However, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles failed to do just that. Perhaps the action would have been more exciting had it not been for the decision to show a majority of it in slow motion. The slow motion effect is as overused in this film as explosions are in a Michael Bay one. It even puts 300 to shame.

This film was disappointing. It offered nothing new than what we’ve seen before in the previous Turtles franchise (but it did provide a nice little elevator scene with the Turtles rapping—perhaps the only highlight of the movie). It was filled with failed attempts at humour, with jokes that only nine-year-olds would laugh at (though, admittedly, I did find some of it hilarious). It could have been better but it wasn’t. Honestly, with Megan Fox in the starring role, I should have known.

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