Booyakasha, dudes! Uncanny Fox here, finally finishing my review of all of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies with the second half of 2016’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows. Last time, the Turtles struggled with their need to remain hidden in the sewer, having devised a plan with Vern Fenwick to take credit for saving the city in the previous movie under the guise of “The Falcon” (no connection to the Marvel guy). Meanwhile, April investigated the dealings of corrupt scientist Baxter Stockman, who arranged an escape plan for the evil Shredder. In turn, Shredder made contact with an evil alien named Krang, who offered him a chance to take over Earth in exchange for gathering the pieces of his teleportation portal. To this end, Shredder recruited a pair of dimwitted criminals named Beebop and Rocksteady, who Stockman mutated into a warthog and a rhino. Something about them having animal DNA inside them or something. And as this is going on, the Turtles enlist the help of a police officer who just so happens to have the same name as their traditional human ally, Casey Jones, to stop this evil plot despite growing tensions on the team regarding Krang’s purple ooze and its ability to turn them human.
With that in mind, we now return to the second half of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows, where giant mutant rhinos plow tanks through the Brazilian rainforest, celebrity breath is a valued commodity, and alien warships come to Earth one piece at a time.
We pick back up with Vern entering Police Headquarters, catching the attention of the guards, who want a selfie with the famous “Falcon.” He plants a hacking device on the guard’s computer while he’s chatting, as Casey and April slip in behind him. Meanwhile, Raph and Mikey sneak in through the elevator shaft and ride the elevator to just above the first floor. Mikey then uses the hacking device to register Casey and April in the police database, giving them a clear pass into building, then steals them an ID Card so they can slip into the Evidence Room. All to the tune of Elvis’s “Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action.” And it seems this plan is going swimmingly…
…Until a pair of Foot Ninja enter the hallway with the ooze in hand as Casey and April swipe the card. They see our two heroes and try to flee, so Casey and April take off after them, with April hitting the fire alarm to serve as a distraction for the cops.
Mikey sees this happen and calls Donnie and Leo for back-up, being forced to fess up about what they’ve been doing. He and Raph then scurry along the vents in order to get to their human friends, who are chasing the Foot across the station. The evil ninjas start attacking the cops, which leads Raph to want to help. Mikey reminds him that they can’t be seen, but Raph counters that their only chance at being normal is slipping away.
Mikey relents, and the brothers break out through the nearby vent and head off toward the Foot, who have finished taking out the guards in their way and are nearing the exit. But Leo and Donnie break through the front window and knock them down, allowing Raph to grab the ooze canister.
Unfortunately, the police arrive and perform the usual “Don’t move or we’ll shoot” routine on the Turtles. Joke’s on them, given that the Turtles are bulletproof. Then again, they wouldn’t want anyone getting caught in the ricochet. Mikey tries to explain that they’re the good guys, but the cops aren’t hearing it. They angrily call the Turtles “monsters,” which visibly hurts Mikey, as the youngest and most innocent member of the team is exposed to humanity at its ugliest for the first time in his life. It’s a sad scene for sure, especially given recent events as far back as the time this movie first came out…
Casey and April throw themselves in front of the boys, giving them a chance to get away. However, this means that they are now being arrested, and the chief recognizes Casey from before.
Back at the lair, Splinter worries that the cops will be hunting the Turtles, now that news of their sighting is all over the radio. Leo’s ticked at Raph for going up and getting them exposed in order to get the ooze, but Raph counters that the Foot would’ve taken the ooze. To which Leo counters that there was no way he could’ve known that, and now April is in trouble because of his actions.
Mikey’s still shaken by how the cops looked at them, and Splinter comforts him by explaining that people fear what they don’t understand. He then turns his attention to Leo, who goes off about how he was right not to trust Raph with the truth about the ooze. He tells Splinter that he can’t get them all to think with one mind, but Splinter counters that he shouldn’t, saying that it’s their different points of view make the team stronger. Okay, so the movie does do something about Leo being overconfident. I retract that point from last week.
Donnie breaks up the teaching moment by telling everyone that he’s tracked Beebop and Rocksteady over Brazil. Mikey thinks they’ve achieved the power of flight, but Donnie says they’re on a plane. Leo devises a plan to sneak on a cargo jet after them.
At Police HQ, April and Casey plead their case to the police chief, but she’s not hearing any of it. Especially the part where Stockman mutated Beebop and Rocksteady, because Stockman sent her some video footage from his TCRI lab the night April snuck in, and it shows her stealing the ooze with not a mutant in sight. April argues that the tape has been edited (or maybe it’s just a rough cut from before the CGI was added), but the cops apparently checked its authenticity. Dejected, she asks for her one phone call, and Casey tells the chief that the Turtles aren’t the ones she should be chasing.
No, that would be Beebop and Rocksteady, who are currently tearing through the Brazilian rainforest in a tank and singing along to Edwin Star’s “War.” An awesome song for sure, but I can’t help but notice how movies and shows like to play it unironically during war scenes, given that it’s very much anti-war. Not to mention that we have a warthog and a rhino tearing through the Brazilian rainforest in a panzer, because this franchise is mad cray.
Needless to say, the mutants soon find the last piece of the portal, which Rocksteady blows from its stone container with the tank’s cannon. They contact Shredder with the good news of their find, which leaves Stockman overjoyed that he’s so close to discovering a new dimension. Shredder’s not as giddy, but he’s no doubt pleased with the way things are going.
The Turtles arrive in the air above Brazil in a cargo plane, stowing away in the back and sweating over how stuffy it is. Donnie informs everyone that Beebop and Rocksteady are heading back to New York, with the portal piece in hand. Luckily, they are right over top of them, but they’ll have to jump from the plane to catch them in time.
Raph’s not entirely on board with this, as he’s apparently scared of heights. So that’s now heights and cockroaches. Donnie spots the Foot’s plane and tells everyone that they have 30 seconds to jump. He does so, and the others follow, leaving Raph frozen up for a bit.
In the air, Donnie grabs a hold of the Foot plane with his grappling hook and pulls himself onto the roof. Leo drifts off target briefly, but Mikey grabs on to him while riding his jetboard. They land on the plane with a thud, and Donnie helps pull them to their feet. Soon, everyone is secured down and ready to roll…
Except for Raph, who’s still on the plane, trying to psyche himself up to jump. He finally works up the nerve by asking what Vin Diesel would do and chanting “No regret… no fear” a few times before taking a running leap into the abyss. He plummets toward the Foot plane while yelling that he regrets this and fear sucks. He pulls his ripcord and deploys his parachute, smacking into the pilots’ windshield (much to their Dull Surprise) before blowing onto the wing and being caught by Leo.
They head inside the plane, where they are greeted by a squad of Foot Ninja. Good thing they’re wearing chutes, because they’re soon thrown from the plane, leaving the Turtles to find the portal piece. Unfortunately, Beebop and Rocksteady are not too far behind, and the boys are soon overpowered by the evil mutants.
Donnie tries to make off with the device, but Rocksteady fires up his tank’s mounted gun and tears the plane’s hall asunder, forcing the pilots to eject. A funny part comes when he apologizes for this, saying he got “a bit carried away.” Seriously, it sounds like he just put too much icing on a cake rather than ripping the plane everyone’s currently on apart and rendering it unsuited for flight.
Indeed, the plane is now wrecked and without a pilot, not to mention falling to Earth. Everyone is left tumbling in the cargo hold, with the portal piece changing hands multiple times before Beebop grabs it. Donnie hurries to the cockpit to try and level the plane, as the others battle Beebop and Rocksteady for possession of the portal piece. At least until the controls break off.
Ever the resourceful one, he plunges his staff into the broken control stick and tries to steer that way, just narrowly avoiding a crash landing. In the back, Rocksteady’s tank rolls down to the rear of the plane, crashing through and sending him, Beebop and the Turtles flying out. Raph and Leo hang on for dear life while the plane falls back in a nosedive, until Raph falls into a river and the plane follows soon after. Leo, Mikey and Donnie are washed out, and Ralph swims over to the shore, where he bumps into an actual giant turtle who looks at him as if to say “and just what the heck are you?”
Leo spots the device floating nearby. Unfortunately, Beebop arrives on a piece of wreckage, jumping off to go swimming towards it. Leo follows him, and the two race after the piece as it floats down the rapids. The others join in, and a game of “grab the box” ensues until Rocksteady washes up in his tank and fires off a shot, giving Beebop the opening he needs to grab the piece and join his partner. The two then wave goodbye to the Turtles as they float towards a waterfall. The boys survive the drop by going into their shells, but the fact remains that the Foot now have all three pieces to the portal.
Back at the station, the chief still refuses to give April her phone call until she agrees to tell her where the Turtles came from. In the meantime, she leaves the two alone and Casey exposits about how he’s been called a loser his whole life and that he’s always had one goal: to save his city. But to do that, he had to become someone else. He had to become something else. He had to become… a police detective. He tells April that he’d rather put criminals away than just keep them in cages, but when working in Corrections, you learn two good things: justice comes in all shapes and sizes, and it’s way easier to pick a cop’s pocket than you think. Yes, he stole the chief’s phone off her as she was leaving, giving April her one phone call after all.
She calls Vern, who’s in the middle of blowing air into bags to sell to his fans. Because celebrities. April explains that she and Casey are in police custody, and that she needs his help again: she wants him to break into TCRI to obtain the raw footage from the night Stockman mutated Beebop and Rocksteady, in order to prove that he’s really working for the Shredder. Vern refuses at first, but ultimately agrees to do this after April gives him a pep talk about being the hero the city already thinks he is. Hey, it worked for Scott Lang…
And so he heads to TCRI, using his key to the city and his star power to get into the Security Room. He looks around the room, finding the hidden camera April mentioned behind a clock and pulling the wire out of the wall in order to find the storage drive it was recording to after a lengthy comedic scene where he stands on a wobblily office chair. And he doesn’t draw a single eye to him during this. But it turns out it was in a panel under the clock the whole time. Basically, this scene had no point.
The Turtles board another cargo plane back home, arguing all the while about whose fault it is for their latest defeat. After several accusations regarding each Turtle’s flaws (Leo’s obsessed with strategy, Raph relies too much on instinct, Donnie’s too caught up in logic, and Mikey’s all heart, but no brains), Leo ends the discussion by saying that they may be brothers, but they aren’t a team. Don’t worry, this is all patched up in the next scene with no burnoff. Because we gotta rush that plot along.
At Foot HQ, Stockman finishes putting the pieces of the portal together, causing the machine to whirl to life with purple lightning. He explains to the Shredder that once it’s fully operational, the Technodrome will be able to come into our dimension piece by piece, before waxing about how he’s going to go down in history with Gallio, Sir Isaac Newton (the deadliest S.O.B. in space) and Steve Jobs for his discovery. He’s probably imagining a biopic directed by and starring Tyler Perry. That would be some trippy Meta right there.
The portal soon shoots into the sky above the city, swirling ominously like so many alien-producing sky beams before it. And they didn’t even need to catch any monsters this time.
At the police station, Vern arrives to present the chief with the unedited footage from Stockman’s lab. It’s enough to convince her that April and Casey are innocent, and she orders their release. She begrudgingly thanks “The Falcon,” then Casey gives back her phone.
But as she orders an APB on Stockman, something outside catches her eye. Namely, the portal, which is now nearing critical mass. Everyone else notices as well, as the thing is blotting out the sun at this point. Soon, it stabilizes, and out come pieces of the Technodrome, flying across the sky and fitting themselves together like a giant Lego set of alien metal.
The Turtles notice the ground shaking, and Donnie checks his monitors to confirm his worst fear: Shredder’s got the portal up and running. He hacks into the ship’s data core (I guess he can do that) and discovers its name, as well as the identity of Krang (I guess his computer can translate alien languages into English). Mikey says he doesn’t know that guy, but he hates that guy. I don’t know about that, Mike. He seems to be one of the better parts of this movie…
Donnie goes on to explain that Krang completing his ship would mean the end of all life on Earth, and there’s something else: the atmosphere surrounding the Technodrome is toxic to anyone with a standard cardiovascular system… which the Turtles don’t have. Meaning they’re the only ones who can get close enough to the ship to shut it down. But wait, if humans can’t live in the Technodrome, then how was Shredder able to meet up with Krang in the beginning? We see his solution to this later on, but he didn’t have any equipment when he busted out of prison…
But the Turtles won’t be able to get close with the cops hunting them down like monsters. Donnie has a solution for that too: the Purple ooze. If they use it, they will become human, allowing them to approach the police without worry. But wouldn’t that make them vulnerable to the Technodrome’s atmosphere? The one that’s toxic to humans? Not to mention the loss in strength, speed and bulletproof shells. I mean, the Turtles becoming human is an interesting concept that this film doesn’t follow up on, but right before the climax isn’t the best time to be considering a life-altering decision like this.
Still, he puts the decision in Leo’s hands, and Splinter walks in to tell them that they are becoming young men who have to make the choice for themselves. Leo tells everyone that he’ll go along with whatever they say, apparently having learned his lesson about listening to his team in record time. I mean, one scene he’s all “my way or the highway,” the next he’s saying it’s their call. Still, it’s better than George Clooney just… not learning that lesson, I suppose. In any case, Raph take the canister… and throws it against the wall.
Meanwhile, the police have set up a barricade in an alley in preparations for the Turtles. The brothers crawl of the nearby manholes and slowly approach the chief, who asks what they are. Leo explains that some people call them freaks or monsters, and Raph adds that they’re four brothers from New York who hate bullies and love their city. And as Donnie points out, the last hope New York has. The chief asks why she should believe them and they point to Vern, who finally fesses up about how it was really the Turtles who beat Shredder last time.
But the moment is interrupted by the pieces of the Technodrome flying by above their heads. With that in mind, the Turtles vow to take down Krang, but to do that they’ll need Leo’s strategy, Raph’s instinct, Donnie’s logic, and Mikey’s boatloads of heart. With that, everyone springs into action, the Turtles heading off to fight Krang from the Chrysler Building and everyone else going to Pier 90, where the portal is coming from.
At the Pier, Shredder dons his helmet for the only time in this movie (seriously, it’s like this film has a thing against masks) as Stockman explains that he installed a breathing apparatus for him to survive in the Technodrome’s atmosphere. At this point, Shredder decides that Baxter’s outlived his usefulness, and orders his men to take the not-so-good doctor to their facility in Tokyo (probably to be experimented on, but since this movie’s never getting a sequel, I’ll just assume they killed him) as he’s dragging kicking and screaming “No” repeatedly. Shredder tells him that the world will never know him, before pushing the button on the portal remote Stockman made to warp up to the Technodrome and greet Krang in person.
Meanwhile, the Turtles are riding a police bus to the Chrysler Building as Leo tells the police chief to clear out once the boys get to the top of the tower. Donnie explains that they need to shut down the beacon that’s drawing the pieces of the Techodrome together while the humans take care of the portal. Once that happens, both Krang and the Techodrome are finished.
Outside, the police escort splits up, with Vern nervously asking why his group’s not going with the Turtles, given how they’re the ones you want to stick with when something’s going down. You’d think someone would have explained the plan to him.
Up on the Death Sta- I mean, Technodrome, Shredder arrives just as Krang’s putting his robot’s head on straight to inform him that everything is going to plan. At this point, Krang decides that Shredder’s outlived his usefulness (sucks when that happens to you, doesn’t it?), mocking his assertions that they were a “team” and telling him that he never planned to share Earth with him, in fact Krang never even thought about him at all following their first meeting. Outraged, Shredder tries to attack Krang, but the alien responds by freezing him and putting him in “the toy chest” with the other things he’s “broken,” thus removing him from both the rest of the movie and, by extension, the series. Yeah, Shredder, the main villain of the franchise, gets killed off by another villain before he can actually fight. I also want to point out that at no point in this movie does Shredder even talk to any of the Turtles, much less battle them. Just… no.
That bit of anti-climax aside, with Shredder out of the way Krang declares that it’s “playtime,” turning to his conquest of Earth.
The Turtles arrive at the Chrysler Building, sneaking in with the cops providing cover. Once inside, they hurry towards the elevator. They soon reach the top of the tower, as the Technodrome is about 57% built. They jump from a gargoyle, hitching a ride on one of the pieces as it floats into place. On a lighter note, Raph’s gotten over his fear of heights.
Meanwhile, April and company race toward the Pier, with pieces of the Technodrome falling down around them and Casey swerving like a madman to avoid them as he gets to the Foot’s hideout. Inside, Karai spots them approaching on the monitors and activates the blocking pillars at the front door. This stops the police cars, and Casey and crew barely survive the nasty flip they’re sent on. Nonetheless, they make it inside, though that car’s not going to be entering any Fast And The Furious competitions any time soon.
Casey, April and Vern pull themselves from their wrecked car and head off toward the portal room, noting the weird noise they’re hearing. That noise is Beebop and Rocksteady patrolling the area on motorcycles, prompting the humans to take cover near some boxes as they try to form a plan for how to deal with them. Casey tells April and Vern to secure the portal device while he takes care of the bad guys, confusing them with his tactical jargon. I mean, I understand what “secure” means. Vern objects to this, but Casey asks if he wants to switch. That shuts him up, and Casey runs off to give them an opening.
He calls out to Beebop and Rocksteady, who recognize him as the cop they took out back on the truck. They chase him down on their bikes, all too eager to start Round 2, as April and Vern take off toward the portal.
Up in the sky, Donnie tells the others that the beacon is located on Krang’s control module, and Leo spots the alien warlord and his mech suit at the center. The suit itself looks alright, it’s pretty faithful to the cartoon, so no complaints from me there. Anyway, that’s where they need to go, and they soon jump on said central piece and make their way to Krang.
Raph thinks the mech’s just a “dumb robot,” but Krang soon pops out to give Mikey a scare and order the Turtles to get off his ship. Leo tells Donnie to get to the console while he and the others deal with Krang, and the Turtles spring into action…
…Only to be swatted like flies by Krang and his robot. If this sounds familiar, it’s basically the same set-up as the climax from the first movie: the Turtles are somewhere very high up, battling a giant enemy in some sort of power armor as Donnie hacks the guy’s weapon. Only difference is that the Turtles don’t get knocked off the ledge nearly as much this time. So that’s a plus, I guess…
Back in the warehouse, April and Vern are doing some hiding of their own, sneaking over the storage containers in the warehouse. Vern makes a distraction by tackling the guarding Foot Ninja, knocking him out and clearing the way for him and April to move on out to the portal room. Lego Batman strikes again!
Up in the Technodrome, the others give Donnie an opening to the ship’s controls. He scrambles to shut it down with only 90 seconds to go before it’s done building itself and ready to conquer Earth. All the while, his brothers are getting their shells handed to them by Krang, who starts bragging about how he would like to keep a “cage full of tortoises” as pets. Raph replies that they’re turtles, not tortoises, and stabs at the robo-suit’s neck. Leo then slices off the bot’s hand, adding that “turtles bite,” a cool one-liner, I’ll admit. Unfortunately, Krang has spare hands. With weapons.
This fight would be pretty epic, except for the fact that this is literally the first time Krang and the Turtles meet face-to-face, thus robbing it of any emotional stakes it might have had if the Turtles were familiar with their new enemy beforehand. Because as it stands now, it just feels like a JRPG were the heroes defeat what looks like the main villain, only for some random world-devouring monster to show up to be the final boss. Except the heroes don’t even fight the first guy here.
Casey leads Beebop and Rocksteady to a far-off end of the parking lot, where he takes cover behind some cars. This doesn’t pan out for long, as Beebop soon finds him and starts pushing and flipping said cars at him. Casey barely slides away, only to be motorcycle kicked into a van by Rocksteady. Banged up from the impact, he looks over at some trolley wheels and gets an idea. He grabs the wheels and some duct tape, making himself a pair of makeshift roller skates like he’s Chuck Greene. Come to mention it, Stephen Amell does kind of look like Chuck. Maybe if they ever make a Dead Rising 2 movie…
In the sky, the Turtles try to dog-pile Krang, only for the alien to throw them off in a spinning motion. Leo nearly falls off the ledge, but flips himself to his feet without much difficulty. Learning from that Shredder-Tron fight, aren’t we? Meanwhile, Donnie scrambles to finish shutting the machine down, with only 10 seconds to go.
Casey rollerblades away from Rocksteady, only to come face-to-face with Beebop. The warthog calls him “a real pain in his butt” and shows him what he does to pains in his butt: pummel them, I guess. Casey rolls past his blows and grabs a piece of girder to use as a makeshift hockey stick, then takes off rolling toward someplace specific with the two baddies in tow. Which would have been a much cooler shot if he had his mask on. For real, you have him rollerblading with a makeshift hockey stick in his hands, and you don’t have him with the mask? That would have been perfect!
April and Vern arrive at the portal room, where Karai is standing guard. They try to sneak up behind her, but she spots them almost instantly and draws her sword to do battle. Naturally, things don’t go well for them at first, and Karai maintains the upper hand all throughout the fight until… April knocks her out with a laptop to the face.
Hold the phone and everyone out of the pool, you’re telling me that Karai, right hand woman to Shredder himself and a warrior on par with the Turtles, just gets knocked out with a shot from behind. By April no less, who isn’t like the 2012 version where she trained with Splinter as a Kunoichi and had psychic powers from being a Kraang/Human hybrid. Here, she’s just a reporter who’s objectively the least-qualified person to engage in hand-to-hand combat. And she just takes out Shredder’s lieutenant with a freaking laptop! *Sigh* And people give Rey crap…
Leo tells Donnie that they’re running out of time, just as Krang declares that they already have. As if on cue, a giant… eyeball(?) pops up from the top of the Technodrome and charges up an energy blast. It seriously looks like the Gameboy Camera, only as a death ray. I know it was like that in the cartoon, but it’s still kind of weird. Luckily, Donnie’s found the beacon, but it’s up on the roof. Where nobody can reach it except for Mikey on his rocket board, so taking it out is his job.
Everyone else is stuck dealing with Krang, who attaches an energy cannon onto his robot’s chest and starts taking potshots at them. Mikey dodges the shots and grids up the frame of the Drome to where the beacon is, grabbing it in slow-mo.
Back on the ground. Casey lures Beebop and Rocksteady to the end of the lot, dodging past as the latter plows through cars in yet another slow-mo shot. He soon reaches his goal: an open trailer that he maneuvers the two giant mutants into. Not done yet, he grabs one of Beebop’s grenades and knocks it in with them, closing the door just as it goes “boom.” Wait, so he was trying to kill them? What happened to bring them to justice? Except he doesn’t really kill them, because we hear them go “my man” from inside the trailer. But the intent was still there, so… I really don’t know. What was the point of that grenade, anyway?
Mikey tries to get the beacon to Donnie, but he gets knocked away by Krang and drops it. He catches it, but Krang pulls him close and tries to bear hug him to death. Leo and Raph make the save by climbing on a piece of Technodrome and jumping on Krang, tearing the mech’s head off so that Donnie can deliver the coup-de-grace via an electric staff stab right in the neck hole. Krang goes down, but his ship is still building, and the eyeball takes aim at the city…
Mikey finally tosses the beacon to Donnie, who hooks it up to his remote-control drone. He sends Donnie’s drone flies up out of the Technodrome, just as the last few pieces fall into place.
Casey joins up with April and Vern as Donnie calls them up to close the portal. Casey complies, knocking the machine out with his stick. Back outside, the drone narrowly makes it out of the Technodrome and takes off flying toward the portal with all the pieces following it, now being sent back from where they came. The Turtles celebrate saving the world again, then hop on to one of the pieces and jump off once they reach the Chrysler Building.
On the dismantling Technodrome, Krang vows revenge in standard villain fashion as the last of the pieces is sent through the portal, causing it to close in a flash of light that knocks the Turtles back a ways. Nonetheless, they won, and Leo tells his brothers that they have one thing no one else has: Turtle Power. Or a garbage truck, as Raph points out. I mean, not that many heroes drive around in garbage trucks. Although the bulletproof shells are another thing that nobody else has, heck that probably fits more…
After the dust settles, April reports that Beebop and Rocksteady are now in police custody (I’d like to see the cell those guys went in) while Stockman remains at large, and that the city can rest assured that it’s safe one more. She asks what the threat from the sky was and how it was averted, but wonders if it even matters. If it’s enough to know that they’re watching the people from the shadows.
Later that night, the police chief presents the Turtles with keys to the city and offer them a chance to live normal lives out in the open, like they’ve always wanted. But, the boys decide to pass, wanting to stick with the arrangement they’ve already had, and tell her that April knows where to find them if they’re ever needed again. Speaking of April, she asks Casey if he’s got plans for that weekend, because I guess they’re hooking up now, and the movie ends with the Turtles standing atop the Statue of Liberty’s torch triumphantly. End credits to a punk-rock rendition of the 87 theme song by Thousand Foot Krutch. I dig it.
So, now that we’ve finished talking about the story, on to Pros and Cons:
Pros:
- Beebop and Rocksteady. These guys are the standouts of the movie: well-acted, well-animated and always bringing a few chuckles with their blatant stupidity. They really do feel like they were pulled straight from the cartoon.
- The plot brings up some intriguing points about the Turtles being outsiders to human society and how it views them, although it doesn’t really amount to much in the end.
- The end-credits song. It’s just a blast to listen to, and I love how they worked in the chorus of Ninja Rap.
Cons:
- Like I said before, the point about the Turtles wanting to be normal doesn’t really go anywhere meaningful.
- I’m sorry Stephen Amell, I like you on Arrow, but you weren’t Casey Jones here. You were Oliver Queen as a cop with a hockey gimmick. That you only really follow through on once. A misfire all around.
- Shredder and Karai going out like jabronis in the end.
This is another mixed bag for me. I like that they brought in more classic characters and the idea of the Turtles wanting to live as normal humans, but there are too many plot points being thrown around for the movie’s own good. The greatest casualty of all being the Purple Ooze story-line: It comes in and causes all sorts of problems for the Turtles, like the friction between Raph and Leo, then gets completely dropped later on in the second half, then comes back near the end to be resolved without giving us a reason why the Turtles would reject their chance at fitting in. What would have been better would be to have Mikey actually take the Ooze, turn human, then leave the group to live up on the surface, only to realize how much happier he was with his brothers and change back in the end. Also, was there any reason you couldn’t have Shredder fight the Turtles on the Technodrome before they got to Krang? As a sort of warm-up boss? Because as it stands now Krang popping up in the end felt like a complete butt-pull, even though we did have a set-up. And the less spoken about Karai, the better.
Because of these factors, the film failed at the Box Office in what was already a divisive year for summer movies, pretty much spelling the end for the Bay Turtles universe. But there are plans for a TMNT reboot, so we haven’t seen the last of our favorite Heroes-In-A-Half-Shell on the big screen. In the meantime, we always have the cartoons and comics to hold us over until the day the boys in green rise out of the sewer to fight evil once more. Just don’t make them look like Shrek next time, okay?
And so ends our look at the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. Next week October begins, and with it the Halloween season. And I’m going to celebrate it with a clash between two of the deadliest monsters to come from outer space. That’s right, I’ll be reviewing the movies featuring the Alien and the Predator, fighting to the death in the two-film franchise titled, well, Alien Vs. Predator. ‘Till then, I’ve been The Uncanny Fox. Live long, stay gold, and remember: I don’t care whose breath it is, I’m not spending a week’s paycheck on a bag of freaking air. Okay, maybe if it’s Mark Hamill’s…
The Uncanny Fox 