Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows Review

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is the sequel to 2014s' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The film is directed by Dave Green and stars Megan Fox, Stephen Amell, and Will Arnett. This time the turtles come into conflict with T.C.R.I. scientist Dr. Baxter Stockman and the return of their enemy, The Shredder, who has hired Stockman to create mutants of his own in the form of Bebop and Rocksteady to even the score, during which the Turtles discover a Retro-Mutagen in hopes they can become humans following an extraterrestrial invasion above New York City led by the Dimension X inhabitant known as Krang.

I wasn't a fan of the last turtles movie. The film focused way too much on Megan Fox and the turtles felt like suporting characters, which was a shame since they were very entertaining to watch whenever they were on screen. Thankfully that problem is fixed here. The turtles are the main characters this time around, which makes the experience much more entertaining. There are a ton of new characters in this film. Casey Jones, Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady are all new additions. Unfortunately Casey Jones was completely forced in. He has nothing to do in the film, and is used in a more comedic manner which will probably not please fans of the character. Krang is only in a couple of scenes. He is introduced in the weirdest possible way, coming out of nowhere. Nothing is explained about him, and only die hard fans will really get it. He isn't menacing either, with the finale being a letdown. Bebop and Rocksteady though were very entertaining, and were good additions to the film.

Returning are the turtles, which were as entertaining as the last time. Megan Fox is back as April O'Neil. She tries to play a smart girl here, but I just did not buy it for a second. She just can't pull off a role like this. Shredder is also thrown in here, but for no reason whatsoever. He is also completely wasted and never actually felt like Shredder. Splinter is back too, but as with most of the characters here he is also wasted. There was some potential for some good moments between Splinter and the Turtles, but the film never truly has that moment. It tries, but it is fairly simple stuff.

The action was alright, nothing really special here. The best sequences were the ones involving Bebop and Rocksteady. Other than that the action in this movie felt kind of meh. There are also some inconsistencies with the first film that are really hard to ignore. There's the fact that the Turtles will never fight crime in plain daylight, even when the finale of the first movie happened during plain daylight.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows will surely entertain kids, and maybe die hard fans. I don't really see any one else fully enjoying this film since there isn't anything that's really good about it, but nothing that is truly bad either. It just falls in the average category. You'll probably forget it after a week. 2.5/5