Nerds That Geek Movie Review - 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows'

​Written by Mike Cervantes

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows exists as a compromise. The first film in its series grossed a modest $493 million worldwide, so the brass at Paramount/Viacom/Nickelodeon are sure as shell going to go for a sequel. However, the brass behind the Turtles franchise, now seven years under the umbrella of the entertainment conglomerate, has no doubt heard the fans’ wails that the origin of the characters in the Michael Bay-produced first film was unnecessarily altered. The plot was not only cliché but bears a hard-to-ignore resemblance to 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man. The CG design for the turtles was mortifyingly ugly, and a toss-up over the fans’ will to have the turtles’ lead adversary, Shredder, be played by an Asian actor, Willam Fichtner, was shoehorned into the plot as a wealthy businessman secretly bankrolling Shredder, while the identity of the Foot Clan’s leader was left a mystery.

So, from the moment this film was marketed it felt as though those same executives were saying, “Look, we get that there’s a lot you didn’t like about the first movie. We’re willing to overlook it, if you are too, and if you’re still on-board for a sequel…We’ll open up the whole toy chest: Here’s your Casey Jones, here’s your Baxter Stockman, here’s your Bebop, your Rocksteady, and Krang…You like Krang right? We’ll get Krang all up in this party for you!”

And so, nothing is ever to be spoken of about the film that came before this one again. In the whole of the films 112 minute runtime, only one previous plot-point is addressed. It’s said by Megan Fox’s April in the middle of a meal in the turtle lair, and everything else is just hand-waved. We’re told that the Turtles “saved the city,” April’s cameraman sidekick Vernon (Will Arnett) has been taking the credit. April and the Turtles are still on an endless vigil to contain the criminal activities of the Foot Clan while the now-revealed Shredder (Brian Tee) remains in jail.

The remainder of the movie’s plot unfolds non-stop during the first act, so I see no point in going any slower: Shredder is about to be transported upstate by a prison escort led by corrections officer Casey Jones (Stephen “Arrow” Amell) with Bebop (Gary “Uncle Ruckus” Anthony Williams) and Rocksteady (Stephen “Sheamus” Farrelly) along for the ride. The Foot Clan naturally attacks the prison transport truck while the Turtles give chase in a garbage-truck/party wagon playset. Shredder has an ace in the hole in that he’s kept a teleportation device back at his home base with Baxter Stockman (Tyler “Madea” Perry) ready to push the button. He pushes it, and Shredder escapes, but he finds himself transported to a random-metal room in another dimension occupied by Krang (Brad “Ray Romano’s sitcom big brother” Garrett). Krang offers Shredder the opportunity to rule over the city if he finds the two other pieces of the transporter, and summons Krang and the massive war-ship Technodrome, to Earth. Shredder agrees, and Krang hands him a single vial of potent purple mutagen as a means to get rid of the Turtles. Shredder wastes no time in transforming Bebop and Rocksteady into their familiar mutant forms, and the hunt for the teleporter pieces begins.

So, all at once, and in the midst of said high-speed chase scene, we know all the film’s stakes: the search for the teleporter pieces, the threat of Krang and the Technodrome, and the vial of mutagen are all in play throughout the entire film. The mutagen vial even more so, as Jeremy Howard’s Donatello discovers that its properties could be put into reverse, and turn the Turtles into human beings. This is a subplot that threatens the Turtles themselves as Leonardo (Pete Ploszek), wants things to stay as they are, while Raphael (Alan Ritchson) and Michelangelo (Noel Fisher) would possibly like the chance to exist out in the open. It’s a compelling plot concept that doesn’t really go anywhere, as despite the Turtles’ constant arguing, none of them ever really break off or threaten to work outside of the team dynamic because of it.

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This film is just loaded with weird asides and plot inconsistencies that manage to keep you slightly out of the way of accepting the character’s actions organically. April spies on Baxter Stockman by quick-changing out of a nerdy fangirl disguise and into a schoolgirl outfit. Nobody else in the crowded mall actually saw that? It also seems to be Halloween night, as at one point Mikey crashes a parade and spends 30 glorious seconds out in the open before he’s yanked back into the sewers by his brothers. Even scenes like Bebop and Rocksteady’s werewolf-like transformation play out in the midst of fat jokes and butt shots, which is appropriate for the characters, but also seems like it’s an excuse to keep the movie’s endless adrenaline levels up. There’s also a scene where the Turtles battle Bebop and Rocksteady in the skies above Brazil. Why? Because it’s cool I suppose…
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There’s a kind of weird dissonance between the scenes that feature human actors, and the other scenes that feature the Turtles, Bebop and Rocksteady, and Krang. Whenever there are moments when the characters actually ARE together, you get a vibe reminiscent of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The CG animated mutants just don’t behave realistically enough to share the same space. They mow down rows of cars as Casey runs away in the foreground. They catch keycards using their tongues. They skateboard up vertical walls. They get their heads punched through the steel floors of airplanes. Then they just shake their heads afterwards, and say “ablbablbabl” before getting up for more. They behave in a more cartoony fashion than they did in 1987, when they were literal cartoons.

While the randomly picked pantheon of multi-level celebrities in this movie seems like an overall bid for stunt-casting, the cast surprisingly works real well as a whole. Stephen Amell puts in the most miles in the role of Casey Jones, playing surprisingly against type as a crime-fighting vigilante that’s much more silly, punchy, and New-York style crusty than the straight-Arrow he plays on the CW. He runs right alongside April and Vernon to do…human stuff in between the heavily CG turtle scenes, and works earnestly to prove himself to his hard-nosed police chief boss Rebecca Vincent (Laura Linney). Gary Anthony Williams and Sheamus clearly had a lot of fun in the sound booth with Bebop and Rocksteady, as you totally buy them in the role of a pair of bosom buddy mercenaries, just along for the promise that they can break stuff. Sadly, Brian Tee doesn’t get nearly as much of an opportunity to menace as Shredder, and Karai (Brittany Ishibashi) is in here as well, if you look hard enough. The most off-kilter performance in the whole film belongs to Brad Garrett’s Krang. It is as though he’s trying to play both himself and inflect in the same weird alien vocals as Pat Fraley did in the ’87 series. His scenes never really seem to mesh with the rest of the film’s aesthetic, and just serve as an excuse for more CG-animated turtle antics.

So with all these components in place did this movie turn out good? Sort-of. Did the current Turtle house redeem itself in contrast to its first outing? Sort-of. Am I looking forward to another installment? Sort of! The current Turtles holding company has proven they can take the elements that have made up the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ past legacy, and turn out a serviceable and amusing little popcorn flick. There isn’t anything in here, though, that would make me feel bad about dumping the whole bowl back down the sewer, and mutating it all over again.  

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