Review: 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' Starring Megan Fox

Do you want to know just how much people still care about the Teenage Mutant Nina Turtles? When it was announced that Michael Bay would merely be producing a new film featuring everyone's favorite pizza-eating turtles it sent fans spiraling into Crazy Town. They couldn't believe how Bay, again only in a producer role, was going to ruin their childhood favorites. To be fair, we've seen what Bay did to Transformers and purists hate those movies with the heat of a thousand suns. But the worst thing that can happen is to have nobody really give a darn, and obviously that was not the case here. But Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which is a co-production between Bay's Platinum Dunes and Nickelodeon, isn't quite the disaster many expected it to be.

So that might not be the most ringing endorsement and probably won't get plastered in TV ads ("It's not so bad"--Travis Hopson, Punch Drunk Critics), but really that is the only criteria that matters when it comes to a movie like this. We already know it will be geared towards kids and the storyline will be ridiculous. Plus, let's be really honest here, the TMNT have undergone so many changes over the years that picking one version as definitive is sorta silly. After toying with the far-out notion of turning them into extraterrestrials, Bay and Liebesman have stuck to a fairly traditional take on the Turtles, one that longtime fans can appreciate if they don't mind the kiddie tone.

New York is under attack by an evil paramilitary organization known as the Foot Clan, led by a metal-clad ninja called Shredder. Of course, this having Bay's stamp of approval Shredder looks like the spawn of Optimus Prime and a cheese grater. On the tail of the secretive Foot is lowly TV reporter April O'Neil, played by former Bay frenemy Megan Fox. O'Neil can't get anyone at her network to believe her about the Foot, but she has a more difficult time convincing them she saw four giant vigilante turtles fighting back. Fortunately, she finds a willing ear in scientist Eric Sachs (William Fichtner), a friend and colleague of her late father. What she doesn't know is that Sachs is holding on to a dark secret, one that threatens her and Turtles' future.

Chances are you'll figure out where this plot, cobbled together from dozens of other blockbusters, is headed in the first ten minutes. But getting there does prove to be more fun than expected, largely due to a script that understands the relationship between the turtle siblings and Splinter (voiced by Tony Shalhoub), their overgrown rat sensei. Raphael is a hot-headed jerk, Donatello is a dork with a bo staff, Michelangelo is a laid back beach bum, while Leonardo (voiced by Johnny Knoxville) is the born leader. Conflicts arise amongst the group, particularly between Raph and Leo, while Mikey acts like a clown. What doesn't work so well is in the physical design of the Turtles. They are freaking massive, huge bulked-up creatures and it takes away from their supposed ninja abilities. Are we truly expected to believe they were able to be stealthy all these years fighting in the shadows? They're the size of Monster Trucks! It's absurd, and it clashes against the idea of them as teenagers. Granted, watching them zip through the sewers on skateboards, along with a healthy dose of childish fart humor, does a pretty good job of establishing their immaturity. Kids will eat that stuff up. Adults? Eh, maybe. They may also find Mikey's crush on April a little too mature (and weird) for kids to handle.

Through the alien war flick Battle: Los Angeles and Wrath of theTitans, Liebesman has established himself as a director whose style resembles that of Bay in just about every way. So it's no shock that visually this looks exactly like Transformers; big chaotic action that defies the laws of physics but looks amazing. The highlight is a 10-minute chase down a snowy slope with exploding trucks, Turtles on the half-shell, and Fox hanging for dear life. It looks amazing, although it doesn't make a lot of sense logistically. Why is there so much snow there but nowhere else in the city? We're probably not supposed to notice. Other plot holes will rear their ugly head, too, as the villains' main scheme makes absolutely no sense when revealed. This was a case of the writers' going too far in wanting a huge world-threatening finale when nothing we've seen up to that point suggests it should be the case. What you won't find is much in the way of emotion except in the brotherly camaraderie between the Turtles, and that is displayed mostly in broad strokes.

Despite their hulking size, the CGI Turtles look pretty good although the effects get a little sloppy during the faster fight sequences. Fox is back to her old bag of tricks as little more than a pretty face. She gets a lot of reaction shots and not much else to do, but at least she wears O'Neil's classic yellow jacket! Will Arnett gets a few laughs as her cameraman and potential suitor, Vernon Fenwick. Fichtner is so good at playing quirky, mannered bad guys that it's disappointing he's so boring here. Sachs just isn't written to be a funny character and it's a waste of what Fichtner does best. Somebody should have shown these guys Fichtner's Drive Angry highlight reel.

So you may not be shouting "Cowabunga" but at least it's not 'The Secretof the Ooze'. There aren't any Vanilla Ice cameos to speak of and that's automatically a good thing. As an introduction to younger audiences and an action-packed slice of nostalgia, you could do worse than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

 Rating: 3 out of 5

Read More

Johnny Knoxville and Tony Shalhoub Voicing Leonardo and Splinter in 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'

The trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is still fresh in our minds, and already changes are taking place. Megan Fox, Will Arnett, and the rest of the cast have been called back for reshoots on the Jonathan Liebesman-directed film, and now the voice work is being shored up with the additions of Johnny Knoxville and Tony Shalhoub.

Deadline reports Knoxville has come on to voice Leonardo, while Shalhoub (Pain & Gain, Monk) will take on the role of Splinter. Pete Ploszek and Danny Woodburn did all of the motion capture work during filming, but they were never promised the voice roles. Obviously, Michael Bay and Co. felt like a change was necessary, so enjoy having your Leonardo sound like a Jackass.

The rest of the Turtles cast remains intact. Noel Fisher is still Michaelangeo, Alan Ritchson is Raphael, and Jeremy Howard is Donatello. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles opens August 8th.

Read More

Review: 'Pain & Gain' starring Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson

When not in the middle of some giant, planet-destroying spectacle of a blockbuster popcorn flick, Michael Bay actually has quite a sense of humor. It's easy to forget because so many years have gone by since he's put it on display, replacing laughs and style with oversized action, bigger explosions, and girls in tiny bikinis. Bay's most successful films that don't involve giant robots or crashing meteors were the Bad Boysfilms, which featured grand comedic strokes and yes, plenty of skyscraper-sized action. Pain & Gain, a ludicrous, caffeinated, overlong, and occasionally very dark crime caper based on an unbelievable true story, is pure unfiltered Bay in terms of its visual cues, but it also shows he can lighten up when need be.

Like Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike, Pain & Gain offers a sketchy side of Florida that seems pretty cool from a distance, but gets uglier the closer one gets. Bay kicks things off with the worn out tactic of beginning at the end of the story, showing us exactly how batcrap insane things are going to get, before sliding back to a time before all Hell broke loose. Mark Wahlberg is Daniel Lugo, a dopey con-man and bodybuilder who adores his pecs over all things. He sees his ripped abs as a physical expression of his own hard work and a realization of the American Dream....as filtered through the lens of a guy who idolizes Tony Montana. And like Montana, Daniel wants everything life has to offer. He wants to be rich, famous, and powerful, and if the world isn't going to give it to him, he'll just have to take it.

Daniel's buddy, Adrian Dorbal (Anthony Mackie) also has dreams of something more. The two work together in a swanky gym for muscle-heads, built up from nothing thanks to Daniel's go-getter attitude. A steroid-freak with inferiority issues and an embarrassing case of erectile dysfunction, Adrian is a follower who looks to Daniel as a guiding light. Daniel is essentially Boogie Nights' Dirk Diggler after a few bench presses, and Adrian is his Reed Rothchild.

As a personal trainer to Miami's rich and famous, Daniel sees everything he can't have right in front of his face, and spurred on by the bombastic self-help guru Johnny Wu (Ken Jeong), he decides to do something about it. Gathering Adrian and a massive ex-con turned Jesus freak named Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson), Daniel decides to kidnap and extort Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), a wealthy entrepreneur.

The ugly superficiality of Bay's vision is best exemplified by Victor, an ugly, boasting, demeaning blowhard. A Half-Colombian/Half-Jew (we're constantly reminded of this fact), Victor represents the American Dream at its worst. He's a self-made man who got there on the backs of others, and now that he's at the top makes sure everyone else feels like crap about their own station in life. He's all ego, nastiness, and machismo, who never misses an opportunity to rub his wealth in the face of others. He makes for a wildly unsympathetic victim, captured in clownish fashion by three morons who are just as twisted as he is on the inside. They may be buffoons in every sense of the word, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous.

The actual kidnapping is a thing of absurd beauty as they botch the job in increasingly stupid ways before finally stumbling into success. Of course they didn't bother to plan anything ahead of time so it all spirals south as they struggle briefly to hide their identities while keeping Victor holed up in a sex-toy shop, and Bay makes sure to deliver as many dildo sight gags as one can reasonably expect from him. Flush with all of Victor's cash, the guys indulge in all of the dangerous excesses that made him their target to begin with. Daniel flaunts his sweet new ride with the Scooby-Doo seats, Adrian indulges in his love for overweight women by marrying his sarcastic penis doctor (a great Rebel Wilson), and Paul snorts it all up his nose, basically.

Riotously funny and simply too incredible to be believed, Bay and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (they wrote Captain America: The First Avenger) are constantly forced to remind us that this is indeed based on a true story. Bay employs a number of energetic flourishes to keep the pace moving and to show off the comic lunacy of the unfolding events, and for a while we're given the impression that this will be just some boys-will-be-boys misguided romp. But this story gets extremely dark, and the stylistic excesses that worked to make us laugh have an opposing effect as things start to get pretty violent. Bay does a brilliant job of walking in both worlds, and it's a sign of just how talented a filmmaker he can be when his mind is put to it. Sure, he still presents every theme in broad strokes, and the one thing he doesn't do to excess is subtlety, but his films always evoke an emotional response.

While Pain & Gain marks a return of sorts for Bay, the same goes for Wahlberg who hasn't played a character quite this screwed up since the aforementioned Boogie Nights. His Daniel Lugo is every bit the ambitious, oblivious dufus with mixed-up priorities as Dirk Diggler was, but just the same he's also a guy you wish had his head screwed on straight. Daniel's a likable guy, even when at his worst. It's the kind of role Wahlberg excels at and he does a terrific job here. Some may be surprised by how funny Mackie is, given that he's mostly given male impotence jokes to work with. It's Johnson who really stands out, though, and watching him go from criminal to man of God (complete with his own mini-sex scandal) to a drug-addled rager is perhaps the most entertaining aspect of the film. Johnson, who appears to have put on about 30lbs of muscle for the role, plays off his own inestimable charm in shaping the character, so that he resembles something of a really angry and confused teddy bear with 24-inch biceps.

The film does begin to overstay its welcome, though, and the 130 minute runtime can't support what eventually becomes a one-note story with the sole gag being that these guys are idiots. Once that begins to lose its effectiveness, Bay just assumes that making everything even more outlandish will solve the problem. It doesn't, and eventually the unique personalities that made the film so much fun are just smothered. Ed Harris shows up and channels his Appaloosa persona for awhile as a private investigator hired to find the guys and bring them in, and there are some decent laughs from doe-eyed supermodel Bar Paly as a slutty stripper who becomes a key part of the guys' scheme. She also gets passed around from guy-to-guy like a joint. Hey, this is a Bay film, were you expecting the woman to be treated with respect?

Bay knowingly digs into his familiar bag of tricks, from low-angle 360 shots to guys walking away from explosions...in slow motion, of course. This is Bay relishing in the exuberance of being Bay, but there are more layers and greater depth to the story than in any film of his career. Like a steroid and coke-fueled gym rat, Pain and Gain does eventually crash, so enjoy the powerfully fun high while it lasts.

Read More

The old Michael Bay returns with first trailer for 'Pain and Gain'

This might be hard to remember, but Michael Bay had a pretty successful career before the Transformers, and back then he wasn't making giant robot movies. He was making fast, fun, and quippy action movies with big stars and free of CGI. Bad Boys? Hello? Well now he's tapping back into that long-neglected style once again with Pain and Gain.

The first trailer has finally hit, and it looks like Bad Boys all over again, only with Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson running things. They play a pair of not-too-bright bodybuilders who also run a criminal ring specializing in kidnapping and extortion. Robbing and leaving for dead a wealthy businessman, they see their plans go up in smoke when he survives and hires an investigator to track them down. Everybody seems to be in top form here, from Anthony Mackie to Rebel Wilson to Tony Shalhoub, who may have the best line with his thoughts on the invention of salad.

This is a Michael Bay we haven't seen in ages, and boy has he been missed. Pain and Gain opens on April 26th 2013.

Read More

Jeffrey Wright lands role of Beetee in 'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire'

Now that Lionsgate has settled(quite emphatically so) on Sam Claflin for the sought-after role of Finnick Odair in Catching Fire, there was really only one major slot left to be filled. Months ago when Claflin's name first started being kicked around, we also learned that Tony Shalhoub(Monk) was being eyed for the role of Beetee, the genius victor from District 13 who joins Katniss and Peeta in the 75th Hunger Games. We never really heard anything more about it until now, with the announcement that Jeffrey Wright has joined the cast.

Wright is definitely a step up, and indicative of the franchise's ability to draw big name talent for supporting parts. One of the strongest actors working today, Wright first won me over with his incredible performance in Basquiat, and ever since he's a guy who has shown an ability to do pretty much anything he wants. He was most recently seen last year in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and also starred in Source Code and The Ides of March. Like I said, the guy can do anything.

Beetee plays a crucial role in Catching Fire, drawn back into the Hunger Games after President Snow declares it the Quarter Quell, which forces past winners to fight yet again. Nicknamed "Sparks" due to his skills with electronics, Beetee has mastered the ability to use wire as a destructive force.

If the cast of The Hunger Games was already great, Catching Fire's has only gotten better. Wright joins Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Donald Sutherland, Jena Malone, Sam Claflin, Lynn Cohen, and Amanda Plummer with Francis Lawrence taking over as director. Catching Fire opens in theaters on November 22nd 2013.

Read More

Well, duh. Michael Bay casts supermodel Bar Paly in 'Pain and Gain'; TV's 'Monk' also joins

Y'think maybe Michael Bay has a thing for casting supermodels in his movies? Maybe he's starting a new trend, after Rosie Huntington-Whiteley did such a beautiful job playing a shopping store mannequin in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Now he's looking to get another super hot, possibly more talented catwalk maven to star in his Fargo-esque crime flick, Pain and Gain.

Variety reports that Bar Paly has joined the low budget caper, about a pair of Florida bodybuilders played by Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson, and their scheme to kidnap and kill a rich guy for the money. Unlike Huntington Whiteley, the Israeli born Paly has some legit acting experience, having recently played a role in Roman Coppola's A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III. She also had a small part in the 2008 film, The Ruins, and has some TV stints as well. The role also seems perfectly suited for her, playing an ex-beauty queen turned illegal immigrant with big dreams, only to have those aspirations preyed upon by Wahlberg's character. 

If Bay got the idea to cast her based on some scantily clad photos he Googled one day, it's doubtful he did the same when picking up Tony Shalhoub(Galaxy Quest) for the role of the kidnapping victim, Marc Schiller. Shalhoub spent about eight years playing the titular obsessive compulsive detective on Monk, but has also kept himself busy on the big screen. I guess this puts the kibosh on the recent rumors of John Turturro taking the role. They'll join Rob Corddry, Anthony Mackie, and Ed Harris when the film kicks off production shortly.

Read More