Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

Thank God I can finally forget that the first attempt at rebooting this franchise ever happened.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, the sequel to the 2014 reboot, sees our Heroes in a Half Shell continue the fight for New York City as a new threat emerges from an alternate dimension, Hell bent on destroying everything they hold dear. Forced to keep themselves out of the public’s eye, the brothers face the very real idea that no matter what they do to save the people of NYC, they may never be truly accepted for who they are regardless of their heroic deeds. With Shredder back in the fray complete with new mutated henchmen in the form of Bebop and Rocksteady, the Turtles must fight to stay together as a cohesive unit and family before their enemies can tear them apart and rule what they try so hard to protect.

Let’s be honest here, that last attempt at rebooting the franchise was absolutely terrible. I don’t know if anyone would disagree with me at this point, but for the amount of things they did right, there were about twelve other things that ruined the overall experience in more ways than one. I don’t know what the filmmakers were thinking with that one, but for the sequel someone must have felt bad about putting out such a terrible film because while Out of the Shadows is not all that much better in terms of being an actual coherent movie, it pretty much makes up for the first film’s blunders in every other way.

First off, I can’t pinpoint exactly what was changed regarding the Turtles’ designs, but they are far less annoying and disturbing to look at this time around. Getting rid of Johnny Knoxville as the voice of Leo was a big plus and focusing more on the brotherly bonds between everyone benefits the movie greatly. Something felt inherently off about the film before this, but with a greater emphasis on TMNT lore and some truly great action set pieces, this is the most Ninja Turtle-y film I could have hoped for.

With a basic story that is cliché at best and a script that is full of terrible dialogue and convenient plot progression, the actual structure and execution of the film side of things is pretty bad, but it’s the care and attention paid to the Turtles themselves and their various plights that make this film stand out in more ways than one. For example, the interesting take on the Turtles’ mindset when it comes to always having to stick to the shadows and never getting any credit for what they do, is a great little subplot that shows that they are more than just overly large and grotesque six foot mutants. While pretty good in spots, (much like most of the other halfway decent things in the film), this subplot really doesn’t get as much attention paid to it as you would think, and even though I applaud the attempt at injecting something other than laughs and action into a film like this, I kinda wished more of this type of storytelling was explored. Either way, it doesn’t really hurt or help the film, just makes us get into the minds of the brothers a bit more. Couple that with the Leo/Ralph love/hate relationship and this film could have hit hard with some emotion instead of pretending to. Obviously the filmmakers would never sacrifice the balls-to-the-wall action set pieces for any real character development, but the potential and groundwork is there should they change their minds for another sequel.

The acting, as usual, isn’t the best, but markedly better than the last film. I wish they would stop over sexualizing April O’Neil simply because Megan Fox is in the role. I actually enjoy her take on the iconic reporter, she’s pretty damn smart and resourceful, but when that segues into long sweeping takes of Fox’s midriff in a school girl’s uniform much like a typical vapid eye candy role, it lessens her character by a wide margin. Casey Jones (Stephen Amell) on the other hand, is a welcome addition to the film and was surprisingly fun to watch, and while Amell actually takes Casey in a fun and likeable direction, the script does him no favors with his dialogue and character choices. Same thing goes for Bebop and Rocksteady: they’re immensely fun to watch once transformed, but the terrible dialogue in most of their scenes are cringe worthy at best.

On the action side of things, mostly everything here is fun and lively to a point. With none of the action making any damn sense, it’s hard to praise all of it entirely, but at this point, who really cares why the Turtles are jumping from one plane to another, thousands of feet up in the sky with no parachutes? I don’t, but holy helmets was it entertaining to see! The third act sees the film trip and fall into the same types of issues that the reboot had with stale-ish action and story resolution that seemed rushed and significantly less interesting than the rest of the movie, but I’ll take anything this film does compared to the first.

TMNT: Out of the Shadows is not a good movie by any means, but it’s damn fun and wildly entertaining and most importantly, it feels like a Ninja Turtles movie, which, for me at least, jacks up its final score significantly. Correcting pretty much everything the last film utterly ruined, Out of the Shadows is worth a watch for fans, and, in turn, becomes a much more tolerable film for everyone else. Let’s hope the improvements keep coming should a three-quel be commissioned, and to be honest, I’m looking forward to that inevitable announcement.