Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (M) 2.5 stars
Michael Bay was a producer on this movie, so you know what to expect: a big scale, lots of emphasis on the action and special effects, considerably less effort put into characters and story. And that's what you get in the latest reboot of the long-running multimedia franchise involving, yes, teenage mutant ninja turtles, who are named after Renaissance artists, love pizza (cue Pizza Hut product placement), talk like surfers, and fight baddies. They also in their computer generated image incarnations look a little creepy, somewhere between Shrek and the Incredible Hulk, and their mentor, giant rat Master Splinter (Tony Shalhoub), is also a bit offputting.
This time, evil Shredder (Tohoru Masamune) and his Foot Clan are threatening New York City and it's up to Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael to stop them. Ambitious TV reporter April O'Neil (Megan Fox) and her cameraman Vernon (Will Arnett) track them down but can they be trusted not to reveal the identities of the sewer-dwelling superheroes?
There's a lot of backstory to wade through, lots of quips (not witty enough) and plenty of fight scenes, chases and other shenanigans. But the human element is pretty dull and unless you're a diehard fan the turtles are hard to distinguish and not terribly interesting except as technical achievements, which is probably why much of the emphasis in two of the accompanying featurettes is on that aspect. There's also a featurette which discusses the history of turtles and ninjas. Who said this couldn't be educational?
