Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Grading & Discussion

***SPOILERS AHEAD***





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"Neither a particularly good movie nor the pop-cultural travesty that some were dreading." - Variety Review

"Let me tell you something about those people, how much money did Transformers 4 make? Exactly. Those people can complain – they all go to the theatre. They're gonna love it – and if they don't love it, they can fuck off, and that's the end of that." - Megan Fox

Official Website | IMDb Page | Wikipedia Entry
Box Office Mojo Page | Rotten Tomatoes Page | Metacritic Page

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I swear, Michael Bay, if you fucked this up I will personally hunt you down and stink-palm you.

 

You should be directing that threat at Jonathan Liebesman, the film's actual director, not Michael Bay, who was just a producer.

 

Michael Bay was clearly a very involved and active producer as his fingerprints are all over this thing.

 

^ Not everything.

Spoiler: the poster.

 

You really think before that was approved someone would have raised their hand and said, "Um..."

 

If this ends up not being that good, I hope at least Michael Bay won't make endless amount of sequels like he did with Transformers.

 

It's currently sitting at 19% on Rotten Tomatoes. The question isn't if this film will be good or not (it won't), but whether or not it'll make money despite it's crappiness.

 

I think I might have to wait for the video release on this one. I don't know, I'll wait for what people say over the weekend.

The Turtles are one of my favorite franchises, and yet I'm still finding very hard to care.

 

We at least have the current TV show. Even if I won't watch the movie, i'll still have a healthy dose of Turtles.

 

I'm going to see the movie. I'm not expecting it to be great, but I'm at least hoping it's a fun outing at the theater.

 

Yeah. I just started watching last week. I'm about half-way through season one and really liking it. I admit, I've been skeptical about it because I was kind of turned-off by the animation style and didn't care for the idea of teenage April, but once I got into it, I really started enjoying it.

IDK if I like it better than the 2003 series yet. Probably about the same.

 

I decided to watch all three movies for the first time in 20 years.

• They're a lot campier than I remember but I liked the practical effects. Feels very late 80s.
  
  
• The animatronics were very well done.
  
  
• Judith Hoag looks pretty much the same these days. I didn't know that she was only 21 back then. It's a shame that she didn't reprise her role in the second film but she's done pretty well career-wise since then.
  
  
• Casey Jones' mask looked too cartoonish but I guess they didn't want him to look like Jason.
  
  
• When I saw the first movie in theatres, someone in the audience yelled out "Master Splinter!" when April O'Neil saw the rat and the whole audience laughed. I remember this because I was irritated. They were disturbing the start of the big movie. Then part way through the film when April sees Splinter for the first time, she makes reference to the rat at the beginning.
  
  
• I didn't know that the first movie was shot in North Carolina.
  
  
• The Secret of the Ooze is absolutely atrocious. A whole lot worse than I remember. I barely got through it. I had a good laugh at Vanilla Ice though. That part was so stupid it was funny. The two mutants also came off as a missed opportunity to do Rocksteady and Beebop.
  
  
• Turtles III… A convoluted story but it was a pretty good return to the form established with the first movie.

I can't wait to see how this new movie compares. It already looks more sophisticated in comparison.

 

See, I don't get the "more sophisticated" bit. I think these films are a lot less sophisticated.

Many of the reviews comment on the poor pop-culture references. And I totally get that. Just look at the trailer for example:

"He's using his Batman voice again." That obvious and so overdone.

Compare that to something like: "It's kinda like Moonlighting." Or "Wiseman say, 'Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full-price for late pizza.'" Or Donnie and Mike's adjective exchange. Those have a little bite of high-brow behind them.

And any sophistication this movie presents seems to completely miss the conceit.

 

I *think* this current show tries to strike a balance between the 1987 and 2003 shows; that is, some of the goofiness and the sheer number of mutants of 1987 with the more prolonged arcs and generally darker atmosphere of 2003 (no daytime stories in the current show, right?). And I can get with that.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the fourth movie, so much so that I thought it redeemed II and III by a wide margin. Like any Turtle story, it was inherently silly, but it went back to the first movie with a more serious tone, and i quite liked that balance. The grounded character relations seemed better than the big far-fetched cosmic menace.

 

I thought Page Turco made for a better April O'Neil than Judith Hoag, mostly because at least Turco was hot. Turco isn't terrible looking, don't get me wrong, but even as a kid I was like, "She's no Apirl O'Neil." But I was basing that off the cartoon where I think my love of red-heads began.

The first movie I really like, it has it's problems but I think it's darker tone and not diving too much into the camp works. It's also a nice blend between the turtles from the toon and the original comics.

The second movie isn't that bad, it certainly cranked up the cartoon elements more and made it a lighter movie but, really, the biggest "problem" I have with the movie is probably the "Super Shredder" thing. Still, it's not too terrible of a movie.

The third one? Ehhhh.... Not "terrible" but certainly lacking. (So is the guy from ancient Japan walking around with April's panties and bra on while he's in the present? He must have a funny idea of future undergarments. And who knew the turtles had on weird shell-shaped onesies on under their shell?

Even though it's sort of supposed to be, I've never considered the CGI TMNT movie to really be part of the original continuity and more of it's own thing. It wasn't too terrible but I felt lacking in some ways.

 

^ Yeah, I was a bit confused when Cyke said "the fourth movie". I don't remember everything about it but I enjoyed it well enough.

Some of what was in the first movie seemed pretty kid friendly, as it should be I suppose, but not always in a good way or in a way that would work today. It had it's bright spots though. The escape from the city, their time at the farm and the battle with Shredder come to mind. I can easily imagine the humor being less kid friendly in this new one. Will it have some poignant moments? Who knows, maybe that first movie will have this one beat in that department.

 

It's at 33% now. Better than Transformers 4.

 

Best tagline ever.

Sure, it sucks, but it doesn't suck as much as Transformers 4.

 

Yup. That's basically what I get out of it. Even in the episodes I've seen so far, I've seen nods to both series and even the films.

I just finished the episode where Clancy Brown Guy (Chris Bradford ) turned into Rahzar. That was kind of awesome.

I think the original is one of the more underrated comic book films. It was kind of ahead of it's time. It is a little silly, but it was supposed to be.

The second one is okay once you get passed how badly they castrated the franchise. The problem was it caught up in the rest of the ninja fad movies 3 Ninjas, Surf Ninjas, etc. and the action was totally comical.

I can't watch the third one. The animatronics are (barely) one step above the live action series. It's pretty awful and their mouths don't even sync with the dialog half the time.

I really liked TMNT though. And I think SMG would have made for a fantastic April.