3 out of 5

Directed by: David Green

Ever so cautiously do I allot the new Turtles movie a three star rating.  I did not want to burn my eyes.  But there existed the possibility, as I was watching it, not falling asleep, actually enjoying myself, that it only seemed like an acceptable film because it was not the first film, which was practically irredeemable garbage.  But the more I considered what worked for me, it wasn’t solely because it stood in contrast to the prior entry, but because it felt more like an actual Turtles film, albeit one based on the generally stupid and goofy Fred Wolf cartoons.  Which may not be the Turtles film I want (that would be the first one), but it is at least a committed vision, and once understood as a live action cartoon (sort of in the same way Schumacher tried to represent Batman), it’s tolerable.  Note: this is still a bad movie.  But it is entertainingly bad this time.

There were some things that I did sincerely appreciate, qualifications aside.  The Turtles models were tweaked to be less monstrous and less gadget-strewn.  Donatello is almost human sized now, with Raphael the only one that remains super-steroid big.  They kept some of the same dumb flair (those gerdamn glasses on Don), but all of the millions of baubles and bangles were stripped down to just some key items.  I doubt this was a “the Turtles are growing up” comment, so much as an attempt to actually take in some of the feedback they may have received in the wake of film one.  The script is also significantly less juvenile and idiotic, and less littered with mind-bogglingly fake Donatello talk.  It’s totally popcorn movie logic, and it’s still fake tech talk, but it’s delivered with the confident zip of a Saturday morning cartoon, so it worked well enough.

Yes, Megan Fox is still grossly sexualized, and yes, she still cannot act any given moment convincingly.  She even runs lamely.  But the rest of the cast fills their roles well.

Which comes around to the effects.  The motion capture is pretty astonishing, as it was in the first film.  But I’d say as they dialed in the models a bit better, and as the script allowed for some subtlety, we really get an amazing sense of personality and emotion from the Turtles, and Splinter.  At the same time, the characters didn’t blend as effectively with the backgrounds / human as the first film, and I don’t know if that’s because they used a different process, or there was a smaller budget, or what.  It’s not too noticeable, and it may have been a result of keeping them in constant motion; even during conversations, the boys are shuffling their weight between feet and moving around.

And then we can get around to the direction.  On his second feature (Earth to Echo being his first, post music video work), director Dave Green shows a pretty great grasp of action wrangling and pacing.  There are some horribly lacking scene transitions, and these effects-heavy movies now always have those full-on CG sequences with the camera spinning around that feel churned out by an effects team and not a director, but these blips aside, I was honestly impressed by how followable certain sequences were, and how the camera worked to capture the events compellingly.  While each scene doesn’t necessarily have a realized “place” in the world of the movie, within those scenes I was pleasantly swept up by what I was seeing, suspending that ol’ disbelief.

But, still, let’s not get confused: Out of the Shadows ain’t great.  From the moment they introduced Krang – like 15 minutes in – and didn’t feel the need to explain much about a giant brain / giant robot except Take Over The World MuHaHa, it registered that we were watching a script based on the 90s cartoon (and further validation came when that was the theme song played over the end credits).  Your tolerance of that kind of dumb is a personal matter.  But: assuming you’re here after watching the first one, as a parent, as a fan, whatever, and assuming you were like me and wanted to plug up all of your sense against the embarrassingly unfunny jokes and inept movie construction, TMNT 2 is legitimately chuckle-worthy at points, better acted, better directed, better scripted, and an acceptable 90 minute mind-number.