Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2D)

It is very stupid, very loud and with a pacing that never slows down, but as dispensable as it truly is it still feels like what a Turtles movie is. I enjoyed it.

News reporter April O'Neil suspects there are vigilantes in New York City that are fighting back against the notorious terrorist cell known as the Foot Clan, yet has no evidence. However her investigation makes her life a whole lot weirder.

Writing a synopsis for something so engrained in public knowledge seems preposterous, the Turtles have been in mainstream circulation for nearly thirty years (almost as old as I am, and include the original comics and they ARE as old as I am!) yet the film seems at odds about how to treat this issue.
It plays narratively like an origin story (with some alterations) yet is edited as though we already know these characters. Is that a roundabout way to say "The characters aren't fleshed out enough"? Yes, yes it is. 
I grew up with the cartoon so I know these characters, yet when in the third act we get big sweeping character moments it feels completely out-of-the-blue due to the lack of characterisation! It doesn't bother me personally, but it bothers me as a critic: characters haven't been established in this origin story.

However the characters are great fun, despite all of this, as they remain unchanged. It feels like the Turtles of old are back again and bigger than ever (literally) I personally have very little to say about how they look, which apparently is a massive problem for many people. I will take a new, fresh look over replicating the same thing over and over.
Shredder too is a very important aspect in my affections for the franchise, Shredder was always a favourite of mine and when this film apparently advertised American actor William Fichtner to be Shredder I had to swallow a lot of my frustrations to give it a chance... But as it turns out, I am happy to say, Fichtner is NOT Shredder! This Shredder is quite bad ass actually.

So Shredder is good, the Turtles are good, designs are good, story is pulpy and full of predictable cliche that will make reluctant parents roll their eyes but is serviceable, now onto what I considered the biggest problem in the film's production: Ms Megan Fox.
Any actress could play April, honestly, it isn't a hard role to play. But why Fox, why? Luckily though the film, with a dollop of self-awareness, defuses this disdain by beginning with Fox's recent career metaphorically summerised in one humourous tirade. Also most of the supporting cast begin by suspecting April's sanity is in question. Did that alleviate all of my disgust? No, but it certainly helped!

It isn't as ADD as the Transformers movies, the story behind this film is so incredibly simple that you are just awash with action sequences and can accept it as just that. That being said, I would have liked a quiet moment or two tossed in there to help the pacing. The script does what you'd expect: poke fun at the ludicrous premise while having our heroes quip and cheer obliviously as they always do.

You've probably already decided whether you are seeing it or not, and my pro-Transformers opinions probably don't sway any of you naysayers, but I enjoyed it for what it was. It wasn't as good as it could have been, but it did feel like a Turtles movie.

Additional Marshmallows: I am a big enough Turtles nerd to have spotted the little Usagi Yojimbo reference!
  

Spoiled Cocoa: Maleficent

So our first trailer of Disney's new Maleficent has arrived, and ever since I saw the first image of Angelina Jolie wearing the iconic headgear I've been keeping an eye on this quite keenly. Sleeping Beauty is my favourite Disney film (excluding Pixar it is the only Disney film that made my top 50 films list) Why? Mostly because of Maleficent herself, and one fantastic dragon!

How do I feel after seeing this new trailer? Well... reasonably optimistic.



Love that spin on the Disney castle, very unusual!

I suppose one's opinion is allowed to be swayed now. Before all we had was Angelina Jolie in costume (which is great) now we have.... child actors, CG and production value to scrutinise.

(to get this out the way: this is a good teaser trailer! It doesn't spoil anything, doesn't tell us the entire story, just gives us a glimpse. If only more trailers did this...)

I think what I enjoyed most about Sleeping Beauty was how persistent yet subtle Maleficent really was as a villain. She wasn't in your face, she wasn't mugging at the camera or spewing heaps of dialogue. She was almost elemental. A plotter and a schemer with terrible anger. Whether or not Maleficent the film captures this or not will make or break it for a lot of critics. I would hope a lot of the film will be very moody and visually driven (I do like the visuals of her stalking through the fantastical forests) we are dealing with a dark character here.

I've read that the film will give her backstory... this will have to be treated carefully! I don't want to have another case of Episode 2's Boba Fett! See if I sit down for this film and it opens with Maleficent as some rosy cheeked eight year old! 

From the trailer though... they are certainly making note of her shadowy presence at least. Although the similarly iconic thorn sequence looked a little... fake.
For some reason watching this made me wonder, will CG ever stop feeling obliged to make things look realistic? Because surely that's where these things fall down, trying to look real, the uncanny valley. Wouldn't it be cool if the thorns Maleficent created were stylised somehow, shadowy and pitch black, more animated than "real", suggesting her magic created them?

Such an awesome dragon!

Do I want a dragon in this film, you might ask me? You know what? I don't want a dragon in this film. I bet there will be, I bet there will be, but the problem there is it simply won't be as good as the original. 
(prove me wrong film, PROVE ME WRONG!.... please.)

This is, a little unnervingly, the directorial debut of Robert Stromberg, he has little to his name but what there is is in art and production. Matte Painting Supervisor for my favourite film Pan's Labyrinth? I will take that. But that doesn't add anything for directorial skills...

I really want this to be a dark, gothic fairytale story that doesn't ruin one of my favourite villains of all time. Evidently, there's a lot riding on this and I will be in the cinema with trepidation, but...

How cool was Jolie's Maleficent laugh at the end of the trailer!?
 
 

Review: John Carter

Widely regarded as Disney's biggest and worst flop in recent memory, yet I actually found it very entertaining despite its CG heaviness.

Based off the classic and highly influential novel "A Princess of Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs (writer of the original Tarzan) this story tells of John Carter, a Civil War veteran who is transported out from battling Apache Native Americans to the surface of Mars. Once there he finds another civil war raging, involving two factions of human-like beings, a tribal race of quadruple-armed aliens, and mysterious demigods who influence these people's futures.
He finds he is naturally gifted with near super human strength due to Mars' lesser gravity and his stronger muscles, allowing him to leap tremendous distances. Carter befriends the 12-foot tall tribal Thark aliens and must quickly defend a princess and her honour to save the inhabitants from a tyrant.

This film is loaded with extraordinary, exotic and otherworldly visuals, and is certainly a unique specimen in science fiction, and one can argue that the story would not have been possible to interpret before the advent of computer generated graphics. Part of me winces at the "Star Wars Prequels" level of CG being used... but then... this isn't Star Wars, there's no history to unsettle. That, and John Carter is genuinely a fun film to watch, and is surprisingly violent! Pretty sure I caught a few arms and heads being sliced clean off!
I grew to like the Tharks through their strange relationship upon finding Carter; there's a montage of how they initially treat him (like one of their infants) which is pretty hilarious. The film's sense of humour is incredibly important and saves it from becoming a slog of meaningless jargon. The CG animation of the Tharks themselves is well done, good enough to feel some emotional connection with them.

We even have a strong female character, Princess Dejah is not only introduced to us as an inventor, but can also hold her own in a fight when she has to. Of course there's no shortage of Carter leaping through the air to save her either.
It is a rapid film; it barely stops for breath as it batters through all the lore and social structures that revolve around Mars, the action sequences are plenty, and we have to explain who Carter is, where he came from and where his loyalties lie: back on Earth, or on Mars? All of this leaves little room for villains, who are nondescript antagonists used to push the plot forward.

It is instantly recommended to anyone who is a fan of action sci-fi, while I would like to suggest it to all others. The film was poorly advertised and was let down by poor PR; the film bombed despite it being as entertaining as other Disney live-action adventures. It is sad to think there will likely be no continuation.

Additional Marshmallows: Effectively this film has one of the longest times in development, roughly 79 years, going through multiple titles and iterations, directors and casting choices. 

Will Disney use this much CG effects with the new Star Wars trilogy? Most likely. But hopefully like John Carter they can give a fuller script and story to the proceedings.