Movie Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

I'll preface this by stating that I almost didn't go see the movie because I've never much liked anything done with the TMNT franchise beyond the original Eastman and Laird comics, which were good for their time in the 80's. I hated the live action movies, but suffered through the first one because everyone else loved it, and have recently been subjected to repeat viewings of the later movies because my kid loves it. My wife by contrast is a huge fan of the Turtles and so I decided to surprise her with the new movie.

One of the reasons I didn't want to see the movie was it's stinky review by Movie Bob. However now that I've seen the movie, and contrast it with his comments, I have decided that I can't actually rely on him for unbiased criticism. This movie was much, much better than Bob gave it credit for...not "staggering, earth-shaking" better but more like "I got my money's worth and was entertained" better.

The movie is a retelling of the TMNT origin tale with a few twists and changes. The turtles aren't randomly in some sewer as babies when radioactive chemicals are spilled on them; now they were deliberate test subjects. The Foot Clan isn't a bunch of displaced ninjas living out the glory days in New York (because Frank Miller parodies are harder to pull off now like they were in the 80's I guess) but are instead a paramilitary crime syndicate with Japanese ninja overtones in the form of Shredder, who is an enigmatic Big Bad with dreams of Yakuza glory or something. The turtles are still the turtles, just now they look real and move like they're real and not just guys in rubber suits.

The movie deals with the rise of Shredder's clan to make New York an even bigger hell hole than it already is, the turtles appearance with the aid of April O'Neal played by Megan Fox and her camera dude ally played by Will Arnett. I love Will Arnett, so kudos here....and they let him do his trademark humor style, too, so he worked well in his time on screen. Megan Fox was actually fine in the roll of April, and kept it together for the most part....I know it's popular to hate on her, but she's always played the roles she's given just fine, and honestly I don't get the dislike. She didn't make or break the movie, but she came across believably as a hysterical reporter on a huge story about some pet turtles who had been subjected to a crazy mutagen. Oh, and the rat Spinter too.

The movie has lots of Michael Baysian action scenes, occasional slow-mo moments, and way too much shaky-cam syndrome but for a Bay film it was positively timid by comparison to other prior works. Almost passable, I dare say, without once being annoyed at the "Baysian" style of filming.

The turtles were great. For the first time ever I could figure out which one was which without looking at a color-code card and they had distinct personalities. It was played straight, like any old super hero movie, and did not once dilly dally about in the la-la land of "not quite believable behavior" that kid's franchises are often prone to being stuck in...this is a movie that was made for older viewers to watch and enjoy right along with the younger viewers. Probably wouldn't take my two-and-a-half year old to see it, though....the movie is aimed at a slightly older audience when it comes to kids.

The turtles make a lot of off-references to other heroes/franchises. It was done just obliquely enough that you could readily imagine that when Raphael is doing his "Batman voice" he's not necessarily referring to the movie but the actual Batman over in Gotham City. Michaelangelo (Mikey) was a little perve, serving as a cypher for the 13 year olds in the audience who are panting at Megan Fox I guess, while Donatello* is apparently gifted with a weird science super power. Only Leonardo* seemed to be a tad weak on the personality. Either way, I'm just amazed I could follow who was what for once.

So in the end: great summer movie, plenty of fun. If you really wanted a film that looked and felt like the old TMNT movies then this one may disappoint. However, my wife is a HUGE TMNT fan and she loved this movie. I am a fan of only Eastman and Laird's original comic and I have despised almost everything done with the turtles from the animated show to the live action movies on down, and this is the first TMNT offering that I have actually liked in over 25 years, so take that as you will. I give it a solid A.




*After writing these names in reverse my wife corrected me so maybe my turtle-fu is still weak...

Review of Painted Skin: The Resurrection

Review of Painted Skin: The Resurrection

also known as, "Chinese Cinema Has All The Cool Fantasy Movies"

I've seen more than my fair share of amazing fantasy adventures come out of Chinese cinema. It's not just about martial arts, wire-fu and traditional historical epics anymore, and the days when Hong Kong action flicks were guaranteed to be full of cheesy acting and bad voice-overs is simply a thing of the past (more or less). Today we get some seriously good stuff.

Painted Skin: The Resurrection is essentially an answer to the question, "What if it turned out that Brom and Robert E. Howard were both actually Chinese men who wanted to make a movie?" Featuring tale set in a world that is one part ancient China and one part freaky, quasi-necrophiliac barbarian-and-sorcerer craziness, Painted Skin: The Resurrection manages to create an even more interesting contrast in eastern and western fantasy than usual, with a firm mixture of eastern mythology and a dash of really exotic sword & sorcery lifted from western aesthetics but thoroughly enmeshed in eastern sensibilities. It's a really fascinating experience.

Princess Jing and Xiaowei

The story starts with a fox woman, a demoness trapped in ice for an ancient transgression in which she helped save the life of a mortal man whom she fell in love with. Xiaowei is condemned to imprisonment within ice by her fellow demons for this act of kindness and love, and lies for centuries in her prison until the young  bird demon Que'er comes along and frees her (Que'er being something of a curious trickster). Xiaowei, being a demon, needs human hearts to sustain herself in the mortal realm, and as she travels about with Que'er she realizes that she desperately wants to be human, an act which is only possible if a mortal willingly gives him her heart.

More skulls for the skull god!

Xiaowei eventually stumbles upon the martially proficient Princess Jing, who is on the lam from an imminent marriage to the prince of the empire of Tian Lang, which is just across the street from the remote mountain fortress of the White City where her lost love, the former palace guard turned general of the frontier named Huo Xin commands. It turns out that, long ago, the Princess was mauled by a bear, and Huo, as her guard, saved her....but a budding romance was ruined by his guilt at her near death experience which led to permanent scars on her face, now hidden behind her golden mask.

Xiaowei enters the White City with the intent of conspiring to somehow find a willing mortal to trade hearts with, so that she may at last feel mortality and (more importantly) escape her demon prison-keepers. Que'er, her faithful demon-bird-companion (note that both of them are disguised mortal women, but they regularly slip in and out of their animal and demon guises with great special effects) in the interim runs across a local demon hunter named Pang Lang. Pang Lang comes froma long ancestry of demon hunters and possesses the bottled tip of an ancient fox demon's tail which glows in the presence of demons. He grows immediately suspicious at the newly arrived comely guest of the Princess...

Guess who's eviiillllll

As is traditional with Chinese cinema, the story rapidly gets more complicated as love entanglements explode with guilt, confusion, misinterpretation and doubt. Amidst the unrequited love of Princess Jing and General Huo and the schemes of Xiaowei and Que'er there is the looming threat of the Empire of Tian Lang, which (being just a stone's throw away in a very unpleasant network of rocky crags) is apparently ever present and also filled with its own schemes, thanks to a remarkably vile princess, an enigmatic prince (on whom I shall say nothing because Spoilers) and a very evil necromancer. The entire empire of Tian Lang has taken its playbook and decor straight out of a Conan tale, with a heavy, heavy emphasis on as many bones as can possibly be gathered in every single shot.

Princess, I like, think yer really cool and all, even with that whole bear-mauling deal

As I was watching this movie, it was in the middle of the arrival of Tian Lang's army at the gates of the White City that I realized that I was watching a movie which, with very little (i.e. no) effort could be described as a Hyborean tale...sans Conan...set along the frontier of Khittai. Somewhere in Hyborea's Khittain easterlands this story probably...nay, certainly!....happened, folks.

The story is tight, and even possible to follow (not always easy in Chinese cinema). The melodrama is appropriate. The villains are intensely villainous and leave no doubt as to just how over-the-top evil they are. The demons are fantastically demonic and well done. The ostensible heroes of this play...Jing and Huo, are deeply empathetic and easy to care about. The version on Netflix I saw was fairly well translated as best I could tell with only one typo in the subtitles. 

This movie gets a solid A+++ from the Death Bat! Camazotz approves and says that anyone who loves sword & sorcery, fantasy, swordplay and a heavy dose of romantic drama mixed with intense violence in their movies should see Painted Skin: The Resurrection. It is also well worth watching for some inspiration in future games, especially if you'd like to see what a non-western take on sword & sorcery looks like.

A+++

Horror Review: Pontypool (2008)

Pontypool (2008)

I really love it when I find a movie like this on Netflix: a fascinating, weird, disturbing and utterly captivating movie of the most unusual kind. Pontypool does all of this on what is clearly a modest budget, relying on the strength of its actors (chiefly Stephen McHattie and Lisa Houle) to carry the tension, plot, pacing...all of it, and masterfully.

Pontypool is a small town somewhere in Canada, presumably not too terribly far from (or inside of) Quebec. It's recently acquired a new radio host DJ, Mr. Grant Mazzy, who's an old fashioned baritone smooth-talker, with an interest in spicing up the town's otherwise dreary local radio. He arrives on day one, ready to go, despite a disturbing encounter with an odd woman in the middle of the night who runs up to his car, acting very odd before disappearing in the night.

Working with Sydney Briar and her new assistant, former Iraq-vet Laurel-Anne, Grant finds out quickly that his style of radio might be a bit excessive for the small town needs of Pontypool, when things start to get weird. A report of some sort of incident by ice fishers, followed by rumors of a riot near Dr. Mendez's office of psychiatry escalate rapidly to report of random mob violence by people acting violent and nonsensical. As the stories pour in, and "traffic reporter" Keny Loney calls in descriptions of a town that seems to be going mad, as people move like herds, mouthing nonsense words and assaulting everyone they encounter. His reports get increasingly strange and charnel, forcing Grant and Sydney realize that something has gone horribly wrong in the town, and they may be the only ones who can get the word out.



Pontypool offers up some great twists, but it does so with a minimum of fuss. The tale is told specifically from the perspective of Grant and his two assistants, trapped in the radio building, with no contact with the outside world other than what is coming in by phone or wire. As the story progresses (and I'll offer only minor spoilers here) things degenerate...badly....and late in the game a desperate Dr. Mendez arrives to shed some light on the horror that has befallen the town of Pontypool.

This movie manages to capture a strong sense of suspense, the weird, a dab of the surreal, a splash of gore and even a bit of the "z" word without necessarily being about zombies. It does this with a claustrophobic focus on the radio station and manages to convey some impressive sense of horror with minimal need for actual gore and shock....and yet it is most definitely in the same boat, ultimately, as so many other end-of-the-world (or close to it) movies out there.

Great stuff! If you have Netflix, this is a must-see in my book. Even my wife liked it!

A+