Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

Everyone's favorite terrapin crime-fighters are back for another cinematic adventure. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are the same giant, color-coded reptiles that producer Michael Bay and director Jonathan Liebesman re-introduced in 2014. Now with Dave Green in that director's chair, the guys are back for round 2.2 in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.

Leonardo (Pete Ploszek), Donatello (Jeremy Howard), Raphael (Alan Ritchson) and Michelangelo (Noel Fisher), are still the Ninja Turtles. They defeated the Shredder (Brian Tee) but gave the credit to newsguy Vern (Will Arnett). Raph is bitter with the arrangement; Mikey wants to make a public debut and Leo tries to reel them in. Meanwhile, Don and April O'Neil (Megan Fox) suspect scientist Baxter Stockman (Tyler Perry) of something devious. They're right; Stockman has a teleporter which he uses, along with some Foot Soldiers, to bust out Shredder from a prison convoy.

Shredder winds up on the Technodrome, where he meets the evil Krang (Brad Garrett). Krang wants to come to Earth and Shredder wants some Turtles dead. They team up. Shredder gets some Purple Ooze which he uses to make his personal mutants, Bebop (Gary Anthony Williams) and Rocksteady (Sheamus). The Purple Ooze can also, probably, render the Turtles human. The Turtles almost break apart because of it. But the Turtles will have to settle their differences if they want to keep Earth intact.

About a month or so after the last one, I considered it a footnote in the franchise. "Oh yeah, that happened." I thought. But this entry is a step in the right direction.

Our heroes themselves are how you remember them. Leo's the stern leader, Raph is the tough loner, Don is the nerd and Mikey's the dude. Their unique personalities and familial bond is what makes the film work. The Turtles and their dynamic were the last film's best part and they didn't forget that here.

The film continues its predecessor's use of motion-capture mutants. The designs for the Turtles and their sensei Splinter were tweaked to keep them down the Uncanny Valley. But they still look like plausible real world mutants. The new characters, overall, look like their cartoon counterparts come to life, which should please some people.

What else? Shredder, like the last film, isn't much of a presence except on principle. Meanwhile, Bebop and Rocksteady were a fun pair of musclebound henchmutants. Newcomer Casey Jones (Stephen Arnell) makes for a good, quirky vigilante. The action scenes were fun and the humor isn't childish. In fact, its sense of humor was legitimately funny.

This entry is worth remembering, for better or worse, than its predecessor. There is some substance to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, and it isn't just "stuff fans like." It's substance that keeps you going for the 112 minutes it's on.