As a child of the 1980s, I’ve spent my fair share of time watching ridiculous mutated amphibians fight crime.
As a child of the 1980s, I’ve spent my fair share of time watching ridiculous mutated amphibians fight crime. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
were essentially the single best phase I went through as a kid,
complete with boxes of toys missing arms and heads and birthday parties
and Halloweens devoted to the green foursome. I loved the turtles, and
as a 7 year old did not fully appreciate how incredibly ridiculous the
premise actually was.
Not to take away from how awesome the Ninja Turtles
are either. They were a tongue in cheek slap at the corporate toy
machine, but they were also the biggest cog in that machine after a
while, and I was gladly willing to wait for whatever might pop out
next.
Fast forward 17 years later, and the Ninja Turtles
are staging a comeback. At first in the form of a mediocre cartoon on
Saturday mornings involving the magic, world skipping formulas that
have tried their hardest to emulate what makes anime so popular. And
now in the form of a full length feature film crafted in glorious CGI.
When I first heard about the new Ninja Turtles film I was ecstatic. The
prospect of a brand new film devoted entirely to the turtles, and
without those rubber suits, that was incredible. (Don’t get me wrong,
those rubber suit movies were great).
The film itself was nothing less than what I walked
into the theater expecting. First off let me clarify a few things,
especially in response to the scores of reviews from other critics who
have eviscerated this film on the grounds that it’s “not good”.
It’s not supposed to be good. I may be speaking
through the eyes of a 7 year old boy, still enamored with the
ridiculous premises and paper thin plot holes that riddle any store of
giant talking rats and turtles, but can you really expect a film about
giant ninja turtles to be genuinely good. No. And the problem is that
they’re defining good in the classical sense of the word – that is, the
presence of a substantial plot, emotional rise and fall, decent
dialogue, a lesson. All that sugar coated nonsense that passes for good
these days.
TMNT is a film based on the premise of placing the
tongue firmly in cheek and making fun of what passes for entertainment
these days. And as a friend pointed out to me, regardless of whether
the plot is good or not, it’s more fully realized than the last ten
animated Disney releases.
Basically though, the film is about magic portals
and world transferring, and evil creatures from beyond, the whole of
the action taking place after the events of the original film trilogy
and the defeat of Shredder. The result is a film with a plot that only
serves as a catalyst for the turtles to reunite, fight, reunite again,
and kick some butt. A fairly decent percentage of the film in fact is
about the turtles interacting and fighting, and that’s what the film
should be.
Dialogue is in fact incredibly bad. There’s no
getting around that. After 10 minutes of film, I remembered more
acutely just how awful that original show was written, and how I still
loved it. The writer and director either emulated the original
sensation wonderfully, or have no idea how to write dialog. For my
money, I’m banking on the former.
And what could have passed as a three part TV
episode needed the boost that technology could offer it. This movie
looked beautiful. Mikey skateboarding down a sewer drain never looked
so good, and the details in the turtles faces and expressions has never
been so detailed. The slick, hyper stylized format worked perfectly and
made the climactic battle scenes incredibly engaging, more so than you
would expect from a Ninja Turtles movie.
Ultimately, I was massively pleased with the TMNT
outing. As a long time Ninja Turtle fan, I got exactly what I was
expecting from it, and I imagine new fans under the age of 12 will be
just as enthralled. That’s not to say that a 35 year old who has never
seen the Turtles before walking into the theater would necessarily
enjoy it. It is after all a technically bad movie. What he doesn’t
know, is that it is supposed to be.
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