Tonight, I dine on turtle soup.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

(2014)

I didn’t much care for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles first time round, and I was still (just) a teenager myself then. The popularity of Steve Barron’s movie far exceeded its quality, but at least it had cheerfully cartoonish approximations of the comic book quartet going for it, design-wise. And, of course, the magnificent Elias Koteas. This reboot comes from the perspiring mind of perpetual adolescent Michael Bay, a director-producer with a perpetual boner for both lingerie models and, it seems, ‘80s kids’ properties he can “improve” with bizarrely inappropriate doses of photo-realism.

I’m not sure anyone outside of Bay, 12-year old boys and Kelsey Grammar (guest star spots in blockbusters do pay well) can claim account for the absurd success of Transformers, four movies down the line and counting, with a guaranteed a billion dollar global gross each time. He brings the same “magic” to his over-designed and continuity drivel-driven Transformers to this Turtles reimagining. There was much controversy within Turtle fandom (Turtledom?) over early versions of the script, in which the martial arts foursome were revealed to be from outer space, or another dimension. Bay had this dropped, presumably in response to the outrage and the realisation he hadn’t a clue what he had bought, and his trio of writers reverted to something approximating the actual reptile genesis (albeit with Bay semi-regular Megan Fox’s reporter character April O’Neill now intrinsically linked the Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello).

The plot is as rudimentary as they come; the turtles show up, kick the Foot Clan’s arses, get captured, and rally to stop the villains from spreading a deadly virus throughout New York. The villains being Shredder, and major domo scientist William Fichtner. Bay has drafted in Platinum Dunes golden boy Jonathan Liebesman to call the shots, and he dutifully delivers Bay-lite quick cut confusion masquerading as direction. Liebesman is one of the new generation of Hollywood journeymen. Whereas once they were stolid and laborious, now they are frenetic and display all the symptoms of ADD. Does anyone recall how great Liebesman’s work on Battle Los Angeles and Wrath of the Titans was? I didn’t think so.

Liebesman ensures the proceedings are messy, ugly, humourless (they should be, Johnny Knoxville lends himself to one of the turtle voices) and self-important. Nothing on his résumé suggested a talent for comedy, and he goes on to proves his lack of flair. He stages the fights as if he’s facing Transformers off against each other (low angles, slow-motion smackdowns), and is saddled with the most banal, tedious exposition-riddled dialogue to grace a Hollywood blockbuster in many a moon. Brian Tyler contributes one of his less elegant scores (actually, Iron Man Three is the exception in his back catalogue, in that its exceptional), attempting at a rousing theme but failing miserably.

And the design of these turtles is horrific. As others have commented, they look like Goombas from Super Mario Bros. with added steroid abuse. The result is a nightmarishly botched re-imagining of the beloved martial artists. As for Splinter, the rat mentor of the turtles, he resembles the Sumatran rat monkey from Peter Jackson’s Braindead, which I’m guessing was not the intention.

Fichtner can usually be relied upon, but he’s lost at sea (Whoopi Goldberg also appears, dialling up the Whoopi Goldberg). Fox is hopeless, entirely lacking in presence but cast to give the ever hormonal turtles a pretty girl to leer at. And for Will Arnett to leer at. Arnett is April’s loyal cameraman, and he’s too good a comedian not to milk a few laughs out of this. And, no doubt his kids love him for playing a semi-heroic character in a film they can actually watch. Although, the best gag is very much on the lewd side (and a dig at Bay, so that makes it almost okay; unless it was his idea, which makes it rather creepy), as the turtles conceal themselves within a bra on a Victoria’s Secret billboard. Since that’s the last shot of the movie, the laugh wasn’t worth the wait.

It’s also symptomatic of Bay’s knuckleheaded, inspiration-free approach to movies that he saves the signature line, “Cowabunga”, for the last scene; that’s what they did in the Bond “reboot” after all.

Platinum Dunes, Bay’s production company, ran into the ground a succession of horror remakes, from Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Friday the 13^th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Presumably he now will scour the landscape for previously untapped toy lines and comics for his next goldmine. I didn’t think Turtles would do very well; the response to the design was (rightly) poisonous, and the all-CGI 2007 version fizzled. Perhaps it comes down to this; Bay’s big, empty head is equivalent to the not quite as big but equally empty head of the average teen, and as such he has a ready insight into what they like on tap.

So, if hyperactive teenagers bantering, arguing and goofing off is right up your street, you might love this. Or you still might think it’s a massive pile. It’s a noisy, depressing affair. Like The Goonies, but without any endearing qualities. Or that lousy Inspector Gadget movie, where you reach the end credits (if you’re able to) and you’re left wracking your brain trying to work out how and why anyone went to see it in the first place.

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She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

Prepare the Heathen’s Stand! By order of purification!

Apostle (2018)
(SPOILERS) Another week, another undercooked Netflix flick from an undeniably talented director. What’s up with their quality control? Do they have any? Are they so set on attracting an embarrassment of creatives, they give them carte blanche, to hell with whether the results are any good or not? Apostle's an ungainly folk-horror mashup of The Wicker Man (most obviously, but without the remotest trace of that screenplay's finesse) and any cult-centric Brit horror movie you’d care to think of (including Ben Wheatley's, himself an exponent of similar influences-on-sleeve filmmaking with Kill List), taking in tropes from Hammer, torture porn, and pagan lore but revealing nothing much that's different or original beyond them.

There's something wrong with the sky.

Hold the Dark (2018)
(SPOILERS) Hold the Dark, an adaptation of William Giraldi's 2014 novel, is big on atmosphere, as you'd expect from director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin, Green Room) and actor-now-director (I Don’t Want to Live in This World Anymore) pal Macon Blair (furnishing the screenplay and appearing in one scene), but contrastingly low on satisfying resolutions. Being wilfully oblique can be a winner if you’re entirely sure what you're trying to achieve, but the effect here is rather that it’s "for the sake of it" than purposeful.

You can’t just outsource your entire life.

Tully (2018)
(SPOILERS) A major twist is revealed in the last fifteen minutes of Tully, one I'll happily admit not to have seen coming, but it says something about the movie that it failed to affect my misgivings over the picture up to that point either way. About the worst thing you can say about a twist is that it leaves you shrugging.

No one understands the lonely perfection of my dreams.

Ridley Scott Ridders Ranked
During the '80s, I anticipated few filmmakers' movies more than Ridley Scott's; those of his fellow xenomorph wrangler James Cameron, perhaps. In both cases, that eagerness for something equalling their early efforts receded as they studiously managed to avoid the heights they had once reached. Cameron's output dropped off a cliff after he won an Oscar. Contrastingly, Scott's surged like never before when his film took home gold. Which at least meant he occasionally delivered something interesting, but sadly, it was mostly quantity over quality. Here are the movies Scott has directed in his career thus far - and with his rate of productivity, another 25 by the time he's 100 may well be feasible – ranked from worst to best.

Well, you did take advantage of a drunken sailor.

Tomb Raider (2018)
(SPOILERS) There's evidently an appetite out there for a decent Tomb Raider movie, given that the lousy 2001 incarnation was successful enough to spawn a (lousy) sequel, and that this lousier reboot, scarcely conceivably, may have attracted enough bums on seats to do likewise. If we're going to distinguish between order of demerits, we could characterise the Angelina Jolie movies as both pretty bad; Tomb Raider, in contrast, is unforgivably tedious.

If you want to have a staring contest with me, you will lose.

Phantom Thread (2017)
(SPOILERS) Perhaps surprisingly not the lowest grossing of last year's Best Picture Oscar nominees (that was Call Me by Your Name) but certainly the one with the least buzz as a genuine contender, subjected as Phantom Thread was to a range of views from masterpiece (the critics) to drudge (a fair selection of general viewers). The mixed reaction wasn’t so very far from Paul Thomas Anderson's earlier The Master, and one suspects the nomination was more to do with the golden glow of Daniel Day-Lewis in his first role in half a decade (and last ever, if he's to be believed) than mass Academy rapture with the picture. Which is ironic, as the relatively unknown Vicky Krieps steals the film from under him.

This is it. This is the moment of my death.

Fearless (1993)
Hollywood tends to make a hash of any exploration of existential or spiritual themes. The urge towards the simplistic, the treacly or the mawkishly uplifting, without appropriate filtering or insight, usually overpowers even the best intentions. Rarely, a movie comes along that makes good on its potential and then, more than likely, it gets completely ignored. Such a fate befell Fearless, Peter Weir’s plane crash survivor-angst film, despite roundly positive critical notices. For some reason audiences were willing to see a rubgy team turn cannibal in Alive, but this was a turn-off? Yet invariably anyone who has seen Fearless speaks of it in glowing terms, and rightly so.

Weir’s pictures are often thematically rich, more anchored by narrative than those of, say, Terrence Malick but similarly preoccupied with big ideas and their expression. He has a rare grasp of poetry, symbolism and the mythic. Weir also displays an acute grasp of the subjective mind-set, and possesses …

Outstanding. Now, let’s bite off all the heads and pile them up in the corner.

Venom (2018)
(SPOILERS) A 29% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes can't be wrong, can it? To go by the number of one-star reviews Sony’s attempt to kick-start their own shred of the Marvel-verse has received, you’d think it was the new Battlefield Earth, or Highlander II: The Quickening. Fortunately, it's far from that level of ignominy. And while it’s also a considerable distance from showing the polish and assuredness of the official Disney movies, it nevertheless manages to establish its own crudely winning sense of identity.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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