Michael Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles return to (hopefully) give us the turtles film we deserve.
In 2014, producer Michael Bay brought everyone’s favorite pizza loving, human sized turtles back to the big screen with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Unfortunately, like most Michael Bay productions, the film was a lackluster piece of action fluff.
This time around, it looks like the filmmakers may be doing the sequel right. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows will finally feature a number of classic characters that fans of the 80’s and 90’s cartoon show have clamored for. Bebop, Rocksteady, Baxter Stockman, and Krang(!!!) are all finally getting their feature film debuts. Even the early 90’s turtle films didn’t have these characters. Another welcome addition to this new series is fan favorite Casey Jones played by Stephen Amell. It’s too bad that 55 year old Elias Koteas isn’t returning to the role after three turns as Jones in the previous films but I digress.
While all of this is most certainly good news, it’s tough to forget the negatives of this new series.
- Michael Bay is still involved. He has already run the Transformers films into the ground and now he’s going to try to do the same to the turtles.
- The turtles are still ugly as sin. Seriously. Who designed them? Say what you will about the original film series having a bunch of guys in rubber suits but at least they looked good. I’m not counting their look in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. That movie is garbage.
- The CGI in general is still too much. One of the biggest problems with CGI heavy live action films is that the CGI just doesn’t look real when compared to actual living, breathing actors. Puppets and tangible costumes are where it’s at.
One final thing to point out, which could be either positive or negative depending on execution, is that this film could truly suffer from having too many villains. Like countless franchises have done before this one, the addition of too many villains can cripple a film. It’s as if the filmmakers listened to what TMNT fans wanted and decided to give them everything in one movie. Bebop and Rocksteady (along with Shredder, of course) could’ve been one movie by themselves. Krang and his awesome exosuit along with Dimension X could’ve been another.
Basically, we’ll all just have to wait until June to find out what this new film has in store for us. Until then, here is the new trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. Check it out and comment below.
