The first full trailer for this summer’s Michael Bay-produced and Jonathan Liebesman-directed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot has premiered online a few days following its unveiling at this year’s CinemaCon. You can watch it here below.
The clip is framed by narration from William Fichtner‘s lily-white Shredder, explaining to April O’Neill (Megan Fox) how the city has fallen into ruin and chaos and how he and her father tried to stem the rising tide of violence by creating their own heroes. Yes friends, Shredder had a hand in creating the Ninja Turtles.
Whatever. I haven’t had any real interest in the characters since I was in the 6th grade so the changes to the canon molded and adhered to for years since the Turtles first appeared in the pages of a black & white underground comic book of their own created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird hardly faze me.
What’s important is how the redesigned Turtles look, and they look…big and grungy, and their faces resemble that baby mask Michael Palin wore during his “interrogation sessions” in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil if it was suffering from a bout of Arby’s-induced nausea.
The trailer indicates the film will pack in plenty of action and groan-inducing one-liners, which is what we have come to expect from a Michael Bay enterprise. It’s heavy with CGI but the mo-cap work done to create the TMNT looks solid. The kids will love this one, I’m sure.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles also stars Alan Ritchson, Noel Fisher, Pete Ploszek, Jeremy Howard, Will Arnett, and Danny Woodburn, and opens in 2D and 3D on August 8, 2014.
Trailer
That looked ten different shades of AWFUL. The gargantuan CGI Turtles fall on the wrong side of Uncanny Valley; they’re probably impressively rendered, but you never forget you’re looking at a special effect and accept them as characters. And if these new Turtles are that large, how can they pop in and out of sewer manholes? And Megan Fox can’t keep playing the “expressionless hot chick” in movies forever. Looks fade over time, she’d do well to invest in some acting lessons. While William Fichter is a serviceable actor, Shredder cannot be a white guy named “Erich Sachs!” They should have cast Ken Watanabe. I knew that this was gonna be trash right from the moment that Michael Bay was named as producer, be sure to tell me how this turns out.
Comment by MadMike R5D4 — March 27, 2014 @ 4:48 pm
So they took Transformers and replaced the Autobots with Turtles.
Comment by Matthew — March 28, 2014 @ 9:06 am
I’m pretty sure William Fichter is the creator of the ooze, not Shedder. Unless that is an empty Samurai suit he is standing in front of. It makes more sense for him to be telling April how the ooze came to be.
Comment by Patrick Von Buternuts Willett — March 28, 2014 @ 10:06 am