Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

If anyone had told me a couple of years ago that I would be seeing a film version of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", I would have said they were crazy. After seeing this version, they should have left well enough alone by keeping it in animated form.

Darkness has settled over New York City as Shredder (Tohoru Masamune) and his evil Foot Clan have an iron grip on everything from the police to the politicians. The future is grim until four unlikely outcast brothers, Raphael (Alan Ritchson), Michelangelo (Noel Fisher), Leonardo (Pete Ploszek and voiced by Johnny Knoxville), and Donatello (Jeremy Howard) rise from the sewers and discover their destiny as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles only after intense training from their master, Splinter (Danny Woodburn and voiced by Tony Shalhoub) teaching them all he knows of martial arts. The turtles must work with fearless reporter April O'Neil (Megan Fox) and her cameraman Vern Fenwick (Will Arnett) to save the city and unravel Shredder's diabolical plan.

Others to round out the cast are William Fichtner as Eric Sacks, Whoopi Goldberg as Bernadette Thompson, April's boss, Minae Noji as Karai, Abby Elliott as Taylor and Madison Mason as Councilman.

This was adequately directed by Jonathan Liebesman ("Darkness Falls" '03, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning" '06, "The Killing Room" '09, "Battle Los Angeles" '11, "Wrath of the Titans" '12). Interestingly, this guy chose a comedy (which this basically is) for a project in which to attempt. Considering his resume, which mostly represents the dark side of humanity, this is not the project he should've delved into. The real culprit here is the writing ,or lack thereof, which is by Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec, and Evan Daugherty based on The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman.
It is amazing that it took as many as three writers to come up with a plot that is as old as dirt itself. This premise has been produced a bazillion times, and even though I realize this is a fantastical, big-budget, high adrenaline, multi visual effects flick, it should still have some sort of interesting premise to work from. Actually, the real star here is ILM (Industrial, Light & Magic), which created the nifty, seamless visual effects. If these effects were not part of this production, there would not have been a film. Don't get me wrong, it's not a terrible film--there were some funny and interesting moments in this, but the overdone premise mixed with adequate acting and directing made this unremarkable. The recent "Guardians of the Galaxy" may have had a familiar premise, but its development of characters, fast paced directing, and how the premise was handled made that film rock! Take note writers.

Certainly if you have to see this, it best be on the large screen, if for no other reason than to take in those brilliant visual effects all rolled up into a neat 3D format. Cowabunga man!

Out of 4 Stars: 2                              Rated: PG-13                            101mins.