Michael Bay’s Ninja Turtles Movie Made Me… Smile?
But is the 2014 big screen revival worth your time? Find out below.
I’m not quite as down on Michael Bay as the average internet movie ciritc. Does he make a lot of bad movies? Yes. They’re at least usually fun bad movies. And he’s actually made two films, The Rock and The Island that I quite enjoy. Heck, I think the first of his Transformers films is actually a really good movie. So when I saw that he was rebooting the Ninja Turtles franchise I figured it wouldn’t be good, but it might be worth a look. But I didn’t get around to watching it until now. First some context.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon show from the late 80’s — early 90’s hit me at just the right life stage. That was appointment viewing every Saturday morning. My brother and I, and many of our friends, all had loads of the action figures. And then 1990 came along and gave us a big screen Turtles adventure, and it was different from the show, but we ate it up. That was one of the first movies I owned on VHS. The second one was quite watchable as well. The third one? The less that’s said, the better. So, as with Bay’s Transformers franchise, Ninja Turtles was primed to be exploited by Hollywood again to feed the nostalgia of grown ups my age.
Let’s get this out of the way: The 2014 Ninja Turtles film is not a good movie, but it’s harmless enough. In fairness I couldn’t bring myself to sit through it in one sitting. Actually took three short viewings to get through it. But that’s mostly because of the available time I had. This was by no means a chore to get through.
It’s got some genuinely funny moments. Early on in the film when Raph is threatening to go out on his own, Michelangelo says, “How’re we gonna finish our hip hop Christmas album, bro? You’re the hype man!” That’s probably not funny to read, but it caught me by surprise in the film and I was genuinely laughing out loud. There are a few other moments like this, but that was the funniest to me. The elevator scene (pictured above) is also fun. It also does a pretty good job of tickling the nostalgia bone.
The casting is a mixed bag. Let’s face it, Megan Fox is only in this film because she’s attractive. She doesn’t bring a lot to bear from an acting standpoint. I do like that they gave her a yellow jacket to wear as a throwback to April’s yellow jumpsuit from the cartoon show. The trailers led me to think that William Fitchner was playing Shredder in this film. That’s not the case. He’s Shredder’s made scientist son figure. That doesn’t really work well in the film, but Fitchner always does a good job chewing scenes. Weirdly, Tony Shalhoub provides the voice of Splinter, and I didn’t care for it. Call me nostalgic, but I liked the elderly, wizened, Yoda approach the old movies took. Finally, Shredder is played by Tohoru Masamune. It’s a shame we didn’t get more scenes with him out of the costume, because he’s super menacing on his own. There’s a scene early on when he’s given a report by one of his underlings while practicing his ninja skills that’s actually kind of incredible because Masamune is so good.
The way this film renders the Turtles themselves, I’m not a fan of. First of all, they’re way too big. Secondly, they’re motion capture CGI characters, so they just look really fake. Honestly as cheesy as the costume/puppetry Turtles were in the 1990’s films, they at least looked like real objects because they were. And then there’s Shredder. Hoo boy. He’s basically like a Deceptacon they borrowed from the Transformers series. At no point do you buy that a human being could actually be in that suit manipulating those gigantic knives. Also, in this film Splinter, we’re told, learned to be a ninja, and then impart that skill to the Turtles, by reading a book. Really. Listen, is claymation Splinter learning by watching and mimicking his human master (as in the 1990 film) believable? Eh, no. But I certainly buy that before I buy the way it’s presented here.
Look, is it fair to compare it with the 1990 film? You bet! Is that film a paragon of filmmaking? No, but it is actually a decent film. If you keep your expectations really low, you can make it through the 2014 film. You’ll probably at least chuckle a few times. But did Michael Bay do what Michael Bay usually does? Yep.
