When Shredder looks more like the Silver Samurai than the Silver Samurai

So I’ve watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles twice now, the second time unplanned with a bunch of friends. I must say, while it’s not great, it doesn’t quite deserve the flak it gets just because Michael Bay is one of the producers. In fact, compared to all the Transformers movies beyond the first, TMNT is acceptably good. And Shredder actually looks good. Not as good as in the comics and the old TV series cartoons, but at least you get the impression that the people who made the movie knew what they were doing. Unlike the idiots who pissed, spat and shat on the Silver Samurai in the most recent Wolverine movie. And to a lesser extent, Deadpool in X-men Origins: Wolverine.

All that said, TMNT was mediocre, not great, and here’s why. First off, this movie slightly gives the impression of being April O’Neil feat. TMNT rather than TMNT, but it’s not as badly done as Godzilla. Second, Megan Fox who plays April is like Kirsten Stewart Mk. II; you can see more emotion in Shredder’s face than in hers, and that’s saying something, considering you can’t actually see Shredder’s face since his face is always either shrouded in shadow or behind his mengu (mask / face armour).

And since I mentioned Shredder, Shredder’s Japanese is pretty poor, especially considering the fact that he was played by a Japanese Canadian dude. While I’m in no position to criticise grammar or anything of the like, his speech sounds so blocky and awkward, much like Bryan Cranston’s Joseph Brody in Godzilla. In fact, Ken Watanabe speaks more fluent English than Tohoru Masamune – who plays Shredder – speaks Japanese. Not sure if this is true in real life, but as far as the movie is concerned, this is fact. In fact, I would go as far as to say that he speaks English far more fluently than he speaks Japanese, at least in the movie.

And now for spoilers. Early in the movie, April sees a group of vigilantes stopping a Foot Clan robbery. She is later caught and, along with other hostages, were used to threaten the vigilantes to give themselves up. Instead, they show up and save the hostages, but vanish right after. April trails them and manages to snap a photo of the vigilantes, who – surprise, surprise – turn out to be the ninja turtles. They catch her and wipe her phone, but just as they leave she snaps another photo. Then for whatever reason, she fails to produce this photo to convince her boss that this is worthy news material, instead showing her a lot of other nonsense which will obviously seem irrelevant to the person she is trying to convince. She gets fired for being the idiot that she is, but when she goes to talk to Eric Sacks about them, she shows the very photo that could have not only prevented her from losing her job, but also get promoted and freed her from covering fluff that she despises so much. Again I iterate that a movie will never be great if dishonesty and/or stupidity is/are essential to a movie’s plot, and this is one such example. If she wasn’t being deliberately stupid, the plot of the movie will be severely compromised.

Next in the spoilers’ segment we have the blatant disregard of logic, even in a fictitious universe. Three of the turtles are captured by Shredder and Raphael attempts so save them. April injects enough adrenaline to the three captive turtles to the verge of overdose. They then break out, and the four of them proceed to hunt down Shredder. Nothing wrong so far. Soon after they break out, they were shot at by some Foot clan henchmen. Some bullets gets lodged in the shell of the turtles. Then Raphael, the only turtle to not get a near-overdose of adrenaline, goes into a fit of rage, shooting the bullets lodged in his shell out like the shell was some soft tissue. So yes, the question now is why is it so difficult to not let shells behave like an inflatable, or if it absolutely has to be in the movie, at least let that stunt be pulled off by one of the three turtles that actually got the adrenaline overdose? Never mind that Raphael’s shades never fall off his head, even when he is used as catapult projectile.

So that’s TMNT for you. Not as bad as people make it out to be, but it sure as hell won’t blow you away. So it’s quite surprising why it seems to be doing better than Guardians of the Galaxy. I say this simply because, Guardians of the Galaxy is awesome. Like, almost The Lego Movie level of awesome. As far as I’m concerned, there are only two problems with the movie, one of which is Groot. If you can just replant him after he dies, why bother making his self-sacrifice such an emotional experience? I mean yes, that was a very noble act and especially so considering he is the supposed last of his kind, which we all feel for, but when I see a mini Groot in a pot, I feel cheated of my emotions. It’s like feeling pity for a rich person instead of a homeless person when the rich person’s car broke down or something. The second problem is the lack of Richard Rider of the Nova Corps. I mean, you have the Nova Corps, you have Nova Prime, but no Nova? Come on, now.

That said, seeing as Disney does a better job at respecting Marvel than 20th Century Fox (Disney does own Marvel, after all), hopefully the X-men franchise will one day land in Disney’s hands so that we can see a proper Silver Samurai and/or Deadpool in the future. Then again, if stopping 10th Century Fox from shitting on X-men means no more Hugh Jackman as Wolverine or Sir Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier, then I’m not so sure I actually want that anymore.

And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.