Cowabunga, pizza and martial arts are back in this remake, but are we tired of eighties throwbacks?…
When the villainous group, The Footclan, start to steal containers at the New York docks, April O’Neil starts to investigate. She soon discovers a group of turtle ninjas who like to joke, eat pizza and seriously kick ass but they may not be enough to stop a chemical attack on the city.
The teenage antics of the turtles are well represented and manage to keep most of the whacky lines to Michelangelo. This balances out Raphael’s angry demeanour, restricting him from becoming too flamboyant in between moods. Admittedly two of the turtles get side tracked by this, with the leader Leonardo mainly seen struggling to keep Raphael in check and Donatello being largely defined by, well, his geeky glasses. Overall the energy of the group is great, especially when together (check out a beat boxing scene in between battles) and hopefully all of the four will show themselves better in an inevitable sequel.
A main seller of this franchise has been the action on offer and this is the biggest Hollywood version to date. Having said that action seems to miss the mark on most occasions especially when confronting Shredder in his robotic-samurai armour. These sequences play too much into endless CGI hitting and bashing and don’t offer anything unique or fun to watch; a major tie-in with the TMNT ethos. However a handful of scenes offer more substance. In particular a snowy hill descent sees several jeeps sliding down towards a cliff edge while the turtles spin about trying to rescue April and themselves.
Ah yes, April. Megan Fox picks up the reigns of April O’Neil, the ambitious TV journalist and she does surprisingly well at balancing Michelangelo’s comic romance interludes with another unlikely love interest, an awkward newsman played by Will Arnett. Arnett’s charm mirrors the light relief brought about by John Turturro, in the Transformers series, and this comes as no surprise seeing as Michael Bay produced this. Fox’s inclusion is also cleverly placed, reassuring fans of Transformers that they’ll be in for a similar all action experience and to be fair they really are: same humour and type of action.
A select few impressive action scenes, light hearted dialogue and a faithful reincarnation of the well-loved turtles means this could be a winner for old and new fans alike. The plot itself leaves a lot to be desired but hey you can’t have everything (in a Michael Bay production)
Author – Matt, Cardiff store
