“I wouldn’t expect anything more from its Mr. Bay – of course it’s stupid, boring and utter rubbish!”
SPOILER FREE Directed by Jonathan Liebesman and produced by famous director Michael Bay or as I call him ‘The Grim Reaper of Cinema’ tells this story:
‘When a kingpin threatens New York City, a news reporter (Megan Fox) find a quad of mutants which makes an alliance to unravel Shredder’s plan as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.’
I always try and view a film with the minimalist amount of judgment first, however it’s difficult to do that when you know that Michael Bay has been part of its creative process. I remember seeing the trailer of the film and thinking how hilarious it was in the way that it took itself so seriously. Unfortunately once again, I was right. It’s poor, very poor. I think there are some things that will never work away from their animated beginnings because that was the way it was originally meant to be viewed. The difficulty we have now with films like ‘Transformers’ and now ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ is that it takes itself so seriously! When the film slows down 10 times from its 250FPS rate and when you have lens flare bursting onto the screen showing up like an uninvited Jehovah’s Witness, it makes you think… Hang on… Wasn’t that, that animated kids TV show from the 80’s? What happened? Because I used to enjoy that… When something used to work, don’t try and redo it, because you’re almost guaranteed that it won’t work again; just enjoy what used to be.
I was never a strong fan of the original TV series but I remember watching it as a kid and enjoying what was on-screen and believing that it worked. When you have films that are shot in a rather pretty way with strong colours and all-round visuals; it doesn’t ever take away from the main story. If the story doesn’t work, the film doesn’t work – a film without a story is just a steaming cowpat. All the strong visuals equate to is basically getting the cowpat and rolling it in glitter, forgetting that’s it’s still a cowpat. In regards to the film’s plot, it is very boring from beginning to end. Through fart jokes, innuendo’s and Megan Fox’s bottom, it’s as stupid as it is mundane.
Seeing as though ‘Transformers’ is basically ‘BANG, CRASH, WALLOP, WOMAN’S BACKSIDE’ (REPEAT). ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ is no exception. They toned down the sexual element as the target audience is meant to be for children but we still had a shot where a man’s gawping at Megan’s Fox’s backside and jokes about Victoria Secret where the turtles are on a billboard (guess where they’re hiding)… It all adds up to a script that must have been written by a 13 year-old boy still in a transition between playing with action men and discovering women.
What I found most frustrating was how the filmmakers completely misjudged their target audience. With the average Turtles fan being about 7+ the film was classified 12A (PG-13 in the US)… What?… Although in my opinion I would say that the film is a low 12A classification it is a 12A nonetheless. It’s not so much like Spider-man (2002) when the comic actually had fairly dark themes already; this is made for kids so why is it rated 12A? It’s violent enough to stand in its spot and that issue lies with the filmmakers, not with the BBFC. The filmmakers should have understood their target audience properly and therefore made a film less violent getting a PG classification. It would opened the doors wider for children who are supposed to be the film’s prime age target. Saying that; when I saw the film, I was in the cinema with children who must have been about 4 or 5, so I guess it hasn’t stopped all parents.
The fundamental line is: Megan Fox is certainly not as good an actress as she is attractive. She’s rather bland and dull and there’s no connection between any characters appropriately and as a result, neither do we as an audience. It’s a film with pretty colours and VERY LOUD and as a method trying to distract you from it’s horrendous narrative issues and just doesn’t. It’s made for kids but there are much better films that kids will enjoy more. All in all it’s rather poor, and a film that tries it’s best to be stylish; the result was ‘I’m bored’ and it’s plot is almost non-existant. Michael Bay get out of our old childhood and stop making films out of old animation classics. The film isn’t bad enough to have your fists curling with rage, but it would send you to sleep if it wasn’t so stupidly loud: Teenage Mutant Ninja Bore-fest.
★
Hudson-Cook 