Star Megan Fox doesn’t seem to give a fig whether anyone actually enjoys the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, provided they pay their hard-earned money to see it.
Meanwhile, rapper Vanilla Ice, who so memorably provided the Ninja Rap for 1991’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze, reckons the music isn’t nearly as “magic” this time around.
Now, US critics have weighed in on the Michael Bay-produced reboot, which hits American multiplexes this weekend. And it’s a lukewarm response to put it kindly.
While the film avoids the brickbats this controversial new version of the turtle origins story might have received, there’s a sense that Jonathan Liebesman’s reworking has lost some of the charm of its predecessors — even as it ramps up the presentation of the special effects.
The consensus is that hardcore fans will have their appetite for the heroes in a half shell sated, while the rest of us won’t hate it quite so much as Bay’s Transformers movies. Fox herself, on whose character, April O’Neil, much of the movie is centred, escapes with her dignity largely intact.
“The cast members portraying Splinter and the turtles achieve a persuasive level of realism that was never possible with the elaborate puppetry required for the original film series and adequately fulfil expectations for their characters,” says The Hollywood Reporter’s Justin Pine without much apparent enthusiasm.
“Liebesman relies on his genre-film resume to keep events moving at a brisk clip. However, the drawn-out 101-minute running time and the non-stop cartoonish violence may deter some would-be fans, or perhaps the adults who pay for their movie tickets.”
Variety’s Justin Chang reckons the film is “neither a particularly good movie nor the pop-cultural travesty that some were dreading”.
He writes: “Much slicker-looking but less endearing than its 90s live-action predecessors, the film manifests all the usual attributes of a Bay production — chaotic action, crass side jokes, visual-effects overkill, Megan Fox — but is nowhere near Transformers-level off-putting”.
SlashFilm’s Germain Lussier reckons the film is not a “total disaster” but says it is fiercely disposable. “If the movie was silly and goofy, but entertaining and engaging even on the lowest level, it might be something worth talking about,” he writes. “But this movie is a cinematic flatline that shows rare blips of life only to crash back down again into nothing.”
Hollow experience
Meanwhile, The Wrap’s Alonso Duralde describes a “re-jiggered, CGI-heavy reimagining” with “a few thrills and a few laughs”, but adds: “Even by kid-movie standards, it’s a hollow experience.”
IGN’s Eric Goldman concurs, suggesting “there have been better stories made about these characters, including the 1990 feature film, but there also have been plenty of weaker ones”.
HitFix’s Drew McWeeny, meanwhile, reckons “kids will have a good time”, and is largely impressed. “At its best, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shares something very important with Guardians Of The Galaxy: it is fun,” he muses. “That fun is something that a lot of big summer movies lack these days, and while it doesn’t totally add up as a movie, I think the audiences that are excited to see it will walk away satisfied.”
Industry observers are predicting decent, if not gargantuan, returns for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles despite the movie being up against Guardians of the Galaxy at the US box office. Bay movies seem to have a habit of putting bums on multiplex seats no matter what the critics are saying: Fox has a funny old way of putting these things, but she just might turn out to be right after all.
