I finally had time over the weekend to see the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles directed by Michael Bay. Before I get to the review of this film, I remember about a year ago when Michael Bay was trolling every hardcore TMNT fan on the internet by saying his version of the turtles would be aliens from outer space! I could not help but laugh very hard at this “rumor” that came out and the response from the fans was hilarious at best!
Now for the review, the plot of the movie is a bit different from the original TMNT, as in how the Foot Clans evil plans differ and how the four turtle brothers was created. The rest of the cast is also different from the original movie for Master Splinter, reporter April O’Neil, the Foot Clan and the Foot Ninjas, and along the main antagonist Shredder and his “armor.”
Main plot of TMNT is how the Foot Clan made a weapon to release in New York City with mass casualty, but this is where the plot of the movie gets interesting. To create this, Eric Sacks (played by William Fichtner) and Dr. O’Neil (played by Paul Fitzgerald) are two scientist working on Project Renaissance. Project Renaissance is a mutagen that is cultivated for it healing properties, to get this they had to inject the host and the host are four little baby turtles Leonard, Raphael, Donatello, Michael Angelo and a rat named Splinter. All five have been named after famous Renaissance icons, hence the name Project Renaissance!
This plot line is very different from the original movie. In the original film the Foot Clan, was just out to have young kids work for them just to steal stuff from wear houses and skip school! Then the four brothers and splinter was playing in a neon green toxin call the Ooze. For me this was a very different Teenage Mutant Turtles, I was use to seeing 5 foot 10 inch green rubber suit with just different colored eye mask. Not 8 foot tall CGI turtles while wearing different accessories so that the audience can tell them all apart.
So for me not to get into more the plot detail and if you still want to watch TMNT in the theaters, please feel free and share your opinion after seeing it. But for me, I would rate this new TMNT a 2.5 out of a 5.
As my favorite Michael Angelo would say “Cowabunga“