Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2014 Film Review

The TMNT is a brand that alot of us know be it from the original comics to the 1987 animated series , the nineties live action movies or alot of the other animated shows and movies. Bottom line as these characters are really well known with the film that i'm going to be talking to you all about today despite spawning a sequel film of it's own is a good example of how not to do these characters as while the film does have some cool aspects it makes so many changes to the established lore that it might as well be a different franchise all together and so then join me as I review the film that tries to make us believe that Splinter learned the art of ninjitsu from a book with the film in question being called simply just "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" enjoy.

The plot of this film is when New York finds itself under a crime wave thanks to The Foot Clan a young reporter must team up with four turtles to save the day and stop The Shredder from achieving his end goal of wanting to poison New York City for good. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty person ally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad with this films plot being solid enough for a more darker take o the turtles as it's pretty much the plot of the original 1990 movie however in that movie they also knew to give the film heart and that is something that is missing from this plot as it's more focused on changing things from the characters backstory then it is in giving us a well thought out plot as on paper this films plot could have been really good as it had all of the potential to be a really good plot and yet for one reason or another the makers of this film didn't take that chance and while this films plot is indeed strong enough to carry an entire film it still needs to be focused on have alot of thought and effort put into it and that's something that the plot of this film is lacking with these things combining to make what should have been a really good plot feel alot more weaker so much so that this could have been the plot of a made for TV or even a made for DVD TMNT movie and nothing would need to be changed as that's what the quality of this films plot with the plot of this film not really being really rather entertaining and nor is it really rather engaging either in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Starring in this film is Johnny Knoxville as the voice Leonardo , Jeremy Howard as Donatello and Alan Ritchson as Raphael. Also starring in this film is Noel Fisher as Michelangelo , Megan Fox as April O'Neil , Will Arnett as Vern Fenwick , Whoopi Goldberg as Bernadette Thompson , Minae Noji as Karai , Taran Killam as Jim McNaughton , Paul Fitzgerald as Dr. O'Neil , William Fichtner as Eric Sacks , Tony Shalhoub as the voice of Splinter and Tohoru Masamune as The Shredder.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. With all of this films actors doing the absolute best that they could do in this film the issue is tho is that alot of this films actors do feel horribly miscast like for example Johnny Knoxville who isn't a bad actor by any means but he's not the person that you think of when you think of someone who could play Leonardo and it's alot of that with alot of this films actors including Megan Fox who does do a passable job in this film but you don't think of her when you think of someone who could play this character with the films best actor being William Fichtner as he comes across as the only one that fully knows that he's in a campy movie and is just having fun with his role whereas all of the films other actors play there roles super straight which makes them less fun to watch and yet he is the only one that's playing up to the films campy title as a film called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles should be a campy and over the top film and as he's the only one that knows that he can have more fun with his performance and that is something that really does shine through in his final performance in the film with the acting that's in this film not really being helped by the fact that the script for this film is just so bad as it gives none of this films actors absolutely nothing to work with interms of what it is that there actual characters personalities are even meant to be in the first place which is something that really does harm the overall quality of the acting that's in this very film.

Doing the CGI for this film is Industrial Light & Magic , Zhaoflix LI , Image Engine Design , Base FX , Tippett Studio , Virtuos , Hybride Technologies , Atomic Fiction , Shade VFX and Lola Visual Effects. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad as while the turtles themselves have designs that are very busy at best the actual effects on the characters does look really good something which is not all that surprising given who is working on this film from an effects point of view with the films effects looking really good as you can tell that alot more thought and effort went into this films effects then what was given to the films plot with the only thing that does let the films effects done being the fact that all of the characters like the turtles and The Shredder are given really busy designs which just isn't needed and yet if you look back at the 1990 movie where the designs for all of the characters was really simple and because of that the characters became alot more memorable whereas here in this film whilst the characters are indeed memorable it's not for any good reason rather it's because of the fact that the makers of this film put to much things on to those characters that it becomes distracting whereas if they went the more simpler route with the characters it would have worked out alot more better in the long run but in saying this tho the films CGI characters do blend in really well with the films live action elements with this being because of the fact that alot of the actors who voiced the turtles actually played them on set through the use of motion capture.

For some odd reason not only did the makers of this film make April the lead character along with Raphael. The also altered alot of the turtles backstory as now instead of being four random turtles on the streets of New York they along with Splinter are now all former pets of April who saved them when her father's lab cought fire with Splinter even learning the art of ninjitsu from a book with this whole thing not really working as the original origin story for Splinter was perfect as it is as he was a pet rat who's owner just so happened to learn ninjitsu and it was seeing his master practice those moves every day that helped Splinter learn this ancient art as well as he would copy him with the turtles just being four random turtles that one day in New York much like Splinter crawled into some Ooze which mutated them and that was it and that origin story works because of how simple it is and yet by giving the turtles and Splinter this connection to April it now overly complicates things as now you have to wonder why not only did she forget having these five animals as pets in the first place but also why didn't she go looking for them as surely she would have been worried about them and yet with the original backstory for the characters none of that was there and it still worked as you still got across just what the turtles and splinter meant to April and what she means to them and yet this was all thrown way for no good reason when sometimes going the more simple route is the best route to go even more when you take into account that these are characters that don't really demand a deep and complicated backstory for them to work they just need something simple and that's it and that's not what we got in this film.

As for making Raphael one of the main characters of the film this is something that does make alot of sense as you could very well argue that the 1990 movie also had him be the films main character. Yet the film doesn't really give us a reason to care not only for him but also the rest of it's characters and heck the film sends alot more time making Raphael be the but of the joke which is fine for one maybe two scenes but alot of the film is spent making fun of him and yet he's meant to be the main turtle character in the film with him not even having an arc or much of a personality outside of the fact that he's the angry one of the group say what you will about the 2007 film but they at least explained why he was like that by having Splinter say that he wears his emotions on his chest s he shoulders all of the responsibility from his brothers where as here we get no scene like that and OK the same thing is also true for the 1990 movie but that version of Raphael at the very least had a reason to be this angry in that movie as he believed that his father had died infront of him where as in this film right from the moment that we see him he's angry and that doesn't work when he's meant to be the main character of the film as you have to give us a reason really any kind of reason would do to make us care for him as character and yet because of the fact that the makers of this film really wanted to make April be the main character f this TEENAGE MUTAN NINJA TURTLES movie and not any of the turtles it does mean that we are stuck with a character that we don't really like as our main character with the same thing even being true for the rest of the turtles as the film doesn't give is us a reason to care for any of them when these should be the easiest characters in the world to make likable and yet there was no effort put into making them likable.

The Shredder does feel wasted in this film as he was never originally meant to be the villain of the film as that was going to be Eric Sacks. Yet due to the film undergoing alot of reshoots even after the first trailer came out which had Eric Sacks as the main villain all just to force in The Shredder as a new character it means that he does get done dirty in this film as not only do we not get to see his face when he's outside of his costume but he's not really given a reason to hate Splinter and the turtles as the film doesn't give him one which means that he hates them for no reason whatsoever and while the shot of him revealing more knifes in his suit is a cool shot to have in the trailer in the movie it's just pointless as he does nothing with them with even his plan to poison New York being something that does feel half baked as that feels more like a plane that Eric would come up with and given the fact his character is in the pharmaceutical business it would make sense that he would come up with that plan as then he could sell the antidote to people and make more money off of them yet for someone like The Shredder who doesn't really need money achieve his goals it's not something that makes sense as he would be the type of the character who would want to take over the world and who would want to take over New York City not for any particualr reason rather it's just because he could do with this making it more obvious that he was never meant to be the films original villain as it does come across as there being no thought and no plan for the character in this film whatsoever where as with Eric you can see that he set up to the main villain of the film.

Now then this film has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly one hour and forty one minuets and eighteen seconds. Which to be fair to this film is a perfectly solid running time for this film to have as this is a film that really does need that amount of running time in the first place just due to how much things that the film does have to set up in the first place with the film even having the right amount of plot thee to cover that amount of running time in the first place yet this film doesn't really use its running time all that wisely as the film doesn't bother to fully develop its plot at all with it being made clear as day that the makers of the film put alot more thought and effort into making sure that we know that April is the main of the character then in actually developing the plot of the film when if the makers of this film wanted to make the film good in the first place then all they had to do was give more time in fully developing the films plot with the makers of this film not even taking the time to fully develop any of its characters even April gets nothing in the way of character development as we know just as much about any of this films characters coming out of the film then we did coming into the film with this being due to the fact that the makers of this film really put alot more thought into correcting mistakes that they made whilst making the film then into actually giving us a a good film with well developed and thought out characters which does mean that we end up with a film where the plot is half baked but decent at best and the films characters are about as deep as a puddle and have the amount of personality to match but i really will admit that this film really does have some really good pacing to it tho.

So now then as this is an action film that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. With this films action being the best thing in the film as it's where the turtles get to actually feel like themselves with them all having these really cool moves that look really good with this being due to the fact that the action for this film was designed by 87Eleven who did all of the action in the John Wick films and you can tell that they worked on this film as the films action is incredibly fun to watch and while the attack on the lair is a really good action scene in it's own right it would have been more effective if that scene was better saved for a sequel film as then the lair could be built up as the one place where are heroes always going to be safe with the best action scene in the whole film being the chase scene down the mountain as that's where we get to see the turtles being really creative and being forced to use there weapons in really creative and fun ways which is something that does make that sequence really fun to watch as a turtles action scene should always be fun as these are characters that would do these really fun and creative things and yet the rest of the films action whilst they are really good to watch there all lacking that extra special something that makes them standout and that makes them something that you'd want to see in a TMNT movie but to be fair tho this films action scenes are still really good in there own right in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Overall out of this movie and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows this one is still the more better of the two films but that film is the more fun to watch as it gives us the characters as we wanted them to be like in this film and while yes that film is still bad it's also one that's more fun to watch then what this film is despite the fact that this film is easily the better of the two films in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very film in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 6 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all pf the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get images really from this very film being the really great Google Images this is really because of the fact that really all of the images that I really indeed got and really used from Google Images are all really high quality really with all of the images that really are all and of course really currently up and on the really great and the really solid Google Images really are all being really fairly high in quality and as well as them all really being fairly high in definition.