Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Dir: Jonathan Liebesman
2014
**
I remember the excitement at school in 1990 when the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film came out. There was one kid who had just come back from a holiday in Florida and he boasted that he'd seen it, two whole weeks before it was released in the UK. He was a hero for a whole fortnight (that's six months in child time). Before that, the song Turtle Power by one hit wonders Partners in Kryme had already been the hit song of the summer and I can still remember (and still love) the lyrics today. When I finally did see the film, I loved it but maybe not as much as I'd enjoyed the hype. Fourteen years later and I have to say I was less excited about this reboot. Nothing against the Turtles but I'm afraid they don't mean as much to me as they once did but that said, I didn't see a reboot as some kind of sacrilege and I was quite open to it. The eleven year old boy in me was quite upset with the end result, the characters aren't what they were and the story wasn't as good as the turtle role-play me and my classmates would play during school breaks (I was always Casey Jones). The turtles aren't as funny or lovable as they were in this version and I don't think they looked as good (you can't beat the Jim Henson Creature Workshop). There was far too much focus on Megan Fox as April O'Neil, again, no where near as likable as the original and there was more screen time dedicated to her pouting lips than there was on the actual turtles. The revelation that she actually had a hand in creating the turtles was a change of plot that went too far. I like both Will Arnett and William Fichtner but have in the past confused the pair on more than one occasion, I won't do again but neither really serve any purpose in the film. Whoopi Goldberg also serves no purpose but then what else is new. This reboot is as soulless as it is CGI-heavy, hardcore fans will hate it and everyone else will forget it. I liked parts of it (Splinter, baby turtles, the elevator scene) but not enough to recommend it.