Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows - A Missed Opportunity?
The second installment of the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” series introduces beloved characters to the plot, but unforgivably reduces the number of action scenes.
When Shredder (Brian Tee), under arrest, is being transferred between prisons, his Foot Clan minions orchestrate his escape. The Ninja Turtles try to stop them, and during the chase, Baxter Stockman (Tyler Perry), Shredder’s “mad scientist,” accidentally teleports the leader to a parallel dimension, where he falls into the hands of the monstrous Krang. Krang, who has long planned to conquer Earth, promises to share power with Shredder if he prepares the ground for invasion upon his return to New York. Meanwhile, police officer Casey Jones (Stephen Amell), who was involved in Shredder’s transport and “lost” not only the sinister ninja but also two other inmates, Bebop and Rocksteady, finds that no one believes his stories about teleportation and ninja turtles. Therefore, he decides to investigate the matter himself and find the fugitives.
![Still from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2”](/sites/default/files/images/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Out of the Shadows.jpg "Still from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2"”)
While some Hollywood producers and directors try to simultaneously conquer critics and the box office, Michael Bay seems to have accepted that his blockbusters do well in theaters but are torn to shreds by critics and moviegoers. The apotheosis of Bay’s middle finger to the savvy audience was the 2014 release of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” Devoted fans of the reptile-mutant saga then lost their voices, screaming in YouTube videos about how the film produced by Bay and directed by Jonathan Liebesman spat in their souls and trampled their childhood memories of the 1980s animated series. Professional critics were also, to put it mildly, not thrilled. However, the picture with a budget of $125 million grossed almost $500 million and confirmed that nothing can stand in Bay’s way to his super-fees. Naturally, Paramount and Nickelodeon studios immediately began working on a sequel.
![Still from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2”](/sites/default/files/images/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Out of the Shadows2.jpg "Still from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2"”)
The producers changed several key actors in the cycle. For example, if in the first film Shredder and Karai were played by Tohoru Masamune and Minae Noji, then in the sequel they were portrayed by Brian Tee and Brittany Ishibashi.
In fairness, the young director Dave Green, who shot the sequel, took into account some of the complaints about Liebesman’s film. Fans complained that the Foot Clan had turned from ninjas into bandits with machine guns? In “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2,” members of the clan walk with swords and fight like martial arts masters. Fans didn’t like that the quartet of turtles looked unpleasant, almost frightening? The appearance of the heroes was tweaked to make the reptiles more charming. Viewers wanted to see not only the turtles, Splinter, Shredder, Karai, and April O’Neil on the screen, but also other famous characters from the cycle? In “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2,” the whole team gathered on the screen: Krang, Casey Jones, Bebop, Rocksteady, Baxter Stockman not in an episode, but as a key character… Nostalgia galore!
![Still from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2”](/sites/default/files/images/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Out of the Shadows3.jpg "Still from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2"”)
Vern Fenwick’s girlfriend, April O’Neil’s former cameraman, was played by Brazilian top model Alessandra Ambrosio.
But Bay’s project would not be Bay’s project if he did not continue to “blunder” at the speed of a machine gun. You scolded the distorted origin story of the turtles? Here’s a distorted Casey Jones, who is now not a comical unkempt semi-psycho who imagines himself a superhero, but a hockey-loving, dashing policeman in the performance of the television Superman from the series “Arrow.”
![Still from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2”](/sites/default/files/images/MV5BMjQ1NTM0NTg3NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMzk4MTk5ODE@_V1_SX1366_CR0,0,1366,910_AL.jpg "Still from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2"”)
Jones, played by Amell, is so cool that when you see how briskly he wields a hockey stick against a whole platoon of Foot fighters, you think: “Why does this film need turtles? Give Casey special pucks like Green Arrow’s special arrows, and New York can sleep peacefully!” April O’Neil, by the way, also thinks so, because she immediately starts making eyes at Jones. Who needs green mutants if there is an attractive, inventive, humane, and friendly guy in the frame who is supposed to protect the city from villains? Although Amell in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2” is not quite the same as in “Arrow,” his charm still pulls the blanket over himself and does not support the turtles, but interferes with them.
![Still from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2”](/sites/default/files/images/MV5BODQzNjk1MTM2NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzM3MTU0NzE@_V1_SX1366_CR0,0,1366,572_AL.jpg "Still from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2"”)
And this is just the beginning. You wanted Krang? Krang appears in the film only twice – at the very beginning and at the very end, where he turns out to be the “final boss.” Whereas the genre requires that viewers know well what the opponent of the heroes is capable of before the climactic battle. Therefore, in the first film, we saw Shredder fight several times. In the sequel, Shredder again spends a lot of time on the screen (and without a helmet, which in itself is a crime against the canon of “Turtles”), but he drops out of the plot at the most crucial moment and leaves Krang alone to fight the turtles. It turns out “neither fish nor fowl” – Shredder loses the chance to avenge his past defeat, and the picture does not have time to properly introduce Krang.
![Still from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2”](/sites/default/files/images/MV5BMjA5Mzc4MzM1Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwOTk4MTk5ODE@_V1_SX1366_CR0,0,1366,925_AL.jpg "Still from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2"”)At the same time, the battle with Krang turns out to be meager – much less dramatic and effective than the battle with Shredder in the first film. Although, it would seem, who, if not Michael Bay’s protégé, should know a lot about grandiose finales. By the way, if you think that before the fight with Krang, the heroes deal with a whole army of his minions, then keep your pocket wider – the villain invades alone.In general, there is surprisingly little confrontational action (that is, fragments where the heroes fight with villains,and not just try to quickly get from point A to point B) in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2,” although the picture lasts almost two hours. So, the title characters seem to have only two and a half significant battle scenes – a road chase with a demonstration of the turtle van at the beginning of the picture, the final battle, and a “half” – a chaotic collision with Bebop and Rocksteady in the middle of the film, which ends as soon as it begins. But films about ninja turtles, in theory, should focus on how the heroes kick ass, and not on how they jump from a great height and ride through the sewers. Moreover, viewers understand that computer characters will not die, even if they jump out of an airplane without a parachute. If these were real actors, it would be a different story.At least, Green’s picture should please fans of Bebop and Rocksteady, who, like in the animated series, are very big, very strong, very stupid, and quite funny (if you like jokes for junior high school students). Also, there are a lot of them in the frame, and they have a tank. But still, these are secondary characters, and they should have been the cherry on the cake, and not the only edible dish in the whole picturcinemas from June 2.vaov