Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
Two years have passed since the surprisingly enjoyable Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot turned a tidy profit by resurrecting its protagonists as motion capture-animated heroes in a half-shell.
"We're just four brothers from New York who hate bullies and love this city," Leonardo (voiced by Pete Ploszek who, along with the rest of the actors playing the Turtles, also assumes motion capture performance duties) humbly declares. The four brothers - Leonardo, Michelangelo (Noel Fisher), Donatello (Jeremy Howard), and Raphael (Alan Ritchson) - are also heroes, having saved their beloved city from the evil Shredder (Brian Tee). Not that anyone would know since the Turtles have allowed wisecracking cameraman Vern (Will Arnett) to take sole credit so they can continue living their life in sewers away from the humans who may be grateful for their actions, but may be threatened by their appearance.
After a random opening that includes the brothers watching a New York Knicks game from the rafters and their pal, intrepid reporter April O'Neil tracking a suspect through Grand Central Station whilst barely garbed in a slutty schoolgirl uniform (please remember that April is portrayed by mannequin extraordinaire Megan Fox, whose range of expressions can best be described as minimalist, and that the film is produced by action porn honcho Michael Bay so - of course this scene), screenwriters Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec reveal the basics of the threadbare but gussied up plot. Shredder is back, having escaped police custody via a teleportation device invented by Dr. Baxter Stockman (Tyler Perry), and is enlisted by disembodied alien brain Krang (voiced by Brad Garrett) to retrieve the missing pieces of another device that would allow him to open an inter-dimensional portal and use his war machine to rule over Earth. It's up to our half-shelled brothers to save the world yet again.
Knowing Shredder isn't exactly the most compelling of villains - frankly, he's a snooze - the filmmakers have wisely included fan favourites, mohawked warthog Bebop (Gary Anthony Williams) and lumbering rhino Rocksteady (Stephen Farrelly), whose dimwitted antics add to the majestically overwrought juvenalia. Also making his debut appearance is aspiring detective Casey Jones (an enthusiastically earnest yet sarcastic Stephen Amell from TV's Arrow), who fights the bad guys with a hockey mask and stick.
At times it all seems a bit too much but this is a Michael Bay production after all - too much is never enough. So the sequel is noisier, even more farfetched, impressively dismembered from logic and reason, and basically an excuse to stage one action sequence after another. Nothing necessarily wrong with that - isn't that what every Fast and Furious installment aims for? - but where the first film had an unbridled sense of fun from the get-go, Out of the Shadows doesn't find its groove until its last half hour. Up until that point, the breeziness feels forced and the unrelenting busyness of the movie means not enough attention is paid to the Turtles themselves. Which is a shame since their amusing banter and brotherly bond are such assets.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
Directed by: Dave Green
Written by: Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec; based on characters created by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman
Starring: Megan Fox, Will Arnett, Laura Linney, Stephen Amell, Noel Fisher, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, Alan Ritchson, Tyler Perry, Brian Tee, Gary Anthony Williams, Stephen Farrelly, Tony Shalhoub, Brad Garrett
