October 5, 2016, at 11:34 p.m.
Yeah, this review is about six months late. If you don’t like, you can get the shell outta here. Therefore, there is no need to give spoiler alerts. If you are reading this movie review years from now (it’s late summer 2016), the second of the Micheal Bay era of TMNT movies was called Out of the Shadows and was directed by Dave Green. Out of the Shadows picks up right up where the first TMNT left off. Following excellent profit margins from the first film and including a three contract deal signed with Nickelodeon, a third film in the franchise inevitable. That begs the question, has the Bay era TMNT series has peaked with Out of the Shadows?
Let’s get some pros and cons out there right away.
Pros of TMNT: Out of the Shadows
This movie really gave the fans what they asked for. Many of the classic characters from the animated series, inside jokes (Holiday hip-hop album anyone?) and even the “Go Ninja, Go!” rap made an appearance in this film. Enough has been said about the inclusion of Bebop and Rocksteady already, but if you’d like to know about the musical styles that inspired these names, you can read about it here. While, I’m not sure if the fans demanded it, but Megan Fox, made me feel uncomfortably aroused while watching a PG movie.
Cons of TMNT: Out of the Shadows
That same sexual, unbuttoned blouse, school girl outfit that Fox paraded around in could also become one of the major downfalls of this movie. Was this a movie for a new young PG audience or was it for a full on adult audience who had grown up with the turtles in the 80s and 90s? Another major con was lack of Splinter screen time. One might argue that his two scenes, the one finger meditation and Casey Jones’ ill-fated attempt to attack him, were all the more meaningful because of his sparse appearances. I disagree. Splinter needed way more screen time, and they could have happily got rid of the police captain woman. She sucked.
Does OOTS Deliver on the TMNT Franchise?
Fans of the first TMNT heaped praise on the elevator rap scene, where the brothers took a moment to beatbox freestyle. Serving no purpose, other than to show the turtles having fun while in the midst of a major battle, the second movie was supposed to be filmed “entirely in an elevator.” There were some moments in OOTS that seemed to come close to this.
While the attempts by Michelangelo to force humor into every line of dialogue came across as formulaic, there were some genuinely good laughs interspersed throughout the film. Tyler Perry’s nerd laugh in the beginning of film was one of them. I wonder how many takes that required to get the perfect one.
Although I thought it was heavy on the CGI, I enjoyed this movie. While maybe not as dark as the original Eastman and Laird comic, the filmmakers did a great job of combining the essence of the turtles and melding in other corners of the TMNT lore within it. No easy task as fanboys lurk the internet in 2016, ready to troll anyone who dare anger them. TMNT: Out of the Shadows is a good addition to the franchise and will be a fun watch – for a few years at least.