Thoughts on Michael Bay's TMNT movie

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I thought it was....okay. The plotline is pretty good and the jokes are funny. The fighting was also good, and I didn't really mind that the turtles were in CGI. To be honest, I thought people wre a bit too harsh on this movie. If you don't like it? It's not the entire new franchise. There is the Nick TV show. Calm down. Also, why does CGI bother so many people? Yes, it's animated on a computer, but so was Gollum but he didn't bother anyone. Though I do have to say that the characters outside of the turtles, April, Shredder and the Foot Clan are kind of forgettable.
And unfortunately, there is not much
BLOWING EVERYTHING UP BECAUSE MICHAEL BAY
outside of one explosion, but still.
looks like a ninja turtle, by the way.

I hated it, which was even more disappointing since Bay didn't even direct the thing. I actually fell asleep for a few minutes, then woke up toward the end. He wrecked it just like with "Transformers", turning a beloved 1980s kids' franchise into a sophmoric attempt at "humor" with zero heart.

It was....meh. It was a better film than 'Turtles III' but it wasn't as amusingly bad as 'Turtles II'. Anyone who says it's the worst thing to happen to the 'TMNT' franchise either hasn't seen it or hasn't been paying much attention for the last 23-ish years.

People focus way, way, WAY too much on Bay's involvement. Jonathan Liebesman is an all-around bad director and I'll place the blame on him. Even if Bay wasn't involved, would anyone genuinely think a Turtles movie from the director of 'Battle: Los Angeles' and the writer of 'Snow White and the Huntsman' would be any good? Anybody?

It was intelligence-insulting crap of the worst kind. How this stopped the superior Interstellar from topping the box office is a joke.

Apparently they booted Liebesman from the upcoming sequel and replaced him with Dave Green, whose sole feature film credit is something called 'Earth to Echo'. I really have no opinion on that, only that I hope he knows how to operate a damn camera during action scenes better than Liebesman ever did.

Nevertheless, the sequel will still have the same screenwriters, so even if the movie's better on a technical level the script will likely still be lacking. Maybe they'll have to get Vanilla Ice to show up in this one, too...hopefully he's not too busy to accept a cameo.

I actually didn't see this movie because it just looked absolutely ridiculous and not worth my time. I do, however, know the storyboard artist that worked on this particular film and many others.

It is snobbery. You're up in arms about a heavily-marketed kids' movie being more financially successful than an adult-oriented genre film, as if that's some astounding revelation about how Hollywood functions. And even that's inaccurate, since 'Interstellar' has made more worldwide in a month than 'TMNT' did in its whole theatrical run. You realize...there's no real overlap between the two audiences, right? It's not like 'Interstellar' is in jeopardy of losing its Best Picture nod to 'TMNT', yes? I'm not going to call a kid an idiot because he likes CGI reptiles more than he understands the complexities of a Christopher Nolan screenplay, but I'm not going to call a person smart just because they like a Christopher Nolan film.

Come on, I went to film school, I know my way up and down the cinematic landscape. Doesn't mean I can't go to the multiplex and enjoy some dumb once in a while. I mean, my CD collection has Liszt, Berlioz, Rossini, Mahler, Mussorgsky, Beethoven...my appreciation for art doesn't decrease when I decide to pass them up for Van Halen and KISS every now and then.

I just always have a knee-jerk reaction against film snobbery. During film school I had more than my lifetime's fair share of cinema snobs trying to present themselves as pseudo-intellectuals because they're - *sniff* - so much more refined than the puerile anti-intellectualism that Hollywood passes off as "entertainment" these days, and those people are amongst the scum of the Earth to me (not you specifically, since I obviously haven't met you and don't know you, so don't take it personally).

However, now I'm getting paid to work on film sets and those people are probably still sitting at home masturbating to 'Being John Malkovich', so a little humility always gets the last laugh.

Haven't seen it yet, but don't like the Turtles' designs (Don't care that they're CGI; just don't like the designs themselves.).

I think what would make this thread complete is this guy right here.

Nicolas Cage, you have done well spawning these replies.

Spoilers ahead.

I thought the start of the movie, showing the turtles as an indestructible invisible force goes counter to hero narrative plots. The hero either discovers his power and slowly learns to hone it, or it's the antagonist that is the invisible destructive force. The later probably requires a prompt introduction of the hero at the start of the movie rather than the attempt at foreplay that was in this film.

I think they needed to be revealed with April at the docks, it was right there -- she gets apprehended snooping around that foot clan operation, and that is when they turtles are introduced...of course they would be fighting against generic foot-soldiers at this point, it's shredder who is supposed to be the invisible destructive force during the next encounter with the foot clan, but the turtles should have been revealed to us right there, in a dramatic fashion.

The turtles introduction later on was not properly executed, it lost a lot dramatic fervor by omitting the moment in which they saved April, they needed to combine that fight in the subway with the introduction at the rooftop, the dramatic rescue alongside their revelation would have enhanced the drama, but instead it was April who sought them out well after they rescued her in the fight that lasted about 7 seconds, and let's be honest... TMNT fans want to see turtles wreck stuff and cool choreography rather than that dim scene in the subway that lasted mere moments.

Don't like that the foot clan were using guns, seems to go against the cartoony narrative of the TMNT world, there needs to be corny lines and a lack of guns, plus tons and tons of fun choreography, in addition to the silly sort of fighting techniques that you'd find in the first three movies.

The next major flaw is April's character.

April O'Neal's actor is just a generic hottie, April's character was merely meant to compliment the turtles to enhance their story -- not replace them as the focus of the story, the film presents itself as April's story rather than the opposite, i mean she got the final hit on shredder for pete's sake... It's here that I tend to understand that none of the writers for this movie were TMNT fans, and they were probably more Megan Fox fans.

Megan Fox's constant heavy-breathing throughout the film was also VERY annoying.

Splinter making jokes midway through the movie was a huge no-no, specifically that scene with the cheese pizza. You can only do light-hearted stuff like that with serious characters at the very end of the movie, in fact, one of the older TMNT movies did exactly that. Splinter is supposed to be a very tortured soul, he doesn't have time for games. Oh and he also looked like a diseased rat, the character designs for the turtles and splinter was all over the place, it seems like the artists couldn't find a charming style to suit either one.


One to the good things --

One thing the film did do well is the interaction between the turtles, all the characters were spot on, THIS should have been the focus throughout the entire movie, only straying into April's and Shredder's side of the plot occasionally, but the pull was always in the turtles, not in April. This film was not made by TMNT fans, if it was, they would of gone straight to turtles with choreography + jokes right away, and plenty of brawls rather then the slow build-up which they had no idea how to execute anyways.

Movie is definitely 6/10, entirely forgettable.