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‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows’ plunges into the darkness of mediocrity

Team spirit: Michelangelo (center) talks with April O’Neill (played by Megan Fox) and Casey Jones (Stephen Amell)

Hans David Tampubolon (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sat, June 4, 2016

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‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows’ plunges into the darkness of mediocrity

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span class="inline inline-center">Team spirit: Michelangelo (center) talks with April O’Neill (played by Megan Fox) and Casey Jones (Stephen Amell).(Courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows is a disappointing sequel to its predecessor, which successfully rebooted the classic Generation X tale of four mutated turtles who become vigilante ninjas protecting the city of New York.

The 2014 film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, directed by Jonathan Liebesman, did receive some harsh criticism, however, from people who grew up watching the Ninja Turtles cartoon in the 1990s, due to the film’s apparent deviation from the original source.

But those who read the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic books published by Mirage Comics in the 1980s had a greater appreciation of Liebesman’s adaptation, which presented a darker and grittier tune of comedic storytelling.

It seems that producer Michael Bay decided to cater to fans of the 1990s cartoon series when making Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows and therefore, there are a lot of changes from the preceding film.

The first significant change is the director. Liebesman is not involved in this sequel, replaced by Dave Green, whose previous work was Earth To Echo in 2014.

Another significant change is the visuals of the turtles.

In Liebesman’s version, he made them gigantic, around 2.5 meters in height. In the spirit of returning the turtle visuals to the original source reference, Green has made them smaller. For those watching the earlier film, this significant change of size can be a bit confusing.

Also, in the spirit of bringing back the mood of the 1990s cartoon, Green introduces a much more light-hearted comedic narrative. To support this narrative, he introduces some iconic comical baddies from the 1990s comics: Bebop (Gary Anthony) and Rocksteady (played by pro-wrestler Sheamus), two street thugs who are recruited and mutated by villainous master ninja Shredder (Brian Tee), who turns them into warthog and rhino monsters.

Bebop and Rocksteady represent goofy characters who possess brute strength but little intelligence. Like in the cartoon, the film depiction of Bebop and Rocksteady features a lot of clumsiness that makes them victims of their own stupidity.

Dumb and dumber: Bebop and Rocksteady, two iconic characters from the cartoon, appear in the sequel.(Courtesy of Paramount Pictures)
Dumb and dumber: Bebop and Rocksteady, two iconic characters from the cartoon, appear in the sequel.(Courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

Then there is Krang (Brad Garrett), another iconic villain from the cartoon. Krang is an alien warlord and although he is practically just a brain flying around supported by a robotic body, he possesses power so great that even Shredder decides to work for him in order to dominate the world.

For the protagonist, Green introduces Casey Jones (Stephen Amell), a correctional officer turn vigilante in his search for Bebop, Rocksteady and Shredder who managed to escape under his watch.

While Green had good intentions bringing back the light-hearted comical mood of the cartoon, his narrative and presentation lack energy, making the characters boring. In addition, he uses a lot more telling than showing in delivering the film.

The start of the film quickly demonstrates this problem, with a CGI-sequence of the four turtles — Leonardo (voiced by Pete Ploszek), Donatello (Jeremy Howard), Raphael (Alan Ritchson) and Michelangelo (Noel Fisher) — walking through the sewers. As this happens, Green uses the opportunity to literally explain straight away who they are and what characters and roles each of them have using text captions, which comes across very bland.

Then there are characters who keep on telling the audience about their personalities, but their acting just does not back up the claim. Casey says over and over again that how he is a hot-headed kind of guy, but most of his screen time is spent playing a sweet charming guy who becomes the love interest of April O’Neill (badly played once again by Megan Fox), the television journalist who keeps the turtles a secret from the city of New York.

The comedic narrative in the sequel is also far less edgy, with too much slapstick that might make children giggle but makes the teenage and young-adult segment of the audience yawn. There are some refreshing satirical references to pop and celebrity-obsessed cultures, which there should have been more of to make the film more entertaining.

The action and fight scenes in this film also hardly represent ninja spirit. The only “ninja” action that the turtles get up to is at the beginning of the film when they sneak to Madison Square Garden to watch an NBA match between the New York Knicks and the LA Clippers.

Last but not least, Green also fails to present a believable brotherly chemistry between the turtles, the way Liebesman managed to do. The earlier film presented a well-told story of conflict and reconciliation among the turtles but in the sequel, the tension between them is so underdeveloped that their decision to reunite and work as a team feels insignificant.
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows

Paramount Pictures, 112 minutes

Directed by Dave Green
Produced by Michael Bay
Starring: Megan Fox, Stephen Amell, Will Arnett, Brian Tee and Tyler Perry

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