Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

I never liked the Turtles much as a kid, though I watched the show. I couldn’t stand their catchphrases and annoying cocky attitudes. But then, teenagers were a lot older than I was – pretty much adults – and I didn’t see that they were meant to be goofy. I just saw them as overconfident and irritating.

The first live-action films were also pretty bad, but that’s mostly to do with the fact that they were just outright poorly-made, poorly-written and poorly-acted. So what about this one? With the big ugly new designs and attempts to make the concept a little more serious and gritty for the Dark Knight generation?

Well, actually, it works. Of course, it’s a stupid, stupid film, but then, it’s a stupid, stupid concept and that’s part of the charm of it. It’s the story of four pizza-loving ninja turtles living in a sewer with a giant rat fighting a weird samurai guy in New York. It’s inherently stupid. But this film actually does something quite impressive, which is to embrace that stupidity, include lots of pop-culture references and comedy and dumbness, and yet deliver it seriously and sincerely. Thus, while of course it remains a stupid, brainless popcorn action flick, it’s a likeable and enjoyable one.

The film tells the story in a slightly new way, tying things up in a way that goes a little beyond coincidence. When New York is terrorised by the Foot Gang, headed by Shredder, puff-piece news reporter April O’Neil discovers that some vigilantes have been fighting back. Investigating them further, she discovers that they are the Ninja Turtles, and after a little more investigation, realises that by sheer coincidence, they are the very turtles her own father had created before he died in suspicious circumstances. She goes to her father’s old lab partner to confirm her suspicions, now a rich and powerful man, but of course he is not to be trusted. Though it has taken some ridiculous coincidences to get this far, the rest unfolds quite neatly, with April’s revelation having set the rest of the film’s action into motion, and after Shredder’s attack on the turtles’ lair establishes the ticking bomb, the Turtles have to spring to action to rescue the city, with the help of April and her creepy but somewhat amusing cameraman. It kinda works, though the bad guy’s motive to get more rich stumbles over itself in an attempt to have a clever, modern false flag twist, which doesn’t work because...well, the guy’s already super-rich.

The turtles are not detestable. Perhaps they never were. They are actually effectively characterized as a bunch of kids, quite out-of-keeping with their hulking forms. Michelangelo has always been goofy, but here has enough self-effacing and idiotic humour for things to work, Donatello is a bit more of a geek but also a bit more of a rounded character, Raphael is the powerhouse of the team but has a weak, vulnerable side, and Leonardo is the boring leader as usual. Shredder is actually formidable this time – though it was a mistake to cast an American-born Japanese actor instead of an actual Japanese one, because his accent speaking Japanese is really bad. I know that their being huge and scary-looking has put a lot of people off, and maybe gets in the way of them coming over as teenagers, but the writing is actually pretty good.

Overall, bad film, but fun, and better than expected. If someone can explain why Splinter has an accent, I’d like to know!