Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman
When a kingpin threatens New York City, a group of mutated turtle warriors must emerge from the shadows to protect their home.
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17 films that influenced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
What critics say influenced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
That witty, ambitious, cleverly written fantasy was part Walt Disney's "Pinocchio," Akira Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai," Walter Hill's "The Warriors" and part cautionary tale warning parents about the dangers of ignoring their children.
There’s also a more than passing resemblance to Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) in the film’s quirky camera shots, dark tone, and even several plot elements.
Like All the President's Men, the film shows how a dogged reporter can make a difference, toppling deranged kingpins with a notepad (and a smartphone).
Is TMNT 's main inspiration Batman Begins ?
Borrowing heavily from the superhero origin story formula of films like The Amazing Spider-Man and Batman Begins , which sees dead humanitarian parent A eventually lead to chemical attack on the city B, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles moves at a nice clip once the turtles themselves are revealed, though to the detriment of the human lead.
Here, he delivers about the last thing the culture needs: “The Dark Knight” of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies.
Yes, said nips and tucks are communicated in the form of infinitely wacky exposition, but who better to sell nonsensical dialogue than William Fichtner (“The Dark Knight”)?
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Initially assumed to belong to the schlocky ranks of spoof material like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes or The Toxic Avenger , TMNT soon distinguished itself by being every bit as out-there as the premise demanded.
Whoopi Goldberg (2010's " For Colored Girls ") runs with a couple scenes as news chief Bernadette Thompson, but she deserved a final send-off to more satisfyingly tie up her side plot with April.
Liebesman and screenwriters Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec ( Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol ), and Evan Daugherty (uh, Divergent ) make the turtles themselves mostly likable while also hewing somewhat close to the origins, mercifully abandoning the earlier, Highlander II -esque idea of making the turtles aliens, but still retconning things in order to increase the stakes for O'Neil and Sachs.
The latest culprit inspiring this exhausted rant (after "Transformers," "The Smurfs," etc.) is "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," a remarkably charmless revival of the comic book characters popularized by a late-'80s/mid-'90s animated series and two entertaining and one terrible live-action movies in the early '90s.
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Unfortunately, it’s the same TMNT your father got, although this time in eye-gouging 3-D, thanks to toy-movie-maker and merchandising mogul Michael Bay of “Transformers” fame.
Instead of stepping behind the camera, as he has with every installment of the Transformers franchise, the Hollywood hitmaker has passed directing duties to one of his disciples, Jonathan Liebesman ( Battle Los Angeles , Wrath Of The Titans ).
As with "Transformers," what makes this movie tolerable is plenty of slick action sequences (the director is Jonathan Liebesman) and a decent human support cast (Will Arnett, East Meadow's William Fichtner, a brief Whoopi Goldberg).
Much slicker-looking but less endearing than its ’90s live-action predecessors, the film manifests all the usual attributes of a Bay production — chaotic action, crass side jokes, visual-effects overkill, Megan Fox — but is nowhere near “Transformers”-level off-putting.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the 2014 iteration of a franchise that has been a kids' staple for more than 25 years, is a close cousin to Transformers.
Founded by Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, and Andrew Form back in 2001, the studio seemed to exist solely to suck the life out of beloved horror properties such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.