“A little froth” is what NYC journalism-school grad April (Megan Fox) seems headed for, as her station steers her toward puff pieces. It’s a good thing, then, that one night’s snooping around the docks puts her in contact with our crime-busting “heroes in a half shell,” who quickly take over the movie (relegating Fox to the duty of cowering behind pylons).
Utterly inessential, this slightly cheap-looking reboot of the Turtles franchise is froth too—it might even be too tame for the kids who make up the target audience. Exec producer Michael Bay has put his stamp all over the thing, from the tower-snapping action mayhem in Times Square to the fair amount of flirty wisecracking (super awkward coming from the mouths of reptiles).
Mainly, though, this is as generic as Hollywood gets. Motion-capture technology doesn’t make the turtles any more believable—that is, if you can see them through the murky cinematography—and when you find yourself aching for more scenes with bad-guy William Fichtner, there’s a serious problem. The film is for all those painfully postironic teenage boys who don’t want to ogle Megan Fox. Have a good time, sirs, whoever you are.