Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Review

Starring: Megan Fox, Will Arnett, William Fichtner, Johnny Knoxville, Tony Shalhoub, Whoopi Goldberg

 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is not a serious movie. Anyone can tell that from the ad campaign. But the great part of it not being serious is just that. Nobody ever promised that it would be. This movie is exactly what audiences were promised. The story follows April O'Neil (Fox), a young reporter who discovers four "ninja mutant turtle teenagers" acting as vigilantes against an organized crime ring in NYC. Raised by their sensei Splinter the mutant rat, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Donatello are four turtles highly trained in Ninjutsu who work together to take down "The Foot Clan" led by the evil Shredder. The movie is a superhero action-comedy that somehow works, but only because it follows its own rules and stays true to the material.

If you think about the superhero movies in the past few years, you notice how they follow the source material incredibly well. The Batman comics have a tendency to get very serious, and are adapted as such, with The Dark Knight being the most critically acclaimed comic-book film of all time. Comics featuring the Guardians of the Galaxy and Iron Man tend to have humor, and the movies are adapted using comedy. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, at least the original TV show, was never really serious. It was ridiculous, but that's what made it so popular. The movie is exactly the film adaptation the franchise deserves (and had not yet gotten in my opinion) and is very humorous. A rat mutated and discovered a Ninjutsu book in the sewers, and just decided to become the greatest sensei on the planet and teach his adopted turtle children the craft. This movie states it so matter-of-fact you can't help but laugh. But that is just what the original series was like, and what the franchise has stayed true to. Turtles who eat pizza and kick butt. If that's what you're into, then you'll enjoy this no doubt. Whether you're a fan of the franchise or you're just familiar with it, you have to admit, the Ninja Turtles have stayed about the same for the past 30 years.

Now let's get to the question of whether this is a great movie or not. No, it is not a "great" movie. But is it enjoyable? Incredibly. If you can go in, and shut your brain off for 100 minutes, you will love it. The plot is easy to follow. There are many, many plot holes if you want to analyze them, but looking at the overall method the movie is using to tell the story, you can't really complain. You're the one who went into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and if you do you have to expect to just have a fun time. The best performance comes from Megan Fox. Seeing the overly sexy (as well as sexist) performance she gives in the Transformers movies, I would have never thought I'd one day say she was the standout of a movie, you know, in terms of acting. But in a year that is definitely succeeding with female heroes, like in Frozen, Maleficent, Lucy, and Guardians of the Galaxy, Megan Fox's performance as April O'Neil stands out, and deserves to be ranked among those characters. Will Arnett plays O'Neil's love interest, and he has very good comedic timing. What's great is that he's never really a distraction. They don't even kiss, and it's great to see a female action hero that doesn't have a romantic plot. The turtles are all well acted for their specific role in the movie (Johnny Knoxville voices Leonardo) but none really stand out. They just work together as a team really well. Shredder is very one-sided, and you really never care about his motives. He's just an awesome villain with a mission to take out NYC and the Ninja Turtles. He lacks the characteristics that made audiences love The Joker or Loki, but he's simply playing the role the movie gives him.

The people I would recommend this too, are any fans of the franchise, and any action movie fan. The casual moviegoer would probably enjoy this, but don't expect it to have any of the substance that the year's previous superhero movie Guardians of the Galaxy and certainly not the substance Captain America: The Winter Soldier had. It's a fun movie, and if you open up and let yourself have fun, I do believe you'll enjoy it.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars