FILM REVIEW OF "TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES" (2014)

Believe it or not, I saw the original “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie when it appeared in theaters back in 1990, and I enjoyed it for the harmless guilty pleasure that it provided.  The exploits of a quartet of anthropomorphic chelonian crime-fighters was as entertaining as its eponymous characters were bizarre.  Bandanna-clad vigilantes armed with an arsenal of feudal Japanese weaponry; these nimble turtles talked, walked, and displayed a predilection for pizza.  Creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird never imagined their mutated box turtles with the names of Renaissance painters would become a comic book sensation and would remain in print for 26 years from 1984 to 2010.  Eastman and Laird said they drew inspiration from the works of Frank Miller and Jack Kirby.  Specifically, Eastman and Laird sought to skewer not only “The New Mutants” and “Daredevil” at Marvel, but also the eccentric Canadian comic “Cerebus the Aardvark” as well as Frank Miller’s “Ronin” at DC Comics.  The Ninja Turtles have since metamorphosed into a social phenomenon, with three animated television series and a short-lived live-action series debuting a fifth turtle, a female called "Venus de Milo" skilled in the supernatural art of shinobi.  Four “TMNT” films followed from 1990 to 2007.  The first three movies were live-action while the fourth film “TMNT” (2007) was animated opus.  Almost 25 years after the original “Turtles” movie came out; Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon have rebooted “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” with bombastic “Transformers” director Michael Bay as producer and “Wrath of the Titans” director Jonathan Liebesman calling the shots.  No matter what you’ve heard about this latest adaptation, the new “Ninja Turtles” movie sticks pretty much to the basics.  Casey Jones, the human vigilante with a hockey stick who served as a romantic interest for news reporter April O’Neil, has been jettisoned by “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol” scenarists Josh Appelbaum & André Nemec and “Divergent” scripter Evan Daugherty.  Happily, while the characters have undergone some significant changes, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (**** OUT OF ****) emerges as a derivative but exhilarating rollercoaster of a joyride that should satisfy most of the vintage fans.  

Unlike the 1990 version, this “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” reboot revises the characters.  Channel 6 news reporter April O’Neil (Megan Fox of “Jennifer’s Body”) is more than a television journalist covering a widespread crime wave engulfing New York City.  April is now the daughter of one of the scientists who toiled on Project Renaissance.  April’s father and his partner Eric Sacks (William Fichtner of “The Lone Ranger”) were conducting experiments on four turtles and a rodent to devise a new mutagen strain for its medicinal qualities.  Unfortunately, O’Neil’s father perished in a mysterious fire in their laboratory while Sacks managed to survive.  Neither April’s deceased father nor Eric Sacks knew about April’s role in rescuing the rodent Splinter and the turtles from the conflagration.  She turned them loose in the sewer.   Years later April finds herself struggling with a story about the Foot Clan, an underworld syndicate run by a notorious Asian criminal called Shredder.  Unlike the original “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie, Shredder doesn’t use runaway adolescents to execute his evil designs.  Instead, he commands an army of deadly adult ninjas packing automatic weapons with orders to kill.  After Shredder discovers that the Ninja Turtles survived the fire, he orders his second-in-command, Karai (Minae Noji of “The Last Run”), to take hostages.  Shredder hopes the vigilante turtles will try to rescue the hostages and fall into his trap.  Naturally, Raphael (Alan Ritchson), Michelangelo (Noel Fisher), Leonardo (Pete Ploszek) and Donatello (Jeremy Howard) show up to save the hostages held at gunpoint in a subway station.  Shredder explodes with rage when the Turtles not only thwart his plan but also leave his minions trussed up like turkeys for the police.  Meantime, April shadows the Turtles and tries to photograph them, but they frustrate her efforts and delete the pictures from her cell phone.  Eventually, the Turtles escort her to their lair where Master Splinter (Danny Woodburn) reveals that she alone rescued them from the fire.  When April takes her outlandish tale to her boss, Bernadette Thompson (Whoopi Goldberg of “Ghosts of Mississippi”), she loses her job.  Basically, April finds herself back at square one with nobody to help her than her father’s old partner affluent billionaire Eric Sacks.  

“Battle Los Angeles” director Jonathan Liebesman generates madcap momentum throughout the PG-rated film’s agile 101 minutes.  The new Ninja Turtles are even more differentiated than their predecessors.  Standing six feet tall, they resemble the Marvel Comics character the Hulk.  They still crave pizza, but their abilities have been ramped up far and away beyond what they could achieve before this outrageous reboot.  For example, Donatello has been transformed into a nerdy computer hacker.  Furthermore, the Turtles’ leader Splinter sports a longer tale which he deploys as if it were a bullwhip.  Shredder resembles a samurai version of Darth Vader from “Star Wars.”  He has special devices attached to his wrists that enable him to sling dozens of deadly knives. The knives behave like boomerangs so he can retrieve them if they miss their targets.  Truly, Shredder here emerges as a stronger, more contentious villain who puts the lives of our heroes in jeopardy until the last minute.  Interestingly enough, unlike most fantasy thrillers that create massive destruction but almost no collateral damage, innocent bystanders suffer from the falling debris in one scene.  Liebesman lenses the action so his cameras are constantly whirling around the various characters.  The most gripping scene occurs when our heroes are in an 18-wheeler that plunges down the snow-swept mountain.  This adrenaline-laced scene alone makes the classic chase in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” look like a spin on a tricycle!  People who suffer from motion sickness may find this scene a challenge to handle.  You don’t have to be a kid to appreciate this muscular, slam-bang, over-the-top actioneer with incomparable computer generated imagery and hilarious shenanigans to spare.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN" (2012)

Sony Pictures has ignored the old adage: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  Five years ago, the studio canceled the fourth installment in the Toby Maguire “Spider-Man” franchise with original director Sam Raimi at the helm. Sony cited escalating production costs as the reason for abandoning the series. Now, not only has Sony rebooted “Spider-man” with a new director and a different pair of leads, but the studio also has retooled the action with an alternate love interest and darker screenplay. You could call this reboot “The Dark Spider Arises” because the filmmakers seem to be channeling the Christian Bale “Batman” movies with their solemn narrative elements. Unfortunately, “The Amazing Spider-Man” (*** out of ****) isn’t as amazing as the original “Spider-Man.” “500 Days of Summer” director Marc Webb struggles with a lackluster villain straight out of a cheesy B-movie chiller as well as a drawn-out running time. Chiefly, the villain sucks because he lacks the nefarious intellectual attitude that The Green Goblin" boasted in the first film.  Moreover, Green Goblin spouted better dialogue and armed himself with more weapons that the green predator in this remake/sequel. “The Amazing Spider-Man” clocks in at two hours and sixteen minutes and runs out of steam during the final quarter-hour as Webb wraps up the loose ends. If you are prone to scrambling out of your theater to beat everybody else to the exit as the end credits start to roll, you should resist the urge. Webb and his writers have attached an interesting scene between the villain and an accomplice that foreshadows the inevitable sequel. Just by the sound of the mysterious man's voice, you should be able to guess his identity.

“The Amazing Spider-Man” opens as Richard Parker (Campbell Scott of “Dying Young”) and his wife Mary (Embeth Davidtz of “Bicentennial Man”) drop their 4-year son Peter (Max Charles of “The Three Stooges”) off at Richard’s father’s house. This is the last time that young Peter will see his mom and dad alive. Later, Peter learns his parents perished in a fiery plane crash. Mind you, all we know about the Parkers’s demise comes from the newspaper story. They could be alive, but neither Peter nor we see them again on screen. Peter grows up with his congenial aunt and uncle and attends a high school where he is a whiz with a camera. One day, Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone of “Easy A”) catches Peter’s eye, and he snaps her picture. At the same time, the campus bully, Flash Thompson (Chris Zylka of “Shark Night 3D”), is humiliating another defenseless student. Flash demands that Peter take a picture. Peter refuses, and Flash beats him up. Later, Gwen tells Peter that she admired what he did when Flash took advantage of a smaller student. 

One day, Uncle Ben’s freezer springs a leak in the basement. Peter helps Ben salvage the contents. Quite by chance, Peter stumbles onto an old briefcase that once belonged to his father. Our protagonist finds a secret compartment within the briefcase. He discovers that his father worked at OsCorp, a genetic engineering laboratory, and had written top-secret formulas. Later, Peter masquerades as an intern and sneaks into OsCorp where he listens to Dr.Connors. Cross-species genetics obsesses the bespectacled doctor. During that visit, a spider bites Peter on the nape of his neck. Afterward, our hero finds himself performing some incredible acrobatics. Moreover, he is astonished that his hands have acquired a Velcro like tenacity that enables him to climb buildings and cling to ceilings. As it turns out, Peter's father collaborated with Connors. Poor Dr. Connors has devoted his life to restoring the forearm and hand that he no longer has. Peter gives one of his father’s equations and to Dr. Connors. Miraculously, Connors scores a breakthrough because of Peter's contribution. He is able to grow a leg on a lizard where an appendage was missing. Not long afterward, Peter’s uncle dies in a mugging, and Peter holds himself responsible because he didn’t listen to this uncle when he reprimanded him about responsibility. In the original film, Uncle Ben said, "Remember, with great power. comes great responsibility." Martin Sheen's Uncle Ben says basically the same line except he drags it out with more words. When word of mouth spreads that a monster is roaming the Big Apple, Spider-Man feels obliged to hunt it down. One of the best scenes takes place when Spider-Man has to rescue a small child from a vehicle dangling from a New York City bridge. 

Essentially, “The Losers” scenarist James Vanderbilt, original “Spider-Man 2” scripter Alvin Sargent, and “Harry Potter” scribe Steve Kloves have kept intact most of the best parts of the original. Dare they depart from the canon? Happily, they’ve have retained the radioactive spider bite scene, Peter’s clashes with Flash, and the web-slinging training sequences. Webb and his writers have made some interesting changes. Ostensibly, except for a single close-up on a stack of newspapers, they have omitted the Daily Bugle newspaper from the narrative. In other words, Peter Parker doesn’t work as a news photographer for the Daily Bugle as he did in the first “Spider-man” opus. This time around the filmmakers depict the murder of Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben in graphic detail. This tragic event occurred off-screen in the Maguire original. Further, they have made the heroic Peter Parker a lot smarter. He invents the web-slinger wristbands from existing technology whereas the webs shot out of his wrists organically in the original. 

Nevertheless, Webb and his writers have conjured a few surprises, particularly with Peter’s other romantic interest; Gwen Stacy has replaced Mary Jane Watson as his girlfriend. Mind you, their romance doesn’t have the sparks that Toby Maguire and Kirsten Durst created, especially in the memorable kissing scene when Spider-man hung upside down and Mary Jane had to peel back his mask to kiss him. Meanwhile, Peter contends with new antagonists both natural and supernatural. Peter’s natural enemy is Gwen’s father, a New York Police Department captain, who abhors vigilantes and insists that Spider-man should leave law enforcement up to the authorities. The supernatural villain is Dr. Curt Connors.  Actor Rhys Ifans’ maimed scientist villain is seamlessly mutated into a giant green lizard, but he lacks half of the ferocity of Maguire’s adversaries. The Green Goblin was a lively, audacious adversary, but The Lizard is rather dull. You wind up feeling sorry for Dr. Connors rather than hating him like The Green Goblin. The special effects are terrific as is the cinematography. Although he is 28 years old, British actor Andrew Garfield of "The Social Network" appears more believable as a skinny high school student than Toby Maguire. Martin Sheen is good as Uncle Ben, but he doesn’t overshadow the strong performance that Cliff Robertson delivered as Uncle Ben the first film. Sally Field is surprisingly good as Peter’s aunt.

As literate and nimble as it is, “The Amazing Spider-Man” qualifies as a good imitation of a classic movie.

FILM REVIEW OF ''IRON MAN 2" (2010)

“Iron Man 2” (**1/2 out of ****) ranks as an overblown, CGI-riddled, second-rate sequel.

Director Jon Favreau’s original 2008 Marvel super hero saga delivered a slam-bang, refreshing blend of super-heroism and bad attitude on the part of its egotistical protagonist, while Jeff Bridges proved a worthy opponent as his treacherous vice president who replicated his high-tech suit of armor and challenged him. While Favreau’s ambitious sequel delivers more than enough pyrotechnics, “Iron Man 2” is neither as nimble nor as engrossing as its groundbreaking predecessor. Indeed, Iron Man faces a new contender. Brutal Ivan Vanko isn’t as memorable as the sinister Obadiah Stane, but he does appropriate high moral ground as part of his crusade to topple our hero. Meantime, Robert Downey, Jr. is every bit as good as he was the first time, and he tackles bigger problems for his encore in this follow-up adaptation of a popular comic-book series that first appeared in 1963. Unfortunately, “Tropic Thunder” scenarist Justin Theroux wraps everything up a predictable plot that presents a plethora of complications but few surprises. Some movies suffer from too many characters and too great an agenda. Too much of everything cripples “Iron Man 2.” The middle section of this 124-minute marathon buckles under the weight of excessive plotting and extra characters before the film recovers sufficiently for a triumphant ending.

The action unfolds in chilly Moscow as destitute Soviet physicist Anton Vanko (Yevgeni Lazarev of “Lord of War”) dies with his son, Ivan (Mickey Rourke of “Sin City”), at his side. While this is happening, the local news contains a broadcast of Tony Stark coming out of his metal closet to admit that he is Iron Man. Before the elder Vanko passes away, he assures his son that Ivan should have been in billionaire industrialist Tony Stark’s shoes as Iron Man. As it turns out, Stark’s late father Howard (John Slattery of “Traffic”) and Anton were partners who collaborated on the invention of the arc reactor. Eventually, Anton was deported to the Soviet Union where he managed to scrape out an miserable livelihood. Ivan finds the blueprints that his father created with Howard Stark. He sets about to construct a primitive version of Iron Man’s breastplate and adds two crackling fiber-optic whips that can slice through metal as if it were butter. Look out Tony Stark! If Ivan doesn’t represent a minor threat in the overall scheme of things, Tony discovers that the very suit that enables him to carry out his vigilante crime fighting exploits is contaminating his blood and gradually killing him. In other words, our hero has got to find a new energy source that won’t kill him. Meantime, a United States Senate Investigation committee, headed up by slimy Pennsylvania Senator Stern (Garry Shandling of “What Planet Are You From?”), insists that Stark hand over the technology of his Iron Man outfit to the government for military application. Naturally, Stark refuses to cooperate. He explains that the suit and he are one, and that America need not fear anybody cloning his flying suit of armor.

Bored with the routine of running his massive corporation, Tony promotes his right hand woman, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow of “Great Expectations”), as the CEO of Stark Industries. Of course, Pepper is flabbergasted by this extravagant gesture on Tony’s part. Our hero flies off to Monaco to race in the Grand Prix and collides with Ivan and his razor-sharp whips. Pepper and Tony’s chauffeur Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau of “Couples Retreat”) careen onto the race course and toss our protagonist his portable suitcase version of his outfit. In no time at all, Iron Man emerges and defeats Ivan. Not long afterward, Tony’s worst enemy--rival weapons manufacturer Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell of “Moon”) -- breaks Vanko out of prison and then cuts a bargain with him to clone Tony’s Iron Man outfit. Ivan, however, is no flunky, and he embarks on an entirely different program. Instead of replicating Iron Man’s outfit, he masterminds an army of drones that Hammer plans to sell to the Pentagon. Stark stages the Stark Expo in Flushing Meadows, New York, to carry on his father's legacy. Anybody who creates a worthwhile contribution to technology can display their handiwork. Hammer unveils his drones, but learns too late that Ivan’s infamous scheme supersedes his own plans.

The chief problem with “Iron Man 2” is its lackluster villain. As Ivan Vanko, Rourke appears appropriately nefarious as a walking, talking tattoo with a grudge against our champion, but he poses only a disposable threat. Mind you, he looks menacing enough, but his lack of charisma is only matched by his absence of hygiene. Now, Ivan’s outfit looks more interesting, but Iron Man turns it against him in no time as he does the drones. Basically, Ivan combines Iron Man's adversary the Crimson Dynamo and the super villain Whiplash. Sam Rockwell’s buffoonish second string villain spends most of his time making an idiot out of himself. Essentially, he is an expendable character. On the other hand, comedian Garry Shandling virtually steals every scene that he has as a Congressman, particularly the last scene when he decorates Tony Stark for saving the country from Ivan. Sexy actress Scarlett Johansson shows up as Natalie Rushman, a mysterious undercover female commando who defies gravity in the scenes of close combat that she has with men. She is a feminine looking Amazon with graceful acrobatic moves. She replaces Pepper since Tony promoted Pepper upstairs. Don Cheadle takes over the role of Lieutenant Colonel "Rhodey" Rhodes from Terence Howard. Rhodes snatches one of Tony’s Iron Man outfits because he doesn’t want his friend to have a monopoly on world power. Favreau gives actor Samuel L. Jackson more screen time this time as Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., but this character does little more than act as a press agent for the eventual "Avengers" team-up movie.

Unfortunately, this installment generates neither enough excitement nor irony to overwhelm its own inertia. Anybody who walks out before the long end credits conclude their tedious roll will miss a brief scene where our hero’s new antagonist leaves his calling card in a sprawling pit.