Movie Review – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

Released this weekend is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a reboot of the classic TMNT movie released in 1990.

The plot for this movie involves Shredder and the Foot Clan taking over New York City.  Channel 6 news reporter April O’Neil discovers the four ninja turtles, and that discovery puts her in the middle of the action.  The movie gives a new origin for the mutated turtles and their sensei, Master Splinter, and that origin leads to the epic conclusion and Shredder’s plot to take over the city.

Directed by Jonathan Liebesman and produced by Michael Bay, 2014’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stars Megan Fox as April O’Neil, a news reporter for Channel 6 news.  Co-starring in the film are Will Arnett as Vernon Fenwick, a co-worker at the news station, and William Fichtner as Eric Sacks, a research scientist and the CEO of Sacks Industries.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles begins with and animated sequence with Master Splinter (voiced by Tony Shalhoub) explaining how a criminal organization known as the Foot Clan is taking over New York City.  The Foot Clan is led by a warrior mastermind called Shredder, and there’s little that the people of New York can do about it.

The film then shows Channel 6 news reporter April O’Neil (Megan Fox) as she’s trying to investigate the latest robbery by the Foot Clan.  The robbery victim doesn’t want to speak, so April is forced to give a news report about a meaningless subject.  Her cameraman and friend at the news station is Vernon Fenwick (Will Arnett).

April isn’t willing to give up on her investigation into the Foot Clan, so she follows a lead one night and heads to a nearby dock.  The news reporter witnesses the Foot Clan carrying out a robbery.  She also witnesses an unknown vigilante easily fight and defeat the Foot Clan soldiers.  April is unable to get any pictures or video of the vigilante, but she does photograph some graffiti left behind by the unknown fighter.

The following morning April shares her story with her co-workers at Channel 6, but they don’t take her seriously.  Neither does April’s boss, Bernadette Thompson (Whoppi Goldberg).  Since April does not have any solid evidence, Bernadette refuses to air the story about the vigilante.

The masked vigilante also attracts further attention within the Foot Clan organization.  When Karai (Minae Noji) reports it to Shredder (Tohoru Masamune), the leader of the Foot Clan, he instructs her to strike back hard and capture the vigilantes, even using innocent people as bait.

Meanwhile, Eric Sacks (William Fichtner), a research scientist and the leader of Sacks Industries, holds a news conference and reminds people how his research laboratory was attacked years ago, and that several of his friends and co-workers were killed.  It was the Foot Clan that attacked him and his city years ago, and because of that, Eric Sacks has united his company with the NYPD to fight back against the Foot Clan to keep the city safe.

When April and Vern are driving back from Eric’s press conference, they see people fleeing in terror.  Something big is happening in the subway.  April sneaks into the subway station and witness the Foot Clan taking people hostage.  That action is also witnessed in a secret lair down in the sewers.  Four vigilantes arm themselves, knock out the power in the subway station, and then attack and defeat the Foot Clan soldiers, tying them up and leaving them for the police.

The vigilantes escape into an air duct before anybody can get a good look at them.  April follows a hunch and races up to the city’s streets.  She then hears voices on top of a roof and climbs a staircase to investigate.  Sure enough, the four vigilantes are up there celebrating their success over the Foot Clan.  April uses her phone to snap a picture of them, but the flash gets their attention.  When the vigilantes step into the light, we see that they are the teenage mutant ninja turtles.

The four ninja turtles are Leonardo (voiced by Johnny Knoxville), Donatello (voiced by Jeremy Howard), Raphael (voiced by Alan Ritchson) and Michelangelo (voiced by Noel Fisher).  The Turtles won’t harm April.  They just want her camera so they can delete the pictures and remove any evidence of them.  April faints and stays unconscious for a few minutes.  When she awakens Leonardo mentions that they removed the pictures from her camera phone.  Whenever April hears one of the Turtles’ names, it looks like she recognizes it from somewhere.  The Turtles return the camera to her and then quickly flee the rooftop and return to their secret lair in the sewers.

Back in her apartment, April digs through a closet and locates an old video camera.  She plays back the footage of herself as a young girl back in 1999.  The young April pretends to be a news reporter and she goes around her father’s laboratory, interviewing him and a younger version of Eric Sacks.  The footage also shows a laboratory rat named Splinter and four young turtles, all of them with the same names and colors as the mutated versions that she just met on the rooftop.  Splinter and the turtles had all been given an experimental mutagen that caused them to grow in size, strength and intelligence.

In the sewers, Master Splinter catches the Turtles sneaking back into their secret lair.  Since none of the Turtles is willing to admit why they were away from the lair, Splinter tortures them by having each one perform an unusual exercise for a long period of time.  Michelangelo finally breaks his silence when Splinter tempts him with a special cheese pizza from Pizza Hut.  Splinter is upset that April O’Neil is now involved with the Turtles, and he believes that she is now in great danger from the Foot Clan.  He sends the Turtles on a mission to find and bring her back to their lair.

Meanwhile, April O’Neil presents her new evidence about the vigilantes to Bernadette Thompson.  She shows how the Turtles leave the graffiti at each of their scenes as a calling card.  April also tells her boss about her father’s research laboratory and how the turtles were mutated there.  Bernadette doesn’t believe a word of April story and she fires her from Channel 6 news.

Despite being fired from her job, April persuades Vern to drive her to her father’s old laboratory where he worked with Eric Sacks on the mutagens.  The laboratory is somewhere in a snowy mountain range.  When April arrives at the laboratory, she’s surprised to see Eric there as well.  She shares her story of the Turtles with him and then shows him a picture of the Turtles returning to the sewers.  This gets Eric’s attention and he tells April about Project Renaissance.

Eric Sacks tells April O’Neil that he was originally born in Japan at a military base on Okinawa.  When Eric’s father was killed in Vietnam, Eric became an outsider himself in Japan, a person with no friends.  One day he met a man who changed his life.  This man got Eric involved in biology and becoming a research scientist.  Eric tells April about how there was a warlord in ancient Japan who tried to poison his enemies, but the people discovered a cure to reverse the poison’s effects.  That cure was what Eric and April’s father, Dr. O’Neil, were trying to develop in their laboratory.  If they could recreate that cure, then they could potentially save the citizens of New York City from terrorist attacks using chemical and biological weapons.

That was the mutagen that Eric administered to the lab rat and those four baby turtles.  It was thought that all traces of the mutagen disappeared when the laboratory was attacked an set on fire.  April tells Eric that during the fire she risked her life to rescue the lab animals and then set them free.  Her photograph of the mutated turtles is proof that not only did they survive, but that the mutagen works and is extremely powerful.  This news about the Turtles pleases Eric.  Until that day he had thought that his mutagen experiment was a failure.  Now he knows that the mutagen still exists in the blood of the Turtles.  Before April leaves, Eric gives her his business card and offers everything in the company to help her on her quest, whatever that may be.

April returns to her apartment in New York City.  When she turns on her laptop she discovers that it had been hacked by Donatello.  He leaves her a message requesting her presence at a certain location.  When April arrives there, the Turtles slip a blindfold over her eyes and take her into the sewers.

Back at the laboratory, Eric Sacks meets with Shredder.  It turns out that Shredder was the person who befriended and educated Eric back in Okinawa.  Eric tells Shredder that the vigilantes that have been harassing the Foot Clan soldiers are actually the test subjects from the mutagen experiment years ago.  He tells Shredder that if they can capture the Turtles, then they can carry out the plan that they developed a long time ago.  Eric is confident that April O’Neil will lead them right to the Turtles.

In the Turtles’ secret lair, Master Splinter tells April his story about life in the science lab.  Splinter reveals that it was really April’s father who set fire to the lab once he discovered the truth about Shredder’s plan for the mutagen.  He sacrificed his life to stop the evil intentions.  Splinter reminds April that it was her who saved himself and the baby turtles from the fire, and then set them free in the sewers.  In the sewers, Splinter and the turtles quickly grew because of the mutagen, and Splinter took it upon himself to be the father of them.  Splinter discovered a book about ninjitsu, the art of the ninja, and he taught himself and then the Turtles how to be karate masters and experts with weapons.  Splinter did that so that the Turtles could effectively hide and protect themselves for when they would finally leave the sewers.

In addition to finally thanking April for saving their lives those many years ago, Splinter also wants to know who else April told about the Turtles’ existence.  When she mentions that she told Eric Sacks about the Turtles, Splinter tells her about his association with Shredder.

Suddenly the Foot soldiers swarm into the sewers and surround the Turtles’ lair.  April realizes that the business card that Eric gave her had a secret homing beacon.  She accidentally led them right to the Turtles.  The Foot soldiers use explosives to break into the lair.  There’s a battle as the Turtles and Splinter fight the Foot soldiers.  Shredder then appears in his armor and he has a lengthy fight with Splinter.  Shredder wins and he threatens to kill Splinter unless the Turtles throw away their weapons.  They do so and Shredder critically injures Splinter anyway.  The Foot soldiers then use electrical weapons to subdue Leonardo, Donatello and Michelangelo, and then take them away in an armored truck.  When Shredder asks about the fourth turtle, the Foot soldiers tell him that he’s dead.

Of course, Raphael really isn’t dead.  He climbs out of some rubble as April emerges from her hiding spot.  They find Splinter and see that he’s critically injured from Shredder’s attack.  On a computer screen April notices Donatello’s personal tracking beacon.  Splinter then tells Raphael to go, and he grabs his brothers’ weapons and heads out with April to rescue them.  They get Vern to drive them to the laboratory in the mountains.

At the research lab, Eric Sacks is overjoyed to finally see the mutated turtles himself.  Each of them is contained in an individual cell with tubes connected to their body.  Eric then demonstrates a deadly chemical toxin gas on a Foot soldier.  He explains that in a few hours Shredder is going to unleash more of that gas over the entire city.  Many people will die, government leaders will be frightened, and New York City will be a giant quarantine zone.  That’s when Sacks Industries will step forward with a miracle cure and save everybody.  Eric Sacks will then become filthy rich and very powerful, and Shredder will rule over the city.

The extraction process begins and the Turtles’ blood is slowly extracted.  It won’t be long until the Turtles are dead.

Raphael makes Vern crash the news van into the compound.  He then fights a bunch of Foot soldiers and makes his way to the lab where his brothers are being kept prisoner.  Shredder then appears and Raphael goes off to fight him while April and Vern try to find a way to free the three Turtles.  She finds a way to inject the Turtles with adrenaline, and that gives them a boost to break out of their prison cells.  By this point Shredder has easily beaten Raphael and even cracked his protective shell.  He quickly flees and escapes in a helicopter before the other Turtles can reach him.

It’s now a race against time to stop Eric or Shredder before they can unleash the chemical attack from the top of Sacks’s tower in New York City.

Outside of the laboratory, April, Vern and the Turtles are attacked by yet more of the Foot Clan soldiers.  What follows is a lengthy action scene where the Turtles and April and Vern try to use a truck to go down the snow-covered mountain and get back to the city.  They’re attacked over and over again by the Foot soldiers, and it’s up to the Turtles to fight them and save each other from the dangers.  The Turtles ultimately succeed and defeat the Foot soldiers.

While Eric and Shredder use a helicopter and easily fly back to New York City, the Turtles, while still in the mountains, gain access to a maintenance hatch which leads to a sewer that ultimately goes into downtown New York City.  To make up for lost time, the Turtles slide their way through the sewers and quickly reach the heart of the Big Apple.  Yes, that’s *really* what happens.

In the basement at Sacks Industries, April and Vern decide to try to stop Eric Sacks in his laboratory while the Turtles go to the building’s roof to try to stop Shredder.

In his laboratory, Eric takes the Turtles’ blood and sends it through a machine to be processed back into the mutagen.  April and Vern reach his lab, but Eric has a gun and tries to shoot them.  During the shooting Eric reveals that he was the one who shot and killed April’s father.  April then activates a fire suppressant system and Vern uses a microscope to knock out Eric.

On the building’s roof, it’s pretty much a one-sided battle as Shredder beats the Turtles again and again.  During the battle a lot of debris falls off the building and lands on the streets below.  The Turtles finally gain an advantage when they attack using a game that they used to play when they were younger.  This works and Shredder is temporarily out of the picture.  Donatello then stops the computer from dispensing the chemical weapon seconds before it’s scheduled to be released.

Shredder quickly regains himself and he tries to knock over the tower with the chemicals.  If it crashes to the ground then the chemicals will still be dispersed and impact a lot of people.  The tower begins to fall and the four Turtles grab the supports and vow to hold on to it until the very end.  Just as Shredder is about to easily attack Leonardo, April appears on the roof with a container of the mutagen.  She tempts Shredder with it to get him away from the Turtles.

Suddenly the tower begins to collapse and Shredder runs to April and grabs the mutagen from her hands.  The momentum carries both himself and April off the edge of the building and onto the damaged tower as it stretches between Stark Industries and a neighboring high-rise building.  Shredder throws a knife and cuts April’s support beam, causing her to fall.  The Turtles jump down and form a human ladder and catch April.  They then swing April so that she can kick Shredder and cause him to fall.

Shredder falls to the ground and creates a small crater from his impact.  His mechanical suit (developed by Sacks Industries) saves him from dying.  He’s then taken into police custody.

Meanwhile, the tower that April and the Turtles are hanging on to finally breaks and begins to fall.  As it lands on one rooftop after another, each of the Turtles says a few parting words.  Just as it seems like they’re about to die, suddenly everything is all right.  The tower made it to the ground but there was no terrible crash.  The Turtles and April simply slip away before anybody can see them.

The Turtles quickly return to their lair and they try to save Splinter by giving him some of the mutagen.  It works and Splinter will recover from his injuries.

Some time later, April meets with Vern at night in a quiet spot in the city.  He asked her there to show her his new car (courtesy of Channel 6 news) and to try to ask her out on a date.  Just then the Turtles arrive in their Party Van, a custom vehicle built by Donatello and pimped out by Michelangelo.  When Michelangelo thinks that he’s showing off the van’s sound system, he accidentally triggers the launching of a missile.  The missile flies forward and strikes Vern’s new car, destroying it in a tremendous explosion.

The Turtles offer April and Vern a ride, but they refuse.  As the Turtles drive away, Michelangelo hangs out the rear doors and sings to April.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ends with a quick scene in the final credits.  Michelangelo and Raphael are running across rooftops in broad daylight when somebody on the streets spots them.  Before anybody else can see them, the two Turtles hide behind a billboard and laugh about it.

FINAL THOUGHTS

So is the 2014 reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles any good?

Nope.  Fans of the classic Ninja Turtles will most likely be disappointed with this movie.

For starters, almost none of the characters either looked or acted like in the original films or cartoon series.  Maybe this newer version of the Turtles is more in line with the current cartoons.  I don’t know as I’ve never seen the current version.  It’s obvious though that Hollywood has greatly changed the Turtles to appease a much younger audience.

The origin of the Turtles and connecting them with the young version of April O’Neil was a lousy idea.  Splinter’s origins are supposed to be from Japan, not as simply a lab rat here in the U.S.  Depending on which origin story you know, Splinter was either the pet rat of Hamato Yoshi, or he *is* Hamato Yoshi but mutated into a giant rat.  It’s through Hamato Yoshi where Splinter learned his fighting skills, not by simply reading a book on ninjitsu.  It was also Splinter who named the Turtles after his favorite Renaissance painters, and NOT April.

In the world of martial arts, it’s incredibly difficult to properly learn let alone master a fighting style by merely reading about it in a book.  You need a human teacher to instruct and guide you through the process.  There’s a lot of detailed information that you will pretty much only learn through another person, information that you will not learn in a book.  It was ridiculous how this movie explained the ninja background as simply Splinter reading about it in a book, then teaching himself, and then instructing the turtles.  Nope.  Try again.

The character of April O’Neil was okay at best.  I’m not a fan of Megan Fox, and she didn’t convince me that she was a news reporter.  In this version it seemed like April was more like a nosey college student looking for a way to impress her teacher.  There’s no way that her behavior would pass for anything resembling a professional journalist working in a major city.

The same goes true for her Channel 6 news companion, Vern Fenwick.  I’ll give this film credit for including Vern as the previous Ninja Turtle films excluded him, but his presence here was incredibly lame.  Vern doesn’t look like a professional camera man, nor does he look like he even belongs in the news business.  It’s also hard to tell that Vern actually has any feelings whatsoever towards April until literally the last few minutes in the movie.  It’s a wonder why his character was even added if the production crew did such a lousy job with him.

As far as the Turtles themselves, these Ninja Turtles are CGI creations so lame and annoying that they all deserved to die by Shredder’s knives.  Michelangelo’s “hip hop” style needed to go, Donatello was too much of a nerdy wimp, Leonardo was too anal, and it would have been great if we actually saw Raphael’s famous rebellious attitude, one of his best attributes.  But we don’t and that’s one of many reasons why this is a bad movie.

As far as the rest of the movie, there was way too much CGI, the escape sequence down the snowy mountain was too chaotic and over-the-top, the evil plot was lame and unoriginal, and the end sequence was TERRIBLE!  Shredder should have never jumped off the building to get the mutagen (he could have just grabbed it from April), people on the ground should have been killed by all of that falling debris, police and news helicopters should have been in the area, and April and the Turtles should have all died when the section of the tower finally landed on the pavement.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) – movie trailer

It’s understandable that you’re not supposed to take a movie seriously when it involves mutated turtles that run around and fight as ninjas.  However, that does not give you permission to make an incredibly lame movie filled with plot holes.  You could have at least given the viewers something interesting to watch.

Go back and try it again, Hollywood.