I should point out that this 'watching films with other people' malarkey was largely due to the movie in question; coming under the banner of Michael Bay's sidearm Platinum Dunes, it was my friend Adele's voracity for anything Bayhem-tinged that crowbarred me into the cinema, much to my initial chagrin. Why weren't we going to see Gone Girl? Fury, per chance? Hell I'd even take The Maze Runner. But no, Turtles it was. The Transformers-lite teaser trailer had hit all the right buttons for her, and the lady wasn't for turning. Once the film got underway though, it would appear I was for turning.
Jonathan Liebesman's 2014 iteration is by no means a masterpiece, nor is it even great - but as an exercise in ticking the right boxes in the right order for what is essentially a big, goofy kids' film, it's pretty damn faultless. Compare it to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, for instance (which runs with a similar tone on almost double the budget), and it comes off like Renaissance art next to a panicked Etch-a-Sketch drawing. Yes it's silly. Yes it has its flaws. But it's got heart and it's got soul, and for a film that feels the need to awkwardly insert Victoria's Secret product placement into its end credit sequence for no discernible reason, that's high praise indeed.
Jonathan Liebesman's 2014 iteration is by no means a masterpiece, nor is it even great - but as an exercise in ticking the right boxes in the right order for what is essentially a big, goofy kids' film, it's pretty damn faultless. Compare it to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, for instance (which runs with a similar tone on almost double the budget), and it comes off like Renaissance art next to a panicked Etch-a-Sketch drawing. Yes it's silly. Yes it has its flaws. But it's got heart and it's got soul, and for a film that feels the need to awkwardly insert Victoria's Secret product placement into its end credit sequence for no discernible reason, that's high praise indeed.
Despite the basics of the plot being somewhat moot (mutated turtles, a mutated rat, blah blah etc etc), it does throw a few curveballs into the mix by way of having roving reporter April O'Neil (a surprisingly emotive Megan Fox) linked to their gestation/survival, her father being one of the geneticists behind their mutation. Of course he had a partner in kryme (I couldn't resist) with ulterior motives (William Fichtner), who's still pursuing said motives in a quest to ensnare the turtles for their mutated blood. I could go on but I'm boring myself writing this shit. In essence, it's a comic book plot with a kid-friendly bent, ridiculous but perfunctory with enough twists to keep the kids amused and the adults engaged (except for when Shredder says he wants to 'dine on turtle soup' - you'll roll your eyes, but give the film a break; it's for the kids, not for you).
This kid-friendly charm extends beautifully to the turtles themselves, their newly-minted CGI incarnations proving to be characters you can emotionally invest in (that said, avert your eyes during their childhood training sequences - Michaelangelo (Noel Fisher) break-dancing to Hollaback Girl is THE scariest thing you'll see this year). They're akin to Bay's Transformers in that respect; no matter what you may think of the films themselves, it's hard to deny Bumblebee and Megatron have far more charisma than LaBeouf, Fox, Wahlberg et al. It's to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' credit that Will Arnett (as O'Neil's trusty cameraman Vern Fenwick) manages to keep us interested in the human element as well as the CGI wizardry - well, just. None of the actors are stretched by any degree, but a few decent gags and a zingy (if slightly cringey) script keep things afloat, the pace never letting up but never getting too ahead of itself either. In an age where action films are seemingly vying for your attention at every spare moment, it's refreshing to see a film placing a modicum of emphasis on character development as well as the next explodey bit (though you may be surprised how few explosions there are for a Bay-produced film - hand-to-hand combat is the pizza order of the day here, though quite why Shredder had to be exo-skeletoned up to the tits is beyond me).
It should be easy to mock Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as many of the broadsheets already have, but I'm afraid I can't - when you've genuinely enjoyed yourself for an hour and a half, it'd be a betrayal to all involved if I was to scoff in its face, brushing it off as forgettable frippery. Though in some ways it is; this isn't a film trying to reinvent the wheel, in fact it's the umpteenth film to utilise the old "I'll infect the city with a virus because I'm evil and shit" gambit, so much so that we spent a fair chunk of time after the screening thinking how many other recent films have used it as their MacGuffin (X-Men, Batman Begins, The Amazing Spider-Man - do send other answers in on a postcard, please). But its potential forgetability is routinely saved by the chemistry between the four green leads, each of them so solidly defined in their predetermined roles (the leader, the loose cannon, the science geek, the comic relief) that you remember why everyone had their favourite growing up. They're designed to let children see part of themselves in each of them, children both big and little... I know I know, this all sounds suspiciously rose-tinted. Fuck it, it probably is. But Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has, for this critic, breathed fresh life into a franchise that never got the chance it deserved first time around. Leave your cynicism at the door and enjoy the ride - you might not love it, but you'll be hard-pressed to say you weren't entertained. And that's good enough for my money.
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