Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenagers, even non-ninjas and non-turtles, have been eating up this cinematic waste product for weeks now. In one way, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a triumph for producer Michael Bay in that it is equally as godawful as his Transformers: Age of Extinction and a hit nonetheless. Pardon my cynicism. But it’s hard to stomach the Bay contempt for youth audiences that says: You kids will lap up any crap I market with a big enough budget, even this worthless, brainless, needless reboot of the Ninja Turtle franchise. Director Jonathan Liebesman (Battle: Los Angeles, Wrath of the Titans) follows in the Bay tradition by substituting noise for nuance every chance he gets. The turtles, Leonardo (Pete Ploszek), Michelangelo (Noel Fisher), Donatello (Jeremy Howard) and Raphael (Alan Ritchson), are still holed up in the New York City sewer system. But they can’t sit still when the city is attacked by the Shredder (Tohoru Masamune) and his evil Foot Clan. They’re soon ID’d by TV news reporter April O’Neil (Megan Fox, foolishly defaulting back to Bay). It’s April who persuades her editor (Whoopi Goldberg) to celebrate turtle vigilante heroics. Cowabunga! Now if only someone could persuade Bay that relentless action without compensatory feeling is a blight on movies and mankind. I know, it’s never gonna happen.