For characters whose popularity has spanned three decades, the TMNT have had a rough ride on the big screen. For the most part it’s been less turtle power and more turtle shit.
The main criticism levelled at the last movie was that it had more in common with producer Michael Bay’s “crash, bang, wallop, phwoar look at those” style of filmmaking than the classic TMNT story.
But for this sequel, thirty-something fanboys will spend the first hour positively oozing their cowabunga knickers as it re-assembles elements from the original cartoon: Krang (voiced by Brad Garrett), Bebop and Rocksteady (Gary Anthony Williams and WWE’s Sheamus), the Technodrome, Casey Jones (Stephen Amell), the Turtles’ party van… they even have a “heroes in a half-shell” ringtone.
The plot – Shredder (Brian Tee) searches for alien tech to help Krang destroy the world (not quite sure why), while the Turtles have an identity crisis – zips along, aided by perhaps the most ludicrous contrivances and character guesswork in the history of blockbuster cinema (if I stumbled across a museum robbery, my first assumption would not be that someone was trying to open a trans-dimensional portal).
The film’s surprising standouts, Bebop and Rocksteady, sum things up quite nicely – bugger all happening between the ears, but plenty of fun and muscle.
It’s not all party time, of course. Assembling so many classic elements has one inevitable conclusion: most of them get far too little screen time. The slurping, mucus-dripping Krang (a fan-pleasing interpretation of the old school cartoon version) barely gets a look in, and the fearsome Shredder is benched for the movie’s biggest action sequence.
The Turtles themselves don’t fare much better. The odd bit of soul-searching waffle about who they are, and whether or not they’re really a team isn’t enough to flesh out four distinct and tangible personalities; only Mikey succeeds, and he’s mostly quite irritating.
There are more quibbles: a trip to Brazil for some whitewater rafting action, presumably jammed in there to justify the Turtles jumping from an aeroplane without a parachute a la Keanu Reeves; and the threat of city wide destruction that makes the climatic showdown resemble every other superhero bonanza.
But then, Out of the Shadows is a big budget, sewer sludge for brains, Michael Bay-produced blockbuster – you could pick manhole cover-sized holes in it all day.
It’s still a vast improvement on the previous outing. Whether that’s down to new director Dave Green, the cast of retro-tastic characters, or the admirable shamelessness at which it moves from one entertaining sequence to the next is anyone’s guess.
But it’s fun – a big, shell-full of fun, and easily the best TMNT movie since their big screen debut way back in 1990 (that’s not saying much, mind you). It’s a film for both ends of the market: fanboys who’ve long wanted to see the classic cartoon brought to life, and kids who want big CG action and couldn’t care less what happened 30 years ago.
Turtle power indeed.
