I’m not holding my breath for Battle: Los Angeles director Jonathan Liebesman’s Michael Bay-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot. Simply put, I don’t think that the cartoon crimefighters will benefit from added Bayhem and constantly shaky camerawork, which is all Liebesman really showed he could do on Battle. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong when the movie opens in August though. After all, the Turtles deserve a film adaptation as cool as they are.
Fortunately, the new trailer does show that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is at least aware of how silly its script sounds. Sure, there’s some forced wise-crackling from the Turtles themselves, and characters oversell sound bites like “the GREATEST threat” by looking gravely off into the distance to Inception-style foghorns, but luckily there’s some goofy music, a lot of ninja action and ample comic relief in the form of Will Arnett and Megan Fox.
Hopefully, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will turn out to be a good time. The Shredder, who we get a much better look at in this trailer, looks like a formidable foe, and the effects team really brought their A-game in some of the action sequences. The main things I could easily see derailing this movie are Liebesman’s direction, a shoddy script (one of Bay’s calling cards) and miscasting.
Some new posters have hit the web today along with the trailer, and you can check those out below. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hits theaters August 8th.
The city needs heroes. Darkness has settled over New York City as Shredder and his evil Foot Clan have an iron grip on everything from the police to the politicians. The future is grim until four unlikely outcast brothers rise from the sewers and discover their destiny as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Turtles must work with fearless reporter April and her wise-cracking cameraman Vern Fenwick to save the city and unravel Shredder’s diabolical plan.