Movie Review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 

Directed by Jeff Rowe

Written by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jeff Rowe, Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit 

Starring Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Hannibal Burress, Rose Byrne, Nicolas Cantu, John Cena, Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Jackie Chan, Ice Cube, Post Malone

Release Date August 2nd, 2023 

Published August 6th, 2023 

I watched the 1990 live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles recently for a review timed to the release of the latest attempt to rebuild the Turtles as a viable movie franchise. What I found was a movie that I absolutely loved. I was too old when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released in 1990, I was 14 and I thought it was for much younger kids. Look back now, with the wisdom of more than 30 years, I can say, yes, it is a product for young children, younger than 14 even, but it's a wonderful product. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 is a ridiculously fun movie. It's filled with wonderful invention and kid friendly action. 

Everything that came after that movie, not counting the television shows that I've never seen, has been a dreary slog. Each new film iteration of the Turtles has carried with it the very obvious burden of corporate exploitation. Each of the various filmmakers who tackled the franchise appeared to be doing so with a studio held gun to their head that dictated exactly how the movie should be geared toward selling merchandise and creating sequels was the only reason these movies existed. Thus, we got a series of joyless, unpleasant live action and animated attempts to leverage a popular I.P into a cash making machine. 

I say all of this to demonstrate the bias that the latest iteration of the Turtles on the big screen was up against in my mind. To say that I was cynical about seeing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the big screen again would be a grave understatement. What a lovely surprise it is then to report that the newest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles adventure, subtitled Mutant Mayhem, doesn't completely suck. In fact, it's actually pretty alright. The team of Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and director-co-writer, Jeff Rowe have found a tone and spirit that does well to hide the high level corporately leveraged truth behind its creation. 

Mutant Mayhem is yet another Turtles origin story. We have the back story courtesy of a flashback to the origin of our antagonist, a fellow mutant named Superfly. Superfly was the creation of mad scientist Baxter Stockman. Baxter created the ooze but was killed not long after by an evil organization who wanted to steal his ooze and use it to create their own mutant army. A very young Superfly fought off the baddies, rescued his fellow mutant babies, and fled into the night. He left behind one last tube of ooze which breaks and drips into the sewer. There, it finds the Turtles who are rescued by Splinter (Jackie Chan) who gets into the ooze himself. 

Splinter is rightfully afraid of humans. His first time taking his turtle babies to the surface world nearly ends with them being killed. Thus, Splinter becomes deeply overprotective. He spends the next decade training his Turtles, Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Donatello (Micah Abbey), Michaelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.) and Raphael (Brady Noon), to fight. Using old, abandoned VHS tapes, Splinter trains his Turtles to be able to defend themselves against humans. As the Turtles grow up into their mid-teens however, they've only become more and more curious about humans. They wonder if humans arent't as bad as Splinter claims. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media

Classic Movie Review Jaws 2

Jaws 2 (1978) 

Directed by Jeannot Szwarc 

Written by Carl Gottlieb, Howard Sackler

Starring Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary, Keith Gordon, Murray Hamilton 

Release Date June 16th, 1978

Published August 9th, 2023 

If there is ONE movie in the long history of movies that does not need a sequel, it's Jaws. Jaws, as crafted by Steven Spielberg, is a perfect movie. That doesn't mean it's the greatest movie of all time or even my favorite movie. When I say Jaws is a perfect movie, I merely stating that as the story is told and the film is executed, it's perfectly crafted in and of itself. Jaws, as it is, cannot be improved upon and requires no expansion upon its story. The characters, action, and ending, all play out in the best possible fashion for this movie. Jaws, as it plays, doesn't need to be expanded upon nor does it lend itself to being expanded upon. 

Thus, the only reason anyone would be ridiculous enough to make a sequel to Jaws is money. It's a purely mercenary effort to separate audiences from their money. There can be no art, no pure joy of creation to this endeavor, it's only about using something powerful as a brickbat with which to beat money out of audiences. Jaws is a money pinata and greedy Hollywood executives wanted their candy by any means necessary. That means that if they needed to force actor Roy Scheider to star in the sequel by holding him hostage to his contract, they would do it. And they did do that, Scheider didn't want to be in this movie. 

If it meant backing up a brinks truck to try and get Steven Spielberg and Richard Dreyfuss back, they would do it. It's a sign of great integrity that both Spielberg and Dreyfuss refused big money deals to compromise their integrity. Studio executives likely tried to drag up the corpse of Robert Shaw's Quint but thankfully stopped short of that. But would you be surprised that the idea was floated? It would not surprise me if that happened. Anything remotely familiar was going to be exploited for the chance of wacking that Jaws pinata. For instance, one person who did compromise his integrity is composer John Williams who did return and provided one of his most forgettable pieces of work for Jaws 2. 

So, why am I ranting about Jaws 2? The movie isn't exactly timely or relevant. Well, Jaws 2 was the classic on our latest episode of the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast. We paired Jaws 2 with The Meg 2: The Trench and what we found is that both of these movies stink out loud. Both The Meg 2 and Jaws 2 are miserable, overlong slogs that fail to remotely capture what made the first film something worth watching. The Meg, of course, doesn't compare with the genius of Jaws, it's merely the first of two Meg movies. But, The Meg is certainly better than its sequel and that's where the sequel relates to Jaws 2, which is a vastly inferior film to its original. 

Read my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review The Meg 2: The Trench

The Meg 2: The Trench (2023) 

Directed by Ben Wheatley 

Written by Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, Dean Georgaris 

Starring Jason Stathan, Cliff Curtis, Wu Jing, Page Kennedy, Sophia Cali

Release Date August 4th, 2023 

Published August 4th, 2023 

The Meg 2: The Trench is not great. Here we have yet another in a seeming series of mediocre, manufactured sequel/remake intended to nakedly capitalize on a vaguely appreciated Intellectual Property. There isn't a single person working on The Meg 2: The Trench who appears to have enjoyed making this movie. No one appears to be having fun, each is merely going through the motions of an idiot plot, a series of dimwitted set pieces that stack the odds impossibly against our heroes only to have main character powers intervene to protect Jason Statham and the young girl who provides his motivation as a character. 

The Meg of the title is a Megalodon, a theoretical construct of an ancient shark that lives in a trench heretofore unexplored and unmapped by human eyes. Or so we think. In reality, a heartless group of mercenary capitalists who managed not only to map and navigate The Trench, they managed to build an entire mining colony on the ocean floor, completely under the noses of our heroes. A spy in the operation of Jonas (Jason Statham) and his pal, Mac (Cliff Curtis), has helped steal proprietary equipment from their boss, Jiuming (Wu Jing). 

Now that the team has traveled to The Trench for an exploration of the area, the spy sets about a game of sabotage, attempting to make sure that no one finds out about the illegal mining operation and the risk it provides to potentially allowing deadly Megalodons to escape from their undersea home and into the inhabited waters of nearby islands. Naturally, of course, The Meg's get loose and the mining operation was a mistake, and you know all of this before you ever get to this point in the movie. 

The trailer has already told you that Jonas has a fight against Meg's in which he's trying to spear them. Thus, there is no tension or suspense, the movie has promised this fight at if it hasn't happened yet, then why should you worry that our characters might not survive the underwater fight sequence we suffer through for most of the second act of The Meg 2: The Trench. Not that the movie was ever going to place Jason Statham in a context where he might not survive, that's silly, he has main character powers. The only minor suspense in The Meg 2: The Trench is who, other than Statham and Jonas' step-daughter, have main character powers strong enough to never be in danger. 

Spoiler alert, most of the characters you see in The Meg 2: The Trench, have main character powers. This means there is incredibly little tension or excitement in the movie. The danger feels forced and perfunctory. Each action set piece lacks in pacing and believability. It's all very silly but not silly in a fun way, silly in a fashion that leads to eye rolling. The makers of The Meg 2: The Trench needed to lean into the silliness and respect the fact that they are making a big dumb blockbuster. Sadly, there is a dour, dispirited quality to The Meg 2: The Trench that prevents camp, ironic appreciation of the film from setting in. 

I did laugh during The Meg 2: The Trench but I don't get the sense that I was laughing at something intended to be funny. These weren't the kind of tension breaking cathartic laughs that a movie like this should inspire. Rather, this was derisive laughter, laughing at the movie rather than with the movie. It's not so much laughing at the ballsy absurdity of the film, something the Fast and the Furious franchise thrives on. No, this was more of a 'wow, this is really dumb kind of laugh that accompanies an eye roll and a check of your phone to see how much longer the movie is. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review So I Married an Ax Murderer

So I Married an Ax Murderer (1993) 

Directed by Thomas Schlamme 

Written by Robbie Fox

Starring Mike Myers, Nancy Travis, Anthony LaPaglia, Brenda Fricker, Alan Arkin 

Release Date July 30th, 1993 

Published August 4th, 2023 

I feel like I should like the movie So I Married an Ax Murderer. I have the impression of the movie as a light hearted romp with a true crime twist. It sounds charming in description: Nice guy meets a woman who happens to have a bad history with men who disappear after marrying her. There are things about it that sound like a fun twist on the true crime and rom-com genre. And yet, every time I try watching So I Married an Ax Murderer, the film sets off the pedantic, cranky side of my personality. I like to think of myself as a pretty chill, relatively relaxed guy, but when I watch So I Married an Ax Murderer, my skin crawls and I get easily irritated. 

So I Married an Ax Murderer stars Mike Myers as Charlie. Charlie is a poet in San Francisco. Is being a poet in a coffee shop his job? He doesn't appear to have any other means of support so I guess that's what we are supposed to believe. Through Charlie's poetry, set to the beat of improvised jazz, we learn that Charlie is finicky about women. His most recent break up was dubiously related to his belief that his ex-girlfriend stole his cat. Charlie's best friend, a police detective, Tony (Anthony LaPaglia), believes Charlie is too hard on the women he dates and too picky about minor flaws they may or may not have. He thinks Charlie is simply afraid of commitment. 

This notion will be put to the test when Charlie meets Harriet (Nancy Travis), a beautiful woman who seems to speak his strange comic language. The two vibe over Charlie helping Harriet on a tough and busy day at her family Butcher Shop. Charlie's Dad, also played by Myers, was also a Butcher back in the day so Charlie volunteers to work for Harriet as a way to get the chance to hit on her all day. The two flirt mercilessly, mostly via various cuts of meat, I am in cringing just thinking about this scene. I can't help it. I kept thinking, this is her place of business, she's busy with a line of customers, and this guy is doing meat based schtick. She encourages it, but I only find that equally frustrating. 

The meaty flirtation leads to the two spending the night together and helps Charlie locate the first red flag about this new relationship. Harriet has a habit of talking and moaning in her sleep while talking about someone named Ralph. When confronted about Ralph, Harriet doesn't want to talk about it. Nor does Harriet want to talk about any aspect of her past, especially the number of times she's previously been married. By coincidence, Charlie's mom (Brenda Fricker), shows him a copy of the Weekly World News tabloid which has a story about a marrying serial killer who seduces and kills husbands. The pattern matches with some of Harriet's backstory and Charlie begins to end the relationship. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Secret of the Ooze (1991) 

Directed by Michael Pressman 

Written by Todd W. Langan 

Starring Paige Turco, David Warner, Vanilla Ice, Ernie Reyes Jr. 

Release Date March 22nd, 1991 

Published August 3rd, 2023 

If you don't realize that Hollywood studio executives are blood sucking snakes eager to suck the life blood out of anything that appears remotely like a hit, I have just one sequel for you, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze. Pumped out in less than 12 months after the original and without director David Barron, the man responsible for the charming first live action Turtles adventure, is as nakedly commercial and mercenary as Hollywood can possibly be. I'm sure that Barron's director's chair still had his name on it when he was already being replaced by the cheaper, less experienced but very eager Michael Pressman. 

Barron dodged a bullet, for sure. Had he stuck around to make a sequel to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequel, he would have been blamed either for not giving the fans what they wanted, more Turtles, and, more than likely, he would be blamed for the film's mediocre performance in the rushed wake of making the first film and the studio bean counters urgency in making a second film in a hot, of the moment franchise. Naturally, not at all unexpectedly, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lacks for not having the steady, ingenious hand of Steve Barron guiding the sequel. 

Instead, what we get is a movie that was made cheap and fast and not at all satisfyingly. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze isn't bad, but it is kind of cheap and ugly due to the nature of it being rushed into production simply to capitalize on the success of the first film. There is always going to be an icky quality to a sequel that exists purely as a way to wring a little extra cash out of an existing intellectual property. It's always going to feel like a movie that only exists as a product to be used as a flail slapped on to the moving going consumer with the sole purpose of separating people from their cash. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) 

Directed by Steve Barron 

Written by Todd W. Langan, Bobby Herbeck 

Starring Judith Hoag, Elias Koteas, Sam Rockwell, Corey Feldman 

Release Date March 30th, 1990 

Published August 2nd, 2023 

There is a joy in discovering something that is almost indescribable. It's a kind of unmatched euphoria that becomes less and less available to adults as your sense of wonder morphs into an inability to find many things surprising through age and experience. When you are struck with that moment of discovery, that realization of seeing something that you have not seen before, you need to grab it and ride it out for as long as you can as these moments tend to be fleeting. I experienced the joy of discovery when I saw the 1990 live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. 

That sounds bizarre as this was a major blockbuster movie from my relative youth. I was 14 years old when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arrived in theaters and I was most assuredly aware of the film's existence. I likely would have seen the movie in 1990 but I genuinely do not recall it. I may have caught it on home video or cable television in the ensuing three decades before I actually sat down to watch it for my podcast, the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast. And yet, when I did watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as an obligation to my podcast partner, Bob Zerull, I experienced what I can only describe as a euphoric sense of discovery. 

Having deemed myself too old at 14 years to enjoy anything related to a kids movie, I had spent three decades dismissing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a movie for fans whose brains weren't fully developed. I had made up my mind that only a child could watch and enjoy a movie about guys in rubber turtle costumes spouting canned catchphrases intended to pop the tiny masses of children around the globe. Nevertheless, I did sit down to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for its 30th anniversary and I came away shocked at how lively, funny, and rich the experience was. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review The Hand

The Hand (1981)

Directed by Oliver Stone

Written by Oliver Stone

Starring Michael Caine, Bruce McGill

Release Date April 24th, 1981 

Published August 2nd, 2023 

The Hand is a truly bizarre idea. Writer-Director Oliver Stone, directing only his second feature, sets out to have us be genuinely afraid that a severed hand might be killing people. Forgetting the fact that watching people wrestle with a severed hand that they are holding to their throat is a very, very funny visual, Stone is deathly serious in how he presents The Hand. Eschewing the 60s B-Movie, Drive-In aesthetic more suited to this idea, Stone seems to think that he can convince us that a severed hand is a frightening monster on par with the greats of MGM's murderer's row. 

Stone is undermined in his effort by his choice of star. Michael Caine may be an all time beloved actor but when he's in a bad movie, he gets into the bad vibe. Caine has famously said of The Hand that the film helped put a new garage on his home. That about sums up Caine's level of commitment to this silly, silly movie that only the writer-director seems to think is genuinely scary. Caine hams it up in the role of cartoonist, Jon Lansdale. 

The contempt with which Caine discusses his character's profession is unintentionally hilarious. The idea is that he's become wildly successful and famous for writing a manly superhero character. But when Caine tries to defend the integrity of his creation, his art, he sounds as if he were mocking the very concept of comic strips all together. There is simply nothing about the actor Michael Caine that screams comic strip auteur. It's easy to sense that Caine simply doesn't care about this back story, it's what he's been asked to deliver and he's doing it. 

The plot of The Hand centers on an accident in which our cartoonist protagonist loses his hand. The hand is cut clean off and then simply vanishes from the field where it most certainly had landed. The hand then begins a reign of terror that begins with menacing the family cat and graduates to a legit body count. The question hovering over all of the action of The Hand however is: Is the hand killing people or is it all in Jon Lansdale's mind? 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media