Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

The theme song from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ first animated television series brands the fighting critters in question the world’s most fearsome fighting team; however as the three-decade anniversary of their debut screen appearance nears, they’ve become a different kind of entity. While an initial trilogy of live-action films and then other TV outings have ensured that they’ve never truly disappeared from popular culture, the characters’ current live-action film incarnations smack of commercialised nostalgia. Like 2014’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before it, sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows appears more desperate to satisfy the fond memories of adult audiences than entertain younger viewers.

Of course, achieving both feats is as difficult as it is lucrative — and as keenly sought after by this and a wealth of other franchises. Alas, the latest Michael Bay-produced vision of the sewer-dwelling heroes in a half shell chooses the easiest approach: rehash a familiar chapter in the foursome’s narrative, re-introduce well-known adversaries absent from the preceding feature, and throw in a smattering of references only those acquainted with earlier iterations will appreciate, most notably. Then, it hopes that leaning heavily on established character traits and camaraderie, flinging about lowbrow one-liners, and focusing on as much action as possible will fill in the gaps. 

Cue a tale of Leonardo (Pete Ploszek, TV’s Teen Wolf), Donatello (Jeremy Howard, The Pretty One), Raphael (Alan Ritchson, The Wedding Ringer), and Michelangelo (Noel Fisher, Shameless) attempting to heed the wisdom of their rodent master Splinter (acted by Peter D. Badalementi, but voiced by Nurse Jackie’s Tony Shalhoub), and help save New York from a fresh round of Shredder’s (Brian Tee, Jurassic World) mayhem. The turtles still have trusty reporter April O’Neil (Megan Fox, New Girl) on their side, though her former cameraman Vernon Fenwick (Will Arnett, Flaked) is off taking credit for the group’s previous good deeds. Determined prison guard Casey Jones (Stephen Amell, Arrow) becomes a new ally, while their nemesis has three of his own: intergalactic brain Krang (Brad Garrett, Fargo), and mutant escaped cons Bebop (Gary Anthony Williams, The Soul Man) and Rocksteady (Stephen Farrelly, aka wrestler Sheamus). 

If the last chapter was more interested in its human figures than the creatures that gave the movie its moniker, the opposite proves true this time around, with their titular quest to step out of the shadows combined with their endeavours to stop Shredder and Krang’s attempted assembly of an alien weapon. Alas, promoting themes of acceptance, tolerance and self-assurance have become such common family film fodder that they feel like cursory inclusions in returning writer/producers Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec’s script. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows‘ message might be so blatant that it’s stated in its name, but it’s never more than a device to prompt some banter between the central foursome, and justify the inclusion of Laura Linney (Mr Holmes) as the police chief intertwined with their journey.

Instead, obvious gags and attention-seeking set pieces prove the film’s real focus, the former often nodding to the past and the latter as loud and chaotic as possible. It’s an uninspired mix, even with the feature actually at its best when it’s embracing its cartoonish ways and all-ages viewership, not to mention an approach that proves more and more grating over the course of 112 minutes. Accordingly, as it gives its human characters and the actors who play them much too little to do, and leans too heavily on unattractive computer-generated imagery elsewhere, director Dave Green’s (Earth to Echo) addition to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fold can’t manage to significantly improve upon its predecessor. This second effort may have a greater sense of affection at its core, but the continued need to cash in on a beloved property — and even hint at a future crossover with another in the same situation, the Transformers franchise — remains all too dispiritingly evident.

Rating: 2 stars out of 5