Now before I get down and dirty with my review, I'm gonna explain the film's age rating certificate. It's rated 12a. I'd like to know how it received that rating because TMNT is the most child friendly 12a I've ever seen. It's a straight up kids film. The trailers beforehand had 3 adverts selling the various types of turtle merchandise ready for the Christmas period. I must admit some of the toys did look fun. I fancied the look of the turtle van which reminded me of a big Action Man badass off road truck I had as a little lad. And that's what the film did for me, reminisce about my childhood memories. The turtles in this reboot just like in the previous films and TV series are great to watch. The entertainment value all came courtesy of the turtles and in particular Michelangelo, who's a typical creepy yet idiotically funny teenager. The best one liners directly came from him. All the turtles had clear distinctive personalities, making you care about them as characters. If I lived off pepperoni pizza all day like they do, I'd be one seriously obese but blissfully happy man!
When I am sucked into watching a kid orientated film, I try to cut it as much slack as I can because it's not aimed at an audience like myself. It's for the enjoyment of children and fingers crossed the parents can endure some pain and suffering for 90 mintues. Throughout the film I was wondering why the film was shot in a similar action style to Transformers. And then in a flash I remembered Mr Michael Bay was the film's executive producer. And he brings all the awfulness along with him. There are a number of comparisons to the Transformer films. Firstly the human characters. They're painfully horrendous in Transformers and in TMNT it's a mirror image. People were complaining beforehand that Megan Fox was completely miscast as April O'Neil. I can see why. Her acting is something I'd expect better from the person being the rear end of the donkey in the primary school nativity play. I'd rather have seen someone at an amateur dramatics play mess up there lines completely and the audience have a wild laugh about it. Appalling. Her character was the ultimate damsel in distress that needed to be thrown off the cliff to stop her getting in the way of everything. Speaking off useless, Will Arnett. His character was eyebrow raising creepy and was like an awkward relative who talks random crap and you don't know if they're trying to being funny or not. I haven't got a clue why he was in the film. Brought absolutely nothing. Another couple of Michael Bay traits in which he brings to the table are having an abysmal script and horrible camera work. The dialogue made me cringe back so hard that my face developed 3 separate chins. And annoying shaky cam to cover up any lazy CGI work wound me up after a while. Not to forget Shredder, who was the most wooden, boring villain they could have created. He kicked the turtle's backsides on numerous occasions but never once did he feel like a genuine threat. His armour looked impressive, but the man behind that was just a one dimensional bland bad guy. Nice one Michael Bay, you've done it again.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is not only just a film intentionally created for a kids audience but feels like it was produced by them too. Nasty horrible work on and off screen overshadows any laughs and fun that the turtles bring. I'm sure kids will adore this film but sadly I'm not that age anymore, as much as I want to be. This film is 10 years too late for me.
3/10
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