“What’d you say to us?”

Shelling to a new generation.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES have been around as a merchandising product forever! In a long list of TMNT comicbooks, cartoons and movies, this 2014 reboot is the latest iteration and definitely the turtliest.

Four ninja mutant turtle teenagers (“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds ridiculous!”) must stop a bladed samurai criminal intent on poisoning New York City and then selling the antidote for a blank check. (Isn’t that the plot of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 2? Isn’t that also the real life plot of Big Pharm? Sell the public thousands of unessential medications to create side effects and then sell same public thousands of medications that nullify those side effects while creating others…)

Originally a dark satire Mirage Studios comic by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman (issue #1, May 1984), as with any marketable product that becomes wildly popular, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was overtaken by executives with ponytails and devolved into guys in muppet suits being assfaces.

Adult superhero credibility has been restored to the turtles with director Jonathan Liebesman (WRATH OF THE TITANS) and – I hate to say it! – producer Michael Bay (TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION) in this action comedy drama that brings a hyper-reality grittiness to the ninjitsu reptilians. Set in the modern world with computers and cellphones ubiquitous, with references to Bale’s BATMAN, X-MEN, HARRY POTTER, etc., there is still the rapid cheesy repartee (and cheesy pizza!), still the fact that these mutated turtles were trained in martial arts by a rat, still the skateboarding and outlandish stunts and facemasks that serve no purpose whatsoever. But CGI and motion capture has enhanced all these attributes and the rugged visualization of the turtles sells it to an audience I’m betting is wider than ever before. Box office tells us so.

Matter of fact, the turtles are the best thing about this movie (thankfully – since they are the subject and the title and the stars and the marketable dolls). Pete Ploszek is blue-masked Leonardo (voiced by Johnny Knoxville), Alan Ritchson is red Raphael, Jeremy Howard is purple Donatello, and Noel Fisher is yellow Michelangelo. Dynamic, eccentric, fun-loving and battle-deadly, they retain a familial chemistry while not being maudlin or annoying, and their visual appearance is muscular (pun intended), with their stuntwork and combat skills breathtakingly realized. It’s analogous to watching BATMAN BEGINS, in how it is surprisingly rooted in the real world, so much so that no one ejaculates, “I love being a turtle!” and that out-of-touch surfer expletive “Cowabunga!” is expressly verboten. (By the way, were they mutated with human DNA, to grow pecs and delts and biceps like Franco Columbu?)

Good Lord – Megan Fox! What a useless person. One bleached anus away from being a porn actress. As the turtles’ human reporter friend, April O’Neil, Fox brings her Non-Acting Skills and over-Botoxed lips to a role that could have been played by a Real Doll. Is there anything in this world she is good for? The post-teen contingent leer and wink-wink and imply that sex is her forte or, at the least, her only usefulness on Earth, but fellas, I’m betting she’d ruin even that last attempt at functionality once she opens her weird-shaped mouth and starts yapping incessantly.

Will Arnett is ambiguously-nutless fellow reporter Vernon Fenwick. Let’s establish from the outset, the word comes from on high, we can’t have any chemistry between the two humans – even though they’re in each other’s prime Pumping Paradigm – because that would detract from the camaraderie and poignancy of the turtles’ relationships to each other and their “father” Splinter (the rat, mocapped by Danny Woodburn, voiced by Tony Shalhoub). That’s okay, sez director, Fox can’t do chemistry anyway and Arnett is here as a fifth wheel.

William Fichtner, as with all his roles, is once again magnetic as CEO/scientist Eric Sacks. Love William Fichtner! In his varied roles, we never know which way Fichtner will turn, from his buffed bad guy in THE LONGEST YARD to skinny good guy in CONTACT, and many times ambiguous in-betweener (ARMAGEDDON, THE PERFECT STORM). Here, he is co-creator of the mutagen that transformed the tiny turtles into super shells, and is a good guy until he has to act opposite vapid Megan Fox, whereupon he tries to shoot her. Technically that makes him the bad guy, but in my book, he’s still the good guy.

Turtles must face the indomitable Shredder (Tohoru Masamune), who looks like a Transformer (Oh, Michael Bay, you rascal!) and his organization of black-garbed podiatrists known as the Foot Clan. Only the turtles’ mutagenic blood will create the antidote to the poison Shredder and Sacks have created, so he must keep them alive while trying to kill them. Linear chase movie/action sequences ensue, with the primo gag being the semi-trailer sliding down a snow slope, pursued by the Foot (is one foot running the same as one hand clapping?).

I’ll admit: went in expecting crap; came out feeling… cowabunga.

END

Ungodly.

The legend of Perseus continues in WRATH OF THE TITANS, with the kidnapping of Zeus, the treachery of Ares, the disintegration of Poseidon, and the slaying of the Titan Kronos, just like it says in all the Greek myths…. actually, not in any Greek myths; matter of fact, I’m wondering whether the filmmakers have read even one Greek myth in their wretched lives.

Writers David Johnson, Greg Berlanti and Dan Mazeau seem to be using the George Lucas method of storytelling – Making It Up As It Goes Along – and director Jonathan Liebesman is just encouraging them by having such a big effects budget.

It’s surely a spectacle for the eyes, but set your brain on standby for the magnificently thoughtless plotline.

Demi-god Perseus (Sam Worthington), the slayer of the Kraken in CLASH OF THE TITANS 2010, is trying to lead an average mortal’s life as a fisherman in a tiny village – until a Chimera (a two-headed, fire-breathing monster) attacks the village, seemingly for no reason other than the special effects team were bored. Perseus defeats it with no help from all the screaming extras.

Then dad Zeus (Liam Neeson) appears to Perseus  and tells him the gods need his help. In his authentic Australian Greek accent, Perseus asks, “Woy?” Something to do with Making It Up As It Goes Along. Then Zeus teleports outa there in case another fire-breathing thing comes along and he might have to lift a finger to help.

Ares the god of war (Edgar Ramirez) and Hades the god of cheese (Ralph Fiennes) team up to kidnap Poseidon the god of beards (Danny Huston) and Zeus the god of Narnia (wait – isn’t this the guy who can teleport?). They hook Zeus to a divine intravenous rock and start transferring his power to Kronos, who looks like the Catholic version of the horned devil, except he’s ten times bigger than a Balrog and 100 times as dumb. (Though he can only moan one or two words – being fused to the stone of a mountain will leave you pretty inarticulate – he has the distinction of being the one and only actual “Titan” in either of the two films.)

Now Perseus is mad, in the grand tradition of the god Rambo: “This time it’s personal!”

Perseus takes his son Helius (wasn’t Helius/Helios the Sun god who drove his chariot across the sky every morning and– oh, why bother?…) to a temple, where Poseidon uses his teleportation powers to appear and tell them all is lost. Lemme get this straight: he always had the power to teleport (as gods do), but he waited until Hades and Ares bitchbeat him half-to-death before teleporting to a temple where he happened to know Perseus was gonna be? Then he turns to dust – like it says in all the history books.

To rescue Zeus, Perseus recruits the tasty blond ringlets of Queen Andromeda (Rosamund Pike) and the arrogant dreadlocks of Poseidon’s son, Agenor (Toby Kebbell), who gets the film’s funniest line when mocking Perseus: “Mighty Kraken slayer. Shouldn’t he be somewhere posing for a statue?” Followed by the film’s dumbest line, when he tells Perseus “Go to Hell!” even though there was no such thing in Ancient Greece.

They sail in search of Hephaestus (Bill Nighy, so whacked out he references his role as Davy Jones in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN to Perseus, “I know you: ‘Release the Kraken’ and all that…”). As the forger of Zeus’ thunderbolt, Hades’ pitchfork and Poseidon’s trident, Hephaestus tells Perseus that combining them will create the Spear of Trium, the only weapon that can defeat Kronus. He also knows the way through the unsolvable Labyrinth to rescue Zeus. (‘Labyrinth’? Did someone say Minotaur?!) In asking for his help, Andromeda bows down before Hep (veeery sexy!) and says something so unutterably stupid that it sounds unutterably stupid even while she’s saying it, with that blind blond ambition glazing her eyes: “…but we humans have hope when there is no hope; and we believe when to believe is idiotic, but sometimes, in spite of everything, we prevail.” Yes, and the “prevailing” is not because of your “hope” or “belief” but due to the actual powers brought to bear on the problem; you prevail not because of hope or belief but in spite of it.

At the head of the labyrinth, Ares appears (teleporting, as gods do) and kills Hephaestus and all the extras, leaving our heroes stranded. But it turns out the Labyrinth isn’t that hard to get through, because they do it in what must be record time, with no jump cuts or dead ends. Oh yeah, and Perseus kills a guy in a BULL HELMET. (Unfortunately, I kid you not.)

As Perseus is rescuing Zeus, Kronos is released, raining lava down on Earth while roaring insatiably, as per Movie Monster Protocol.

Perseus must snatch Zeus’s thunderbolt off Ares’ back to create the Spear of Trium (which is getting kinda Try-ING at this point), so even though he has all Queen Blondie’s warriors at his disposal, why does he afford Ares the “honor” of going mano a mano with him? While Ares shields himself behind Perseus’s son Helius. That’s honorable, right?

Meanwhile, Kronos’s double-bodied demons tear through Blondie’s warriors like the toilet paper they have yet to invent to wipe their terrified asses. Think about it: the demons can only run rampant as long as Kronos is alive. So the *logical* move would be to overrun Ares with a horde of warriors, GET THE SPEAR and throw that bad boy at Kronos, thereby nullifying his armies. Instead, Blondie witlessly battles double-bodied demons (again, we presume, because the special effects department was justifying its budget) while Perseus has to do all the lifting on the spear job.

Perseus eventually gets Ares in a headlock, which proves to be his kryptonite: the God of War can defeat hundreds of men with his big man-club and divine pushing – but he can’t escape a good headlock.

Hades suddenly sees the error of his ways after helping Kronos escape. Now let me get this straight: this entity the size of the Chrysler building promised it would decimate the Earth when it was freed, and now it’s actually doing that. Exactly which part was Hades unclear on?

Kronos is defeated when Zeus and Hades kiss and make up and shoot gay-ass lightning bolts at him to “distract” him, while posing like air-guitar champions. Perseus then does his Luke Skywalker and lobs the Spear of Trium into a hole in Kronos’s mouth not much bigger than a womp-rat.

So the god of war is dead? Who’s responsible for all these wars then? Well, that would be Dick Cheney. And Poseidon is dead? I guess that leaves Aquaman in charge of the seas. And Zeus is dead? Who’s in charge of Everything then? Oh, that’s right, Bill Gates.

Perseus! Slayer of the Kraken! Slayer of Kronos! Not only will we never hear the end of this in songs and legends, he’s got the pick of blond ringleted chicks willing to go GREEK for him!

END

Who knew battle could be so boring?

Extraterrestrial aliens land in Los Angeles and humans battle them. That’s why it’s called BATTLE LOS ANGELES. Creative. Filled brim to barrel bottom with explosions, running, army jargon, and characters we care about just slightly more than the assholes on JERSEY SHORE.

It’s as if SAVING PRIVATE RYAN were directed by someone with all the tools but none of the heart of a Spielberg.

Here’s a sampling of dialogue:
“Shit! Shit!”
“Move! Move!”
“Take cover!”
“Cover me!”
“Go go go!”
“Get the hell in there!”
“Get the hell outta there!”
“Right there, right there!”

So cute how movie takes its time introducing all the soldiers involved in the battle with a title card, stating their name and rank, as they go about their soldierly day before the fracas begins: one retiring, one with pregnant wife, one getting married, one visiting his brother’s grave, one in psychiatric session, one with his soldier boy mates, one a virgin, one newbie officer… We don’t care.

Though the aliens are landing all over Earth, the movie focuses only on Aaron Eckhart leading one squad of green soldiers in an attempt to evacuate Santa Monica before the army nukes it. Pathetic attempts at camaraderie, storyline, plot and especially characterization: there’s the new lieutenant blankly wondering how to lead; the guy breaking down “They’re all gone! They’re all gone”; the guy that says, “Get ahold of yourself!”; the retiring soldier pulled back in for one last battle (Eckhart); the arc of Eckhart’s troop hating him for getting his last squad killed and the teary-eyed reconciliation as he tells them all those dead men are burned into his memory and starts reciting their names and dog tag numbers… Like we care.

Just when we think it can’t get more boring and witless, they find a wounded alien and try to figure out where its heart is by stabbing it everywhere. That would be nice if you were sharpshooting from a bell tower, but you’re pumping giant-caliber ammo and rocket grenades into these things. Does it really matter their most vital organ is “to the right of the heart area”?  Does anyone care?

Pick up civilians Bridget Moynahan and Michael Peña and some kids – devices to protect from enemy fire and make the troops more vulnerable. That’s if we CARED about Pena and Bridget and kids staying alive. Michael Pena dies just to get out of the movie.

Eckhart draws fire away from the squad and destroys an alien craft – makes Bridget Moynahan wet between the thighs. Speaking of which, Michelle Rodriguez is here as a girl-soldier, but she forgot her battle gear, which is a halter top and bare midriff, so she’s clinically useless.

The mothership looks suspiciously like the DISTRICT 9 design. But there’s no confusing that classic movie with this dreck that serves no purpose whatsoever. This movie is literally so shallow that once we find out the aliens are apparently here for Earth’s water, that’s the end of their backstory or connection to anything regarding scientific interest, ancient legends about visitations, or military coverups. The news reporters don’t even seem too amazed that they’re reporting on actual extraterrestrials – we hear more energy from newscasters when mongoloid Sarah Palin writes a Twitter message.

Somebody should burn every DVD and BluRay copy of BATTLE LOS ANGELES, incinerate the original reels, and arrest the writer and director for being bland and lifeless like their movie. I bet if you stabbed them all over their bodies you won’t find a heart.

END