Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)





I feel Megan Fox is over-hated. She did exactly what she was asked to do in the TRANSFORMERS films and she was quite good in JENNIFER'S BODY. I feel it's important to stress how much I'm not at all bothered by Megan Fox. Because I can't emphasize enough how awful she is in this film. Soul-crushingly bad. Bad enough to sink the already-mediocre movie around her.

It's basically a riff on the 1990 TMNT film, but everything is glossier and weightless. Focus on April. Discover the Turtles. Michaelangelo cuts a pizza and a slice lands on Splinter's head. Shredder takes out Splinter. Raphael's mad at Leonardo. Climax in a fight with all four Turtles vs. Shredder on a rooftop. (And as a bonus, 40% of the running time is allotted to Will Arnett trying to fuck Megan Fox.)

The Turtles themselves are okay. Instead of a wannabe surfer, Mikey is basically a suburban white boy wannabe rapper. Raph's a bit 'urban,' Donnie's the tech geek, etc. I'd comment on Leonardo but he gets absolutely nothing to do. Shredder is now a CGI Swiss Army knife with three foot blades jutting out of his wrists; it's such an overly-complicated design that he's not at all threatening.

Blah.

(I'll refrain from going into the fact that Splinter and the baby turtles were April's pets, or that Splinter and Shredder have no past connection whatsoever.)

Starts off weak when focusing on human characters but movie keeps on improving, action sequences in the last 40 minutes are pretty good. B.

crap

As an ex journalist and reporter, April and Will, and the entire journalist aspect is the worst I've ever seen on camera, and so unrealistic. The other half with the turtles and what not is actually fine, problem is the former is given a good amount. The middle is pretty solid, the finale and such is just kind of lame but sufficient. But the turtles themselves which I thought looked ridiculous are fun for the most part. The April (being the savior from the beginning) is bad. It's half really fun, the rest a big mess. I will say that kids will love it though. Does nothing for die hard fans that grew up with it. But is better than part 3 and the animated film by enough.

B

I worked for CBS News, Fox, and NBC. Not a real secret. But Wow it just hurts watching the first scene. A. The fact the cameraman has more control than reporter. B. Not even close to how a news room performs. Dead serious, it just hurts. The writer could have at least done some research. Her riding leaving and riding a bike is just absurd. Camera phones, for the sake of product placement is just the worst thing ever. I'd have been fired long before that.

I'm sure you know that from experience.

thegun was the original april o'neil

I was a live Truck/ SAT truck operator in addition to cameraman and editor for CBS and Fox in affiliates in Maryland. Then a helicopter videographer and reporter solely for CBS, before becoming a member of Team USA for the 2012 Olympics in London as a correspondent for NBC, with additional coverage for PBS and ESPN.

I wasn't the original April, but some of the girls I worked with fresh out of college were equally stupid. But if you did anything except what your producer or new director wanted, you'd be fired before that day even ended. April getting fired is the only realistic thing portrayed from a news perspective.

Also Whoopie?? That's so random, her first significant role in a film in like 12 years. She looks like Annie.

How many of those girls did you have relations with?

None unfortunately. One of the few times I was in a committed relationship for a year+ But right before I left, and had a quick fling with the very hot weather girl. I can honestly say living in Maryland for 3 years was worth it just for that. Outside of that Del, Md, and Va are definite candidates for some of the worse states.

We have each of us gone through a very-hot-weather-girl phase.

TheGun,

Did you use your editing skills on the .gif in your signature?

nah, just google.

I wasn't looking forward to this at all and would have skipped it if I wasn't invited, but I'm actually glad I saw it.

It's definitely not great, but it is mostly entertaining throughout and I somehow liked all the turtles. The trailers, in my opinion, didn't sell them or their appearances very well. The action sequences are fine, and I probably liked them more than anything in Transformers 4 (which I don't remember much about now). Even the score had its moments. Megan Fox is fine, and not "worst-actress" material. I've never understood the hate she's always received. I'd much rather see her star in more films than some others. C+

Fuck critics, fuck everybody, this was a guilty pleasure

I really enjoyed it, a bit more than Guardians actually

I'm down for a sequel


PS: Fox is GOLD, I love that bitch


B+

in your case it was nic cage in the weather man

I thought it was fun and the running time zoomed by. There were two things that were keeping it from receiving a higher grade from me; Megan Fox was just terrible here. She didn't convey any emotions whatsoever and was so monotone throughout the entire movie. I've never really minded her before but she was just completely over her head here. It was embarrassing. The second was the awful CGI. The turtles looked awful, as did Splinter and Shredder. It was fun though, I just wish those two things were fixed. It would have easily been a B from me.

C+

Not bad, not bad at all. It's very silly, predictable, and cliché. But also very entertaining.

ya, I mildly enjoyed it as well. It's not particularly good or anything but it's watchable.

Not the worst movie ever, but still pretty damn bad.

This is fun. It moves along quickly. Has some funny moments. But it was missing something. It tried to do what Transformers 1 did... but didn't.

B/B-?

Best blockbuster of the summer for me. The action scenes are fantastic - the attack in the sewer and the ride down the mountain are almost perfect and the final fight is pretty good too. The turtles and Arnett have some funny moments that still manage to feel organic instead of ironic. Arnett and Mikey's digging of April's bod, Donatella's nerdiness, stuff like the rapping in the elevator worked for me. I liked Raphael's little emotional speech too and the turtles feeling like they may die.

I thought they made some smart choices like spending an abnormal amount of time on April before the turtles appear on screen at all, to establish it's her film. And yes this isn't Megan Fox's best performance, but it's serviceable. Another thing I liked is that even if Shredder was less charismatic and dumber than even Marvel's worst villains, he's still a better villain than them because the film lets him win for a while and prove he's by far a better fighter than them. He goes full Bane v Batman on Splinter, kicks Raphael's ass and it takes a while for the turtles to make a dent on him on the tower. So by physical force he's still sort of established as formidable. It makes me presume even if Thanos is just another boring/evil/booming dude, it could still work out if they made him pulverize The Avengers for about an hour, kill Hawk-Eye, etc. Basically make him Brock Lesnar when first introduced to the WWE

Can't believe how much I liked this film. Great blend of action and comedy and some emotional resonance.

It's entertaining at times and I like some of the bits of dialogue/interactions between the turtles, but everything about this movie is so lazy/poorly executed. The foot clan are reduced to generic mercenaries who get their ass kicked most of the time. Shredder is basically a Transformer's reject and looks fucking ridiculous when he fights the turtles who also look equally ridiculous. Also, wtf was up with that random Japanese guy who has like 3 lines ? Outside of them obviously wanting Shredder to be Japanese he had no other reason to be in the movie.

I usually don't mind Megan Fox either, but she was struggling so badly here that it's almost embarrassing. I didn't find the stuff between her and Arnett funny and her connection to the turtles is such contrived bullshit.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Cheesy, CGI-heavy, kinetic entertainment with a side dish of humour. While there were murmurings of nostalgia, it wasn't enough to hide the brashness of this latest Ninja Turtles cinematic attempt. As loud and tacky as a G.I. Joe movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has a bash at revising and modernizing our reptilian crime-fighters, but it ultimately fails due to a badly filmed and generic plot, not to mention unbelievably bad acting from Megan Botox. Arnett does a good job at neutralizing that smell, though. But the film doesn't hold up for a second. It's constantly on auto-drive and that didn't allow for any character building moments. Sure, they stuffed all the things we knew about the turtles into this movie, but they were spliced and shoved in without any care or attention. It was a mess.

Shredder was fine. His over-the-top appearance and abilities matched the ridiculousness of our green friends, but his foot soldiers were pretty crap and I much prefer their appearance from the 1990s movies. The turtles themselves were pretty cool, I suppose. They totally adopted the character of the animated series, which was nice to see, but my God, isn't Splinter one ugly cunt! It could have done with being less jokey and more serious, with better pacing and an actual soundtrack we could hear over the noise.

But it was fun, and I'll give it a pass because of that and because I did smile a few times, but this really is just a kids movie without any substance, and I've long grown out of those.

C+