2008 Woodie Awards
Losers in a half-shell
Owen Larkin '07
Issue date: 3/29/07 Section: Arts & Entertainment
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Seriously, people, let us step back from the glorious memories of a childhood heroes, take a deep breath, and contemplate this for a second. Teenage . . . Mutant . . . Ninja. . . Turtles.
Perhaps it is due to the state of our young minds when we first encountered these crime fighters, or simply the light-hearted goofiness of the old cartoon and live-action movies, but as a child I was able to overlook this interesting mix of words and simply enjoy the show. But now, a decade and a half later, watching a movie that tries to make something serious out of a ridiculous situation, I am struck by the absolute absurdity of a director trying to make a masterpiece out of four pubescent, shelled animals who have been transformed by the urge to fight crime in the streets of New York.
At the start of the film, the brothers are barely even friends. Leonardo is protecting villagers in Central Mexico, Michelangelo is floundering as an entertainer for birthday parties, Donatello is a tech support guy, and Raphael is sleeping all day and fighting criminals at night. Perhaps this makes some logical sense, but quite frankly, they tried to reinvent characters that needed no new images. This is particularly true of Mikey, whose lines seem forced and are so overwhelmingly annoying that the director (Kevin Munroe) was able to strip the franchise of its comic background.
April O'Neil is no longer a reporter but a sort of antiques dealer/archeologist. This makes a bit of sense if you recall that she lived over an antiques shop in the first film, but it stills falls short of the woman we remember in the earlier cartoons. Oh, and she can fight now.
She lives with her boyfriend, Casey Jones, the tamed version of our athletic tough guy, who could have saved this movie, but failed to do so out of his own uncharacteristic dandyness. Too much cricket in the off season, I suppose.
The CGI animation is top notch, but it moves so quickly that you have to close your eyes to keep from throwing up on the little kids in the row in front of you. Maybe I would have loved it as a child, but aside from the amazing fight scene at the end, the movie exchanged a few stunning visuals for a well-crafted battle.
Perhaps it is due to the state of our young minds when we first encountered these crime fighters, or simply the light-hearted goofiness of the old cartoon and live-action movies, but as a child I was able to overlook this interesting mix of words and simply enjoy the show. But now, a decade and a half later, watching a movie that tries to make something serious out of a ridiculous situation, I am struck by the absolute absurdity of a director trying to make a masterpiece out of four pubescent, shelled animals who have been transformed by the urge to fight crime in the streets of New York.
At the start of the film, the brothers are barely even friends. Leonardo is protecting villagers in Central Mexico, Michelangelo is floundering as an entertainer for birthday parties, Donatello is a tech support guy, and Raphael is sleeping all day and fighting criminals at night. Perhaps this makes some logical sense, but quite frankly, they tried to reinvent characters that needed no new images. This is particularly true of Mikey, whose lines seem forced and are so overwhelmingly annoying that the director (Kevin Munroe) was able to strip the franchise of its comic background.
April O'Neil is no longer a reporter but a sort of antiques dealer/archeologist. This makes a bit of sense if you recall that she lived over an antiques shop in the first film, but it stills falls short of the woman we remember in the earlier cartoons. Oh, and she can fight now.
She lives with her boyfriend, Casey Jones, the tamed version of our athletic tough guy, who could have saved this movie, but failed to do so out of his own uncharacteristic dandyness. Too much cricket in the off season, I suppose.
The CGI animation is top notch, but it moves so quickly that you have to close your eyes to keep from throwing up on the little kids in the row in front of you. Maybe I would have loved it as a child, but aside from the amazing fight scene at the end, the movie exchanged a few stunning visuals for a well-crafted battle.