The 2014 reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles takes four characters built for speed, jokes and street-level scrapping and slows them to a crawl. Jonathan Liebesman directs. Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec and Evan Daugherty share the writing credit, and the screenplay went through rewrites before they got final credit.
Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman created the characters. This version is a reboot of the film series, produced by Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes partners Andrew Form and Brad Fuller, who came aboard in late May 2010 after Laird sold the rights to Nickelodeon the previous October. The result is a movie that moves like a franchise memo.
Trailer, via TMNT Movie.
April O’Neil and the Foot Clan
Megan Fox plays April O’Neil, a reporter for Channel 6 News. The plot hands her the whole movie: she investigates a crime wave by the Foot Clan, sees the Foot raiding cargo containers at a dock, and watches an unseen vigilante take out the thieves. She notices a symbol left behind. Her boss Bernadette Thompson, played by Whoopi Goldberg, and her coworkers ignore the story.
This is the film’s first mistake. April is a reporter in a city under siege, and the movie treats her newsroom as a punchline. Goldberg gets a handful of scenes as the dismissive boss. April’s coworker Vern Fenwick, played by Will Arnett, exists to drive her places and crush on her. Arnett is the only performer who seems to know what movie he is in, and the movie keeps forgetting to use him.
Shredder Takes the Subway
The Foot’s leader Shredder, played by Tohoru Masamune, gets frustrated by the vigilante and orders his Foot Soldiers to take hostages at a subway station to draw him out. April is at the scene and becomes a hostage herself. Four mysterious figures arrive, take out the Clan, and free the hostages.
That subway sequence is the film’s best idea and its worst execution. The Turtles fight in shadows, in silhouette, in cuts so fast the eye never gets a clean look at them. Liebesman withholds the reveal the way a horror director withholds a monster, but this is a superhero movie about four brothers who crack jokes. Withholding them kills the fun.
Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo
The Turtles are Leonardo, the leader and oldest, played by Pete Ploszek in motion capture with Johnny Knoxville dubbing the voice. Raphael, the strongest, is Alan Ritchson. Donatello, the most intelligent, is Jeremy Howard. Michelangelo, the youngest and most childish, is Noel Fisher, and he has a crush on April.
Ploszek initially voiced Leonardo himself. Knoxville was brought on later to dub over him, and Ploszek returned to voice the character in the sequel. That swap is the whole production in miniature: a performance was already finished, then replaced by a famous name. Knoxville’s Leonardo sounds like a man reading a synopsis of a leader.
Splinter in the Sewer Lair
Danny Woodburn plays Splinter in motion capture, with Tony Shalhoub providing the voice. Splinter is the mutant rat who is the adoptive father and sensei of the Turtles. At his behest, the Turtles bring April to their sewer lair. There Splinter explains that April saved them all from a fire and freed them into the sewer.
Shalhoub is a fine actor doing vocal work that requires him to deliver exposition about a mutagen created to cure disease. The film’s emotional engine — a father and four sons hiding in the dark — gets one scene and then yields to plot. The Turtles never feel like brothers. They feel like four character designs waiting for a better script.
Eric Sacks and the Mutagen
William Fichtner plays Eric Sacks, CEO of Sacks Industries and April’s late father’s former lab partner. April confides in him about her discovery. Sacks believes her and reveals that he and April’s father experimented on a mutagen meant to cure disease, thought lost in the fire that killed her dad.
Fichtner was cast in early May as “a lead with iconic stature in the Turtles’ mythology,” his third collaboration with Bay after Armageddon and Pearl Harbor. His character was revealed as Eric Sacks, an Anglicized version of Oroku Saki, the Shredder. At that point in production, Sacks was intended to be the film’s version of the Shredder. He is not. The movie splits its villain in two and gives neither enough time.
Casting Fox and the Reboot Machine
Fox was cast as April in February 2013, her first collaboration with Bay since she compared him to Adolf Hitler over his treatment of her during Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Bay had confirmed they were on good terms as early as April 2011. Jessica Biel had expressed interest in the part. Laird said he felt there were better choices for April but preferred not to get too worked up over it.
Ritchson, Ploszek, Howard and Fisher were cast the following month. Arnett’s role was kept secret until leaked photos showed he was April’s cameraman and rival. Woodburn joined soon after as Splinter.
| Character | Motion capture | Voice |
|---|---|---|
| Leonardo | Pete Ploszek | Johnny Knoxville |
| Raphael | Alan Ritchson | Alan Ritchson |
| Donatello | Jeremy Howard | Jeremy Howard |
| Michelangelo | Noel Fisher | Noel Fisher |
| Splinter | Danny Woodburn | Tony Shalhoub |
The table tells the story. Two of the four Turtles kept their own voices. The leader did not. Splinter did not. The film’s instinct was to replace its cast with names, and the names it chose were Johnny Knoxville and Tony Shalhoub.
Tupper Lake and the Fire That Made Them
Principal photography began in March 2013 in Tupper Lake, New York, and wrapped in August 2013. The film premiered July 29, 2014 in Mexico City and opened in theaters August 8, 2014. It received generally negative reviews, with criticism aimed at its screenplay and characterizations. It became a box office success.
That split — bad reviews, good business — is the most honest thing about the movie. It was built to open, not to last. The origin story it tells, with April as the girl who saved four turtles and a rat from a fire, is a real idea. It gives April a stake in the Turtles beyond a news tip. The film buries it under a mutagen subplot and a villain who was rewritten mid-production.
What the Reboot Gets Wrong
The Turtles are teenagers. The movie never lets them be. Michelangelo’s crush on April is the only trace of adolescence in the script, and it plays as a gag. Raphael’s temper, Donatello’s tinkering, Leonardo’s burden of command — all four traits are named in the film and none are dramatized.
Liebesman stages action in rain, dark and debris. The subway rescue should be a showcase. Instead it is a blur of limbs and cuts. The Foot Clan are interchangeable. Shredder, in armor, has no face and no motive beyond drawing out a vigilante. Masamune gets nothing to play.
The film also wastes its supporting cast. K. Todd Freeman appears as Baxter Stockman. Minae Noji appears as Karai. Abby Elliott appears as Taylor, April’s roommate. Co-creator Kevin Eastman cameos as a doctor for Sacks Industries. Paul Fitzgerald plays Dr. O’Neil, April’s deceased father. These are names from the mythology dropped in and left there.
The Verdict on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a 101-minute reboot that treats its own characters as assets to be managed. The screenplay went through numerous rewrites and it shows: Sacks was meant to be Shredder, then wasn’t, and the film never commits to a villain. The Turtles were cast with motion-capture performers, then two of them were dubbed. The result is a movie assembled by committee.
The parts that work are small. Fox is game, and the film gives her more to do than most blockbusters give a female lead. Arnett lands a few lines. The sewer lair, when we finally see it, has warmth. But warmth arrives late, after the movie has spent most of its runtime hiding its heroes.
This is not a disaster on the level of a film that fails at everything. It fails at the one thing it had to get right: making four brothers worth watching. The tagline promised “Mysterious. Dangerous. Reptilious. You’ve never seen heroes like this.” You have. You have seen them in better movies, with worse budgets and clearer ideas.
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