TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA DISAPPOINTMENT
Saw the new Ninja Turtles movie this week.
It was not very good.
Before I get much deeper I feel that I should warn you...
SPOILERS AHEAD
Okay, good... here we go.
I'm a TMNT fan. I wouldn't call myself a die-hard, but I watched the cartoon, I had the toys and I saw all three of the movies in the theater. So I was pumped to see the new film. You've got The Foot Clan, you've got immortal stone warriors, you've got Thir-firckin'-teen monsters from another dimension and you've got Casey "Wayne Gretzky On Steroids" Jones! Plus, it's animated, so there's all sorts of ninja-tastic attacks that could grace the silver screen.
Knowing what I do now, if I could talk to my past self, it would go like this:
Future Me: Maaaaaaaaatt!
Past Me: Me?
Future Me: It's You, from the Fuuuuuuture!
Past Me: Wow.
Future Me: I know, cool, huh?
Past Me: No, it looks like you missed a spot shaving. Did you do it with your eyes closed?
Future Me: Wow. Not cool, Dick. Maybe if you'd gone out and bought new razors like the list said...
Past Me: Sorry, sorry. So, what brings you to Sunday morning March 25, 2007? If you're here to help with my NCAA bracket I could have used you two weeks ago.
Future Me: Yeah, sorry about that. I'll write that down for next year. Under the razors.
Past Me: Dude. Let it go. And can we hurry this up? We're going to see Ninja Turtles later today.
Future Me: That's what I've come here to tell you! Ninja Turtles is not going to be good!
Past Me: What are you talking about? Are you high? Did I start smoking weed in the very near future? Let me see your tongue.
Future Me: Get you hands off me! I'm telling you the truth! The movie, despite your hopes, will not be good. You will even make this face *stunned expression* near the end.
Past Me: ...From awesomeness... right?
Future Me: I wish. No, from the sheer lack of awesomeness.
Past Me: But-but-but- it's got The Foot Clan!
Future Me: They're just lackeys chasing after 13 giant monsters from another world.
Past Me: You must be thinking of some other Foot clan.
Future Me: I wish I was.
Past Me: Why would Shredder allow that?
Future Me: Shredder is DEAD.
Past Me: What? Ohhh, that's right, his daughter or something is in charge, right?
Future Me: I guess. I don't think they say. But she's voiced by Ziyi Zhang.
Past Me: The girl from Hidden Tiger.
Future Me: Yes.
Past Me: But... she doesn't speak English very well.
Future Me: No. No she doesn't. And she's Chinese. Leading Japanese Ninjas.
Past Me: Okay, so that's... not so good. But hey, you said Thirteen monsters from another world right? That's gotta be awesome!
Future Me: Actually those will all be handled by these four immortal stone warriors. Other than the first and "twelfth" monster the most you'll see of the other 11 monsters is a quick montage as they're all captured and caged.
Past Me: Then why'd they make it 13 monsters? Why not make it, I don't know, three? And why was twelfth in quotes?
Future Me: You could see that?
Past Me: You did the thing with your fingers.
Future Me: Oh, right. Well see, I'm pretty sure the stone warriors say they only have one monster left to capture, and then it cuts to Rafe fighting a monster, but that monster isn't the thirteenth, because the thirteenth is this big dinosaur monster that Casey and April trick into entering the energy portal.
Past Me: Yes! Casey Jones! That's gotta be awesome, right? And April's gotta be kinda hot.
Future Me: Ummm.. yeah, about that. Ummm.. Casey looks like a 14 year old with a mullet and April has a waist smaller than her neck.
Past Me: Um. Well-
Future Me: And she's a ninja.
Past Me: Well that's ju-
Future Me: And an artifact hunter.
Past Me: ...
Future Me: Yeah.
Past Me: ... just- just tell me about the fights. The fights have to be cool, right?
Future Me: There is one decent fight, and it's Leonardo versus Raph/Night Watcher.
Past Me: Night Watcher?
Future Me: Yeah, it's Raph's crime fighting disguise that he came up with during the year that Leo's been gone. But no one can figure out it's him, even though he sleeps all day, is a staunch defender of the Night Watcher and the costume makes him look like a big metal turtle. He does have these cool chain weapons though.
Past Me: Well that's cool, right?
Future Me: He uses them, like, twice.
Past Me: I'm starting to wish you hadn't come back to tell me all this.
Future Me: It gets worse.
Past Me: Please, I don't know if I can take anymore.
Future Me: Splinter looks like Chester Cheetah.
Past Me: No!
Future Me: They let Kevin Smith voice a character!
Past Me: Noooo!
Future Me: The second to last fight scene uses a P.O.D. song from 4 years ago!
Past Me: Whyyyyyy?!?
Future Me: The turtles use smoke bombs to sneak away, even though there's 7 of them standing side-by-side and they only have one door they can enter through.
Past Me: ... WHAT?!?!
Future Me: And umm... well I feel bad even mentioning this.
Past Me: You've gone this far, I can take it.
Future Me: In... in the end... of the movie... the Turtles, well, they fight the four stone warriors.
Past Me: Coool?
Future Me: Splinter says they'll be able to defeat them because the Turtles are now fighting like a family again.
Past Me: So, cool?
Future Me: I'm not done. They "fight as a family"-
Past Me: There's those quote marks again.
Future Me: Which means each turtle fights an individual warrior, and none of them provide any back-up for the other.
Past Me: Oh. Soooooo...
Future Me: Not cool? Yeah, pretty much. Oh, and Leo gets knocked into a display case of swords, picks up all the swords, stands there with all the swords on his back and then is never shown using any of them. At all.
Past Me: The horror. The horror.
Future Me: So, you can understand why I came back?
Past Me: Yes. Thank you Future Matt.
Future Me: You're welcome Past Matt. Oh, and one last thing?
Past Me: Yes?
Future Me: There was an Underdog trailer. It won't be good either.
Past Me: Natch.
It was not very good.
Before I get much deeper I feel that I should warn you...
SPOILERS AHEAD
Okay, good... here we go.
I'm a TMNT fan. I wouldn't call myself a die-hard, but I watched the cartoon, I had the toys and I saw all three of the movies in the theater. So I was pumped to see the new film. You've got The Foot Clan, you've got immortal stone warriors, you've got Thir-firckin'-teen monsters from another dimension and you've got Casey "Wayne Gretzky On Steroids" Jones! Plus, it's animated, so there's all sorts of ninja-tastic attacks that could grace the silver screen.
Knowing what I do now, if I could talk to my past self, it would go like this:
Future Me: Maaaaaaaaatt!
Past Me: Me?
Future Me: It's You, from the Fuuuuuuture!
Past Me: Wow.
Future Me: I know, cool, huh?
Past Me: No, it looks like you missed a spot shaving. Did you do it with your eyes closed?
Future Me: Wow. Not cool, Dick. Maybe if you'd gone out and bought new razors like the list said...
Past Me: Sorry, sorry. So, what brings you to Sunday morning March 25, 2007? If you're here to help with my NCAA bracket I could have used you two weeks ago.
Future Me: Yeah, sorry about that. I'll write that down for next year. Under the razors.
Past Me: Dude. Let it go. And can we hurry this up? We're going to see Ninja Turtles later today.
Future Me: That's what I've come here to tell you! Ninja Turtles is not going to be good!
Past Me: What are you talking about? Are you high? Did I start smoking weed in the very near future? Let me see your tongue.
Future Me: Get you hands off me! I'm telling you the truth! The movie, despite your hopes, will not be good. You will even make this face *stunned expression* near the end.
Past Me: ...From awesomeness... right?
Future Me: I wish. No, from the sheer lack of awesomeness.
Past Me: But-but-but- it's got The Foot Clan!
Future Me: They're just lackeys chasing after 13 giant monsters from another world.
Past Me: You must be thinking of some other Foot clan.
Future Me: I wish I was.
Past Me: Why would Shredder allow that?
Future Me: Shredder is DEAD.
Past Me: What? Ohhh, that's right, his daughter or something is in charge, right?
Future Me: I guess. I don't think they say. But she's voiced by Ziyi Zhang.
Past Me: The girl from Hidden Tiger.
Future Me: Yes.
Past Me: But... she doesn't speak English very well.
Future Me: No. No she doesn't. And she's Chinese. Leading Japanese Ninjas.
Past Me: Okay, so that's... not so good. But hey, you said Thirteen monsters from another world right? That's gotta be awesome!
Future Me: Actually those will all be handled by these four immortal stone warriors. Other than the first and "twelfth" monster the most you'll see of the other 11 monsters is a quick montage as they're all captured and caged.
Past Me: Then why'd they make it 13 monsters? Why not make it, I don't know, three? And why was twelfth in quotes?
Future Me: You could see that?
Past Me: You did the thing with your fingers.
Future Me: Oh, right. Well see, I'm pretty sure the stone warriors say they only have one monster left to capture, and then it cuts to Rafe fighting a monster, but that monster isn't the thirteenth, because the thirteenth is this big dinosaur monster that Casey and April trick into entering the energy portal.
Past Me: Yes! Casey Jones! That's gotta be awesome, right? And April's gotta be kinda hot.
Future Me: Ummm.. yeah, about that. Ummm.. Casey looks like a 14 year old with a mullet and April has a waist smaller than her neck.
Past Me: Um. Well-
Future Me: And she's a ninja.
Past Me: Well that's ju-
Future Me: And an artifact hunter.
Past Me: ...
Future Me: Yeah.
Past Me: ... just- just tell me about the fights. The fights have to be cool, right?
Future Me: There is one decent fight, and it's Leonardo versus Raph/Night Watcher.
Past Me: Night Watcher?
Future Me: Yeah, it's Raph's crime fighting disguise that he came up with during the year that Leo's been gone. But no one can figure out it's him, even though he sleeps all day, is a staunch defender of the Night Watcher and the costume makes him look like a big metal turtle. He does have these cool chain weapons though.
Past Me: Well that's cool, right?
Future Me: He uses them, like, twice.
Past Me: I'm starting to wish you hadn't come back to tell me all this.
Future Me: It gets worse.
Past Me: Please, I don't know if I can take anymore.
Future Me: Splinter looks like Chester Cheetah.
Past Me: No!
Future Me: They let Kevin Smith voice a character!
Past Me: Noooo!
Future Me: The second to last fight scene uses a P.O.D. song from 4 years ago!
Past Me: Whyyyyyy?!?
Future Me: The turtles use smoke bombs to sneak away, even though there's 7 of them standing side-by-side and they only have one door they can enter through.
Past Me: ... WHAT?!?!
Future Me: And umm... well I feel bad even mentioning this.
Past Me: You've gone this far, I can take it.
Future Me: In... in the end... of the movie... the Turtles, well, they fight the four stone warriors.
Past Me: Coool?
Future Me: Splinter says they'll be able to defeat them because the Turtles are now fighting like a family again.
Past Me: So, cool?
Future Me: I'm not done. They "fight as a family"-
Past Me: There's those quote marks again.
Future Me: Which means each turtle fights an individual warrior, and none of them provide any back-up for the other.
Past Me: Oh. Soooooo...
Future Me: Not cool? Yeah, pretty much. Oh, and Leo gets knocked into a display case of swords, picks up all the swords, stands there with all the swords on his back and then is never shown using any of them. At all.
Past Me: The horror. The horror.
Future Me: So, you can understand why I came back?
Past Me: Yes. Thank you Future Matt.
Future Me: You're welcome Past Matt. Oh, and one last thing?
Past Me: Yes?
Future Me: There was an Underdog trailer. It won't be good either.
Past Me: Natch.
posted by Matt Worzala at
2:55 PM
5 Comments:
You know, for someone who disliked the movie so much I certainly do recall hearing a lot of laughter from you. And not,"This movie sucks horribly bad" laughter, but "Hey, I'm enjoying this!" laughter. Oh, and remember who the target audience is for this movie? Kids. You know why? Because they're not harsh and overly critical. :)
By
Peter, at 10:15 AM
Kids schmids, the plot was still bad. I also don't think I'm asking a lot for some actual fighting in my Ninja movie. And I did laugh. I didn't say the movie wasn't funny, just not good. I also made this face *are you KIDDING me face* several times towards the end.
By
Matt Worzala, at 2:12 PM
BLASPHEMY!
It is by no means an oscar-worthy movie. It was never meant to be. You know what the movie wanted to do? Entertain.
And entertain it did.
Having them fight off against each of the thirteen monsters would just bog down and slow the overall plot. However, them all being in New York City at once is a little too convenient.
My only real problem is that we've all seen the Leo headbutting with Raphael before. I can understand why they still did it; for anyone new to the series and to reinvent it. But still, the sequel should have something new. Like how unappreciated Donatello is. Or about how much of a screw up Michaelangelo is and doesn't fight well. Or something like that.
By
TDP Jared, at 6:18 PM
P.S. I wrote a review for TMNT on my blog, if you haven't read it yet.
http://pjspider.blogspot.com
And if you're interested, check the discussion boards. There's a mildly amusing debate going on about Venom's look in Spider-Man 3.
By
Peter, at 12:27 PM
See, that's the problem right there. I wasn't even all that entertained by the movie. I was too busy thinking, when are we going to see a fight? Why are Raph and Leo butting heads AGAIN? How stupid is it that the other three turtles weren't allowed to fight crime while Leo was gone? How is fighting individually and not backing each other considered fighting "as a family"?
And if 13 monsters is going to bog a movie down, easiest solution is to not include 13 monsters.
I was entertained at parts, but I spent from Splinter's reassurance talk to Raph to Mikey's retiring his oversized head disappointed. And that's a loooong stretch of time.
I read Peter's review (and clicked the ad). I thought it was a fine review, I just didn't agree with the final verdict.
By
Matt Worzala, at 3:52 PM
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