Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

Whilst Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wasn’t directed by Michael Bay, his hand in the production team is clearly noticeable, there are explosions aplenty, no real care for the source material and action sequences can sometimes become a blur of CGI creatures fighting other CGI creatures. Meaning those of you hoping for a new take on these well-loved characters will be sadly disappointed, instead, they will be treated to just another loud disposable blockbuster that’s plagued by poor editing and minimal character development.

A much more fitting title for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would be April O’Neil considering the film follows her more than the turtles and she is on screen for almost its entire running time. Now, this isn’t entirely a bad thing given that O’Neil is being played by the wonderful Megan Fox and I didn’t have a problem with her performance, in fact, she is clearly trying to craft a character that’s not just eye candy and after how she was treated on Transformers, I can only support her for that.

But this leads me to my main issue with this film, the poor characterization. Even with all the hard work done by the cast, it still felt as though the writers forgot to give the characters realistic/individual personalities, choosing to focus entirely on the action. Meaning I never felt engaged with the characters and rendered even the more entertaining sequences somewhat pointless due to not being interested in the character’s fates. The film also struggles with poor comedy, even the wisecracking attempts at humour from Michelangelo fell flat and even for a film aimed at a younger audience, the level doesn’t reach the kind seen in Pixar or Dreamworks productions.

In the end, children might have fun watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, though fans of the franchise should stick to the ’90s trilogy if they wish to see films that try to do something interesting with the characters and don’t focus completely on CGI creatures jumping around New York City.