Each turtle is also imbued with just about enough individual characteristics, while very sporadic lines of dialogue - including an amusing mickey-take of Christian Bale's vocal delivery as Batman - raise a mild titter. Along with their strokeable rat leader Splinter, they look wonderful and their movements are dynamic. The writers were probably too preoccupied with finding superlatives to describe those pestilent pizzas.Ĭriticising such a cynical mass-market blockbuster attempt is all too easy, but it's important to recognise its main strength as well - the realisation of the turtles. Could they not equip Arrested Development's genial GOB with just one killer quip? No. There's sadly no chemistry between April and her cameraman colleague Vernon, played by the utterly wasted Will Arnett. Within minutes of the movie starting, she's bouncing up and down on a trampoline with her exposed cleavage looking like an overhead view of the Mitchell brothers from EastEnders going apple bobbing. The character is simply devoid of fun, humility and spark.Īt least Megan Fox's prominent presence fulfils the marketing angle by giving the dads and lads some eye candy. It's not Fox's fault, for she is given little to do apart from look on open-mouthed muttering lines like 'this is crazy', whipping out her gadgets (not a euphemism) to take pictures or cacophonously confronting her boss (an underused Whoopi Goldberg) with her latest investigative findings. Megan Fox's anodyne April is anything but that, a chasm of vacuousness who is more bimbo from another block than girl next door. A relatable hero or heroine whose gasps we can share and whose triumph we can toast. It all culminates in a visually spectacular snowbound chase sequence and rooftop showdown where the outcome of good versus evil feels immaterial, but director Jonathan Liebesman's slick camerawork immerses viewers into the dizzying struggle.įor the movie to be successful, viewers need an audience identification figure. An origins story involving the creation of the turtles with an oozing mutagen by the always watchable William Fichtner's slimy Eric Sacks is thrown in, but creates more plot holes than intrigue. Brainwashing your young, impressionable target audience with such vulgar messaging has echoes of that scene in A Clockwork Orange where Malcolm McDowell's Alex is bombarded with horrifying images in order to influence his behaviour.Īs for the story, it's a bog-standard trundle through Megan Fox's thick journalist April O'Neil's alliance with the vigilante crime fighters, who protect New York from the evil Shredder's Foot Clan. With dialogue like that, these turtles are more whores in a half-shell than heroes. It's quite right to feel violated by this fromage affray. "Pizza with that variety of cheese is a culinary impossibility," states one of the turtles, before the composition of ingredients is methodically listed while a branded box consumes the screen. It should have been renamed TMNT: The Secret of the Snooze.Īt least moments of outrage form some kind of engagement, with the nadir arriving in a scene entirely devoted to plugging a tie-in range of crusted creations from Pizza Hut. There's little to keep one awake during this latest effort to transform those pizza-loving turtles into big screen icons, as this uninspired production is clearly led by marketing imperatives rather than storytelling ones. But that's like saying having the latest U2 album automatically downloaded onto your iTunes without consent is preferable to Bono kicking down your front door, strapping you into a straight jacket and forcing you to listen to his band's latest offering while slapping you around the face with The Edge's beanie hat every time you nod off. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is vastly superior to any of its producer Michael Bay's Transformers movies.
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