The only reason I bring that up is that about fifteen minutes into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, the new sequel directed by David Green, the exact same “talking brain space alien” referenced earlier showed up, robot body and all. Instead of risking the chances of getting sued by these movie giants, we can watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows in theaters. Only intrepid television reporter April O’Neill (Megan Fox, showing skin and batting lashes) and her cameraman, Vern (Will Arnett), can tell the turtles apart easily. That being said, the first film was met with poor reviews, but was still a highly rewatchable action movie for the regular person.
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As for producer Michael Bay, whose distinctive bro-tastic aura soured the entire previous film, his honeyed hand is thankfully on display here in only one scene, where Megan Fox‘s intrepid heroine dresses up like a schoolgirl hooker to retrieve vital information.
If these aren’t the Backstreet Boys, then they must be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, those anthropomorphic reptiles and action-fun stars on the half-shell.
“I remember watching that “Secret of the Ooze” movie and seeing these two characters and I know a lot of kids were hugely disappointed”, Farrelly says. A bit closer to that time, there will be more pre-order information on Amazon. To do it, he needs three parts of a dimension door opener. Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo are still living in the shadows, protecting the city and their friend April O’Neill. The wonderful scenes from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) are still a treat to watch, which makes us all even more excited for this movie. Tyler Perry appears as Dr. Baxter Stockman, a scientist and red-herring villain, who quickly gets shunted aside, and Laura Linney, of all people, plays a hard-charging police chief who is similarly extraneous to the story.
One can question who this movie is for – the nostalgic 30-year-olds who loved the cartoon or younger kids. The turtles themselves remain unattractive motion-capture creations with splotchy skin, human teeth and no lips, while their master, a scraggly rat named Splinter (the voice of Tony Shalhoub), isn’t any prettier.
With the Turtles’ origin story out of the way already, director Dave Green goes right into the action with a pretty decent intro sequence that has Leonardo (commander and the leader), Michaelangelo (he is the joy and the laughter), Raphael (he is the toughest fighter), and resident brainiac Donatello free-falling and free-wheeling through the NY sky and sewers to get to a basketball game.
Megan Fox reprises her role as enterprising journalist April O’Neal. “That’s the kind of thing I’d say to her”.
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There’s tension between the siblings, a question of whether it’s better to be different but true to yourself or change to be popular and “normal”, a suggested romance between April and Casey Jones (I mean, let’s face it, they’re both handsome people), a moment when Vern has to face that his popularity is built upon a lie, and more human story, but it’s really a mostly mindless action film about four wise-cracking turtles kicking butt and eating pizza.
