7) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows
2014’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – from producer Michael Bay – offended many fans of those beloved heroes in a half-shell due to its creepy CGI realization of the characters, muddled storytelling and general Bayisms (e.g. leering over Megan Fox). The sequel didn’t have a high bar to match, then, so it won’t come as a surprise that Out of the Shadows is better than its predecessor. That said, it’s still not a great movie.
Dave Green’s Out of the Shadows does go some way in winning back the fans by drawing much more from the 1980s cartoon series, including appearances from Shredder’s bumbling henchmen Bebop and Rocksteady. The Turtles are also more at the front and centre of the movie, with Fox’s April and Will Arnett as her cameraman pushed to the sidelines.
On the other hand, the movie is even stranger and crazier than the last one, with a bizarre plot that’s hard to get your head around just because it’s so nonsensical. The excessive action also means that such things as character depth are swept aside. Then again, both of these criticisms are just indicative of the sort of film this is. You don’t expect intelligent human drama in a movie about pizza-loving martial artist reptiles.
Unfortunately for TMNT fans, Out of the Shadows’ poor box office performance has led to the announcement that a third film is probably not in the works.