The vigilante reptiles on a half-shell are back, even cooler than before.
The turtles are back!
The latest movie featuring baby hatchlings that have matured into ninja turtles under the guidance of their rodent sensei, Splinter, is titled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.
And, into the limelight they went, as the hard-shelled reptiles took up about 112 minutes of the screen time, showing the obstacles and difficulties they had gone through, emerging with well-built physique and even washboard abs.
Donatello (voiced by Jeremy Howard), the scientist, inventor and engineer of the foursome, even unveiled his work-in-progress Garbage Truck, the turtle’s version of a Batmobile.
Directed by Dave Green based on a script written by Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec (same writers for the 2014 predecessor), the movie was produced by Michael Bay, who is known for his Transformers franchise. So, quality cinematography and graphic effects were only to be expected.
The main human role in the movie is April O’Neil played by Megan Fox. Like her character in Transformers, it seems that Fox’s role in both movies revolves around screaming when she’s in danger, giving the heroes an opportunity to save her.
In “Out of the Shadows”, the turtles thought that New York City will be peaceful after putting villain Shredder (acted and voiced by Brian Tee) behind bars. But O’Neil discovered the Foot Clan’s plan to attack the convoy that is transporting Shredder from one prison to another.
As the green heroes tried to save the day, they faced various challenges including a crisis involving a breakdown in their team dynamics as observed by the turtle leader Leonardo (voiced by Pete Ploszek).
Although the storyline is quite typical, I still enjoyed this movie, like I’ve always had for every TMNT film.
One particularly noteworthy scene for me involved the turtles and a river, where the graphics was just top-notch as it had to be done as closely and accurately as possible.
With the avalanche of DC and Marvel superheroes on the silver screen, it is a welcome change, to say the least, to see heroes appearing not in colourful spandex but as human-like turtles instead. What makes it even more entertaining is that each turtle has his own personality, which would widen its appeal among audiences worldwide.
Verdict: 6/10.
