(Detouring from highways and Iowa coverage because this is important, darn it.)
Michael Bay’s latest salvo in his war on 1980s-early ’90s childhoods hits theaters this weekend. I am old and not in the target demographic anymore, I get that. These characters and stories have been redrawn repeatedly, I get that too. But I don’t believe my younger self would have seen much in the CGI creatures who are allegedly supposed to be the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It’s really difficult to strike hard and fade away without a trace when you’re built like an offensive lineman in full pads.
These are my Turtles:
And these are my Turtles*:
And maayyyybee the newest cartoon series, which appears more playful than this movie, although it bugs me to no end that the voice actor for ’80s Raphael is ’10s Donatello.
But I do not plan to fork over any money to see this PG-13 execution (in multiple senses of the word) of all things TMNT. (Variety, in full damning-with-faint-praise mode: “The film manifests all the usual attributes of a Bay production — chaotic action, crass side jokes, visual-effects overkill, Megan Fox — but is nowhere near ‘Transformers’-level off-putting.”)
They may look like Shrek’s long-lost cousins, but at least they weren’t turned into aliens.
*Looking back, the original movie is as much a product of Dinkins-era New York as it is the glory days of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. But this isn’t a post for sociohistorical musing on pop culture, it’s for a rant against Michael Bay movies.