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So were the critics right?
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/JoshWildingNewsAndReviews/news/?a=105708
>The latest numbers are in, and as it turns out, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles managed to more than double Guardians of the Galaxy's haul at the North American box office yesterday.
>>40818
Of course, GotG is in week two, and TMNT is new release, so that's not absolutely horrible, just mostly horrible.
There were a lot of kids at the theaters I went to today, so I'm not too surprised to see the film doing exceptionally well. I am curious how much of the film's success is contributed to the new cartoon and comics, or the franchise in general.
Replies:>>40826
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/9634-Teenage-Mutant-Ninja-Turtles-Kids-Deserved-Better-Than-This
>>40824
http://badassdigest.com/2014/08/05/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-review-heroes-on-the-hack-shell/
The children have spoken.
>The dust has cleared and depending on the percentage decline today, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will end up over $65M, it just depends how much over … some have it at $65.1M and others as high as $65.7M. Paramount has yet to weigh in on anything but — surprise, surprise a sequel that’s getting underway — and so will update again when they do. But if it falls 20% on Sunday which is usually traditional for this kind of picture, it will still have a three-day gross of over $65M. Gotta give kudos to the marketing team over at Paramount for opening this picture — they did a fantastic job selling it to family audiences. The Michael Bay production started out in late nights with a healthy $4.6M in late nights on Thursday and just didn’t stop, building strength in matinees and then just kicking it in evening shows. With a B CinemaScore, if history holds true, the studio can expect around a 2.9 multiple for this newly hatched franchise.
http://www.deadline.com/2014/08/box-office-preview-audiences-expected-to-shell-it-out-for-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-will-guardians-hold-fast-at-no-1/
A sequel has been confirmed with Bay back at producing, along with the same writers. However, no word if Jonathan Liebsman will return to direct.
http://www.deadline.com/2014/08/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-sequel-underway-bay-to-return/
I feel in a bit of a weird position, because although I've no intention of seeing this thing and most critics concur that it's a godawful waste of celluloid, I'm happy that it's doing so well at the box office as it will likely pave the way for more '90s properties to make a comeback. Although considering how many revivals the Turtles have gone through right up to the present day, I'm not sure how "nineties" we can honestly call them anymore.
God knows we're hells overdue for a '90s revival. The '80s revival was so ginormous it practically overwrote whatever nascent culture the last decade was supposed to have.
Replies:>>40837
The Turtles are still an 80's property, dude. They do strattle the line between the decades with the first movie hitting in 1990, but the comic was published in 1984, first cartoon was 1987, and that's what made it a sensation.
Replies:>>40848
>>40818
//youtube.com/watch?v=SkAQ7fQjKjk
The worst part about this is that this means we're almost certainly going to get a Transformers-esque never-ending series of these movies, getting progressively worse and worse and making more and more money as time goes on.
I gotta admit it, though. Michael Bay is a whore but he apparently knows how to make a movie that makes money.
Fuck everyone who went and saw this movie.
And fuck you Jumpman.
>>40831
God damn it, now I look like an idiot.
I just want a big budget reboot of Swat Kats, is that too much to ask?!
Alright. I'm less lazy now to talk about the film. Like I've been saying on /co/, the movie is far from the bastardization it appeared it was going to be and never comes close to being a slap in the face the Transformers films was to fans. However, it's not really good either. Very middle in the road.
The best parts come from the Turtles themselves. Leo, Don, Raph, and Mikey are portrayed well here. Despite the monstrous designs (which honestly, stopped bothering me a while age), they all have great chemistry and act like their classic selves. The movie tries (and fails) at selling its Nolan-ish tone, but when the Turtles arrive, the film gets the much needed shot of fun it desperately needed. The serious tone works in a way, because the scenes with the Turtles actually subvert the generic drama with some clever subversive gags.
Everything not related to the Turtles, however, falls flat. The movie tries to establish the Foot clan as a threat terrorizing New York, similarly to how Gotham was plagued by crime in the Nolan Batman films, without actually establishing any like that. The movie tries the portray April as this independent newscaster who wants tell the real stories, but Megan Fox can not carry that role at all. The bad guy's master plan is bluntly laid out and is no more than a Saturday Morning cartoon plot disguised as fake grit. And Will Arnett is there trying to figure out why he signed up for this role in the first place.
But like I said earlier, the Turtles sorta make up for that. The avalanche scene is an impressive set piece that carries the franchise's humor and the elevator scene where the Turtles just rock out is a funny and in-character. Mikey does have the best lines here, but there are other good moments from the Turtles too, like Donny's geek snort when he turns over a SUV, and Raph's speech near the end. The first "Cowabunga" feels forced, but the second comes off more natural.
Overall, it's an okay film. Nothing to hate or love about it. Maybe that's worse, because there's no strong emotional feel from either spectrum. There's good material here, but it's buried under blandness. On the bright side,. . . Megan Fox's butt.
Replies:>>40850
Remind me, is this movie PG-13?
If so, why is it called a kids movie?
Replies:>>40850
>>40832
>The worst part about this is that this means we're almost certainly going to get a Transformers-esque never-ending series of these movies, getting progressively worse and worse and making more and more money as time goes on.
See, I actually don't think we necessarily have to worry about that. Kids these days mostly know the Turtles from the current Nick series, which is a very light hearted comedy series as I understand it. So of course this one did well because kids don't know who "Michael Bay" is (and neither do the parents I wager), they just know "Oh boy, Turtles! I love Turtles, Mom and Dad can take me!" There you have your built in audience for the first movie. But then they go to this and it has... well nothing that they actually like about that show. So I actually strongly suspect that the second one of these is going to burn like the mother of all tire fires, because I see kids being usually put off by this.
Maybe that's optimistic but it makes sense to me.
Replies:>>40850
Also not that I was ever going to watch this (even ignoring Michael Bay, I was only ever a casual viewer of the 2000s series) but this movie's main interactions apparently come off as 4 assholes pushing around a woman trying to be taken seriously which I'd like to imagine annoyed a lot of parents.
Plus it commits the capital crime of making Will Arnett not funny, which I honestly didn't know was a thing that was possible to do.
>>40847
Marvel movies are PG-13 and they're still marketed towards kids. (Tony can't be an alcoholic in Iron Man, because parents won't buy the toys). I'm actually starting to buy into the theory that action kids are dying off because they can't compete with what comic book movies offer in spectacles and freedom in content. Also, as Deadline stated, the TMNT movie marketers have been selling this on its family aspects (Splinter and the Turtles relying on each other and things like that).
>>40848
I don't know. The kids at my theater were loving it, along with their parents. I even heard some clapping as the credits rolled. There's also three distinct version of TMNT out right now in different mediums, so I don't think confusion will be a problem. The movie borrows from the 80s cartoon, so it's likely that will be enough, given that was how most people were exposed to the series.
>>40849
I don't think the Turtles come off as assholes any more than they do in the Nick cartoon. Mikey's crush on April is played more as a joke than stalker-ish like Don's in the cartoon. In the end Raph thanks April for not exposing him and his brothers to the world, when she could have easily done so, as Channel 6 fired her over her crazy stories about them
Replies:>>40873
>>40850
>Tony can't be an alcoholic in Iron Man, because parents won't buy the toys
They won't confront the issue directly, but he sure as hell had an alcohol problem in 3 and drinks plenty of times in the movies, even when no one else is.
>>40854
And Star Lord is a manwhore and proud of it.
Da UV light joke, aw man, so good.
Also if you want to hurt this movie, why not pirate it like me~
May still watch it IRL if the snow fight is as hype as they say.
Concept art.
http://imgur.com/a/BD10c
Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised because "LOL shipping," but I'm noticed the movie has spawned some AprilXRaph fan art. I wonder what would have happen if the film actually went through with that tease, instead of switching to Mikey crushing on April, like Megan Fox said.
Another weekend of turtle dominance.
http://bostonherald.com/entertainment/movies/movie_news/2014/08/expendables_3_flops_tmnt_tops_friday_box_office
http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-bag-into-the-storm-and-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles/
They actually didn't hate TMNT.
After suffering through 3 Transformers movies, I think I might be biased when I say that this wasn't anywhere near as bad. It helps that I went in with REALLY low expectations.
They're right when they say that this is really a movie about April O'Neill than the turtles. But unlike the TF humans and her other character in them, Megan Fox doesn't seem that bad here. She actually has some character and an arc of her own, albeit weak. She has only one fanservice scene and it's not overtly played out like in TF, she's competent and actually contributes to the action. And she scores big points by respecting the turtles wishes and keeping their secret even though it could have been her ticket to fame. If the turtles' secret had come out, I would have liked to see Whoopi Goldberg (was that her? I wasn't sure) apologize to her in the end. I'm not sure why it was necessary to give her a connection to the turtles before the accident and it felt a bit forced, but I guess it helps cement the theme of family, plus the scenes with little April and the turtles were cute.
Leo surprised me in how little focus there was on him, being the leader and all, but then again we've seen his character arcs played out over and over in several incarnations of the franchise, so it was nice to have Raphael take the spotlight for a bit.
Speaking of, Best Turtle has the most screentime and growth over the movie, I would have liked to see him hesitating before picking up Leo's swords and his scene with wounded Splinter be longer, but it all worked out.
Donny was barely there, and was mostly a cartoonish nerd stereotype, except for that one scene where he tells Raph to let him be the badass for once, I liked that.
Mikey, well, he's the ugliest of the new designs, his crush on April never seemed too blunt or creepy but was more of a "Hey lette me holla at you gurl" it might be because I grew up in NY but his jokes grew on me after a while, I can already tell some people are going to call him the Jar Jar of the movie though.
Splinter was eeeggh, his fight scenes were awesome, but his design is so ugly I wonder if he traumatized some kids, he looks like a rat way more than he needs to. Also him learning martial arts from a book was dumb. I can't decide whether I would have wanted them to kill him off for real or just let him live, but you never really felt any tension, his scene when he's wounded goes by so fast, and his recovery is even faster.
Shredder is the movie's biggest sin though. He's cool when he's kept in the shadows at the beginning. But once they drop that turtle soup line, which I admit got me to laugh, he keeps going and goes full cartoon villain. Despite his appearance, he was a real callback to the 90's Shredder, which works for nostalgia but it just makes him goofy.
You can tell that Bay wasn't in full control this time. There's no military jerking and the humor is kept under control, and is actually charming at times (There's one fart joke, and it relies mostly on timing.). Speaking off, I don't get why everyone was so upset at the elevator scene and the turtles generally acting ghetto. DOes no one realize that that's pretty much how ALL teenagers in NY act, be they white black brown, etc?
Over all I'd give it a solid 7/10. It was enjoyable, but I'm glad I paid morning matinee price for it.
>>40931
>Leo surprised me in how little focus there was on him, being the leader and all, but then again we've seen his character arcs played out over and over in several incarnations of the franchise, so it was nice to have Raphael take the spotlight for a bit.
I take it you haven't rewatched any turtles stuff in a long time? Raphael is almost always the most focused on turtle. Michelangelo is the only one to beat him, and that's only in the 87 cartoon.
Oh right I forgot to say my peach on the movie.
The first 20 min with Megan was so lame that I dont want to see it in cinma anymore.
Sure the fights was cool and all but I'm not sitting that shit again.
But for as much as it rips of Amazing Spiderman, I do like this movie more.
Mostly because I could not stand its teen romance and moralizing.
Also why if the rest of movie was in english, were the subs for shredder in spanish? (in the cam vid I saw that is)
Replies:>>40972
>>40931
>After suffering through 3 Transformers movies, I think I might be biased when I say that this wasn't anywhere near as bad. It helps that I went in with REALLY low expectations.
It's better than part 2, 3 and 4 of the Bayformers, but I'd say the first movie is the most watchable of the bunch.
>>40968
First Transformers movie is a guilty pleasure of mine. It's a dumb movie, but a fun, dumb movie. The sequels is where everything just got dumber, louder, and more nonsensical.
http://imgur.com/a/VRWBo#0
Alternate movie origins of Splinter and the Turtles (No, it's not alien related).
Wasn't really keen on Splinter learning Ninjutsu from a random book, but learning it from TV would have been worse. Granted, it's not too different from the comics, where Splinter just observes and mimics from his master, but that was the real deal.