Rating of
1.5/4
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
Unknown - wrote on 06/14/16
'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows' sets out to right the wrongs of the previous new live-action incarnation of the cartoon heroes and makes new wrongs in the process. This would've been a better film than the drab 'TMNT' we got two years ago, if it wasn't for a complete incompetence in storytelling. The four turtles have much more screen time than before, but it's not put to good use. They aren't given any development at all. Very little attention is given to the human characters and the villains. When we see the four brothers in action, the film flirts with the idea of fun. However, that's the only thing we ever see them do. The entire plot is a vague mess of very, very short scenes that comprise of rapid exposition followed by an action sequence; rinse and repeat with no breathers in-between. It's as if we're watching a single (mediocre) episode of the formulaic cartoon being stretched into a two-hour movie. The whole thing is just a simple romp of, "Here's a bad guy, let's fight him.". Only problem is that the two head villains, Shredder and Krang, are barely in the movie at all and when they are it's solely for exposition purposes. The only saving graces (kind of) are the two dimwitted human-animal hybrid henchmen, Bebop and Rocksteady. They have the most screen time of anyone outside the turtles and they use it to their advantage. The duo are entertaining in their dumb ways and they make formidable (albeit brief) opponents for the turtles. Their scenes with the turtles, and the turtles' standalone scenes, are the only good parts of the film. The rest is just an empty waste. If the filmmakers hadn't focused entirely on emulating the look of the cartoon to appease fans, and also put effort into other areas, this could've been something all-around fun at the least.
