Entertainment HomeMovie review : The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
by: Anthony Chatfield
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As a child of the 1980s, I’ve spent my fair share of time watching ridiculous mutated amphibians fight crime. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were essentially the single best phase I went through as a kid, complete with boxes of toys missing arms and heads and birthday parties and Halloweens devoted to the green foursome. I loved the turtles, and as a 7 year old did not fully appreciate how incredibly ridiculous the premise actually was.
Not to take away from how awesome the Ninja Turtles are either. They were a tongue in cheek slap at the corporate toy machine, but they were also the biggest cog in that machine after a while, and I was gladly willing to wait for whatever might pop out next.
Fast forward 17 years later, and the Ninja Turtles are staging a comeback. At first in the form of a mediocre cartoon on Saturday mornings involving the magic, world skipping formulas that have tried their hardest to emulate what makes anime so popular. And now in the form of a full length feature film crafted in glorious CGI. When I first heard about the new Ninja Turtles film I was ecstatic. The prospect of a brand new film devoted entirely to the turtles, and without those rubber suits, that was incredible. (Don’t get me wrong, those rubber suit movies were great).
The film itself was nothing less than what I walked into the theater expecting. First off let me clarify a few things, especially in response to the scores of reviews from other critics who have eviscerated this film on the grounds that it’s “not good”.
It’s not supposed to be good. I may be speaking through the eyes of a 7 year old boy, still enamored with the ridiculous premises and paper thin plot holes that riddle any store of giant talking rats and turtles, but can you really expect a film about giant ninja turtles to be genuinely good. No. And the problem is that they’re defining good in the classical sense of the word – that is, the presence of a substantial plot, emotional rise and fall, decent dialogue, a lesson. All that sugar coated nonsense that passes for good these days.
TMNT is a film based on the premise of placing the tongue firmly in cheek and making fun of what passes for entertainment these days. And as a friend pointed out to me, regardless of whether the plot is good or not, it’s more fully realized than the last ten animated Disney releases.
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Basically though, the film is about magic portals and world transferring, and evil creatures from beyond, the whole of the action taking place after the events of the original film trilogy and the defeat of Shredder. The result is a film with a plot that only serves as a catalyst for the turtles to reunite, fight, reunite again, and kick some butt. A fairly decent percentage of the film in fact is about the turtles interacting and fighting, and that’s what the film should be.
Dialogue is in fact incredibly bad. There’s no getting around that. After 10 minutes of film, I remembered more acutely just how awful that original show was written, and how I still loved it. The writer and director either emulated the original sensation wonderfully, or have no idea how to write dialog. For my money, I’m banking on the former.
And what could have passed as a three part TV episode needed the boost that technology could offer it. This movie looked beautiful. Mikey skateboarding down a sewer drain never looked so good, and the details in the turtles faces and expressions has never been so detailed. The slick, hyper stylized format worked perfectly and made the climactic battle scenes incredibly engaging, more so than you would expect from a Ninja Turtles movie.
Ultimately, I was massively pleased with the TMNT outing. As a long time Ninja Turtle fan, I got exactly what I was expecting from it, and I imagine new fans under the age of 12 will be just as enthralled. That’s not to say that a 35 year old who has never seen the Turtles before walking into the theater would necessarily enjoy it. It is after all a technically bad movie. What he doesn’t know, is that it is supposed to be.
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About The Author
I'm a self avowed unemployed writer, working on semi-constant basis to try and overcome the need to go and work a real job. I've written more than 200 articles and reviews and am constantly scouring the internet for any and all excuses and methods to make myself less dependent on corporate pay days. Visit my website at TheChatfield.com
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