As soon as this film was announced, it already had a bad reputation with anyone who hadn’t been living in a cave since 2007. Even I wasn’t expecting anything good, or acceptable for that matter. However, it was acceptable. It wasn’t brilliant, it wasn’t really good, it was acceptable.
The story was basic, criminally basic. Villain is evil, good guys are good. Villain does some plotting. Villain has evil plan. Good guys thwart it. Cliffhanger to make film open to sequel or, possibly, franchise. The characters again are simple, with no room to develop due to the fact the film was little over an hour and a half. They are entertaining though, especially the turtles, and the short run time makes the film an easy watch, unlike Transformers: Age of Extinction, a terribly boring film running to the three hour threshold. The fact that Michael Bay produced it is irrelevant because it doesn’t have the overuse of explosions and the comedy isn’t cringy or sickening, in some places it’s even clever.
Will Arnett wasn’t needed, though. In the film, he plays a glorified chauffuer who tries, I mean really tries, to bring comic relief, but when your co-starring with Whoopi frickin’ Goldberg, it’s difficult, even more so when the jokes that are written for you get as much laughs as The Diary of Anne Frank. As mentioned before, Whoopi frickin’ Goldberg is in this film, albeit not much. She brings her pioneering sassy black lady comedy to the film, giving it a much needed edge.
That’s where I recognised them from!
As shown above, the CGI is as ugly as you thought. In attempt to make the turtles seem gritty and cool, the visual effects department ended up making a hideous monstrosity that no one would want to follow into a sewer, not even creepy Uncle Gerald. A redeeming quality, however, is that it isn’t overused, not in an obvious way though, which distinguishes from other Bay led projects.
19 counts of product placement, 19! Michael Bay uses product placement so commonly that it has almost become a director trademark, like Tim Burton and black and white stripes, or Wes Anderson and “quirky” characters (what’s he like?). There is even a scene that becomes a Pizza Hut advert, no lie! As Master Splinter describes how delicious the Five Cheese Pizza is while interrogating Michaelangelo, a scene that made me drool and be sick in my own mouth due to the nature of the scene itself. Terrible, simply terrible.
The film has one top class factor to it, though. The action is thick, fast and non-stop. Actually, I think that when the film hits the halfway mark, the entirety of New York City was blanketed in teeth, dislodged by a reptilian foot. Although the four main characters were non-exsistent during filming, each punch, kick, slice, dice and “oooooh that’s not nice!” looks like it hurts. I know it’s supposed to, but it really does. It’s almost as if you can feel the fist flying into your jaw, breaking it in five places. The action feels like something from a comic or graphic novel, perfectly catching the essence of the characters.
63/100
The action is good, but that’s about it.
Lots of hugs, kisses and lacerations
Uncle Milo
Stuff and That. 