Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

"Can we just go back to the awkward rubber suits already?"

- Honest Trailers

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (not to be confused with the 2013 game of the same name it was named after) is a 2016 American superhero film based on the fictional superhero team the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It is the sixth theatrical Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, the second and final film in the reboot series, and a sequel to 2014's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The film was directed by Dave Green and written by Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec. It stars Megan Fox, Stephen Amell, Will Arnett, Laura Linney, Noel Fisher, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, Alan Ritchson, Brian Tee, and Tyler Perry. It premiered at Madison Square Garden on May 22, 2016 and was released on June 3, 2016, in 3D, RealD 3D, 4DX and IMAX 3D, by Paramount Pictures.

Plot
The turtles face a new challenge when Shredder escapes from custody and joins forces with Baxter Stockman, a mad scientist who plans to use a serum to take over the world. Along for the ride are Bebop and Rocksteady, two dimwitted henchmen who provide plenty of muscle. Luckily, the turtles have their own allies in April O'Neil, Vernon Fenwick and Casey Jones, a hockey-masked vigilante. As the pizza-loving heroes prepare for battle, the notorious Krang also emerges to pose an even greater threat.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Terrible acting, just like in the first film. The biggest offender is surprisingly enough Megan Fox. We say surprisingly enough because in the first film, she was at least invested and looked like she cared about the role. She ends up being nominated at Worst Actress for 37th Golden Raspberry Awards, again.
 * 2) The story is really overstuffed with a rushed main plot, subplots that go nowhere, some scenes that go on too long, pretty much suffers from Spider-Man 3/Amazing Spider-Man 2 syndrome of having too many characters, and several stupid moments.
 * 3) Poor CGI, except on Krang.
 * 4) Shredder has really been downgraded to a side villain in this film, looks nothing like how he did in the last movie, and has a very weak payoff. And Stockman and Karai are both weak side villains.
 * 5) Unfunny and weak humor.
 * 6) Leo can be rather unlikable at times, especially when he says “there’s only one vote that counts in this family: mine!”
 * 7) Bebop and Rocksteady are so immature where they act more like parodies of the original characters.
 * 8) April is somehow even more uninteresting this time, and Casey is basically a clone of Robin from Batman and Robin.
 * 9) Chief Vincent is one of the most irritating characters in the history of Ninja Turtles, as she only exists to say the information is false, even after she sees the Turtles right in front of her. At that point, she has no reason not to trust them!.
 * 10) The mystery of Shredder's identity is lost. In the first film, he's kept mostly in the shadows, and when he was in full light, his face was masked to hide his identity, adding to the intrigue factor. Here, he's almost entirely unmasked. There isn't even a big reveal of who he is, they just go "okay so this guy's Shredder now... cool? Cool."
 * 11) On top of that, Shredder looks very different than how he looked in the first film. There, he was a clean-shaven bald American looking man with weird marks all over his head, while here, he looks like a generic asian villain.
 * 12) One scene has April dress in a skimpy schoolgirl outfit, which serves no purpose other than fetish fuel.
 * 13) The film tries to force in an emotional aspect with how the Turtles are discriminated, but they almost immediately forget about it.
 * 14) Donatello's device is so overpowered that it tracks DNA!
 * 15) *On the topic of this, he seems to know what's going on despite having no information to support his research.
 * 16) Casey Jones acts almost nothing like his original character as a vigilante, as he only acts like a child who dreams of becoming a detective. In fact, most of his angry outbursts just feel like temper tantrums as a result.
 * 17) The subplot of Raphael becoming human through using Mutagen was just an excuse for the "Be yourself" cliché, which has been done so many times before.
 * 18) Casey Jones' trademark hockey mask only appears in just one scene.
 * 19) Much like every other film with the involvement of Michael Bay, there is an abundance of extremely insulting product placements, such as how the data April collected came from an iPad.
 * 20) Surprisingly, the pizza the turtles order in the beginning of the film was in a generic pizza box. Was Pizza Hut displeased with the last movie?
 * 21) According to this movie, humans have a gene connecting them to animals (what?!); this is just used as a lazy excuse for why Bebop and Rocksteady turn into their animal forms, when really, putting the ooze on them and merging them with the animals would've worked fine.

Good Qualities

 * 1) The Turtles are the main protagonists this time, rather than just serving as the main linchpin for April's story arc which was presented in the previous movie.
 * 2) *Not to further mention, the film is kind of an improvement over the first reboot film.
 * 3) The soundtrack is pretty good by Steve Jablonsky, since it is good improvement over Brian Tyler's score (despite being good).
 * 4) Good voice acting for the Turtles and Krang.
 * 5) Even if the CGI is terrible, it looks slightly better than the first film, especially on Krang and the Turtles looking brighter.
 * 6) Still decent visual effects.
 * 7) Great action scenes, especially when the Turtles battle Bebop and Rocksteady.
 * 8) Some funny moments here and there.
 * 9) "The good news is, you're wearing shoes."
 * 10) *"Shoes."
 * 11) *"The bad news is..."
 * 12) * (soldiers got thrown out of the plane, screaming their heads out.)

Critical response
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows received mixed reviews from critics, audiences and fans alike, although many considered it either slightly better or even worse its predecessor. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 38% based on 172 reviews, with an average rating of 4.69/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is a slight improvement over its predecessor, but still lacks the wit or anarchic energy of the comics that birthed the franchise". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 40 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale, an improvement over the first film's "B".

Box office
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows grossed $82.1 million in the United States and Canada and $163.6 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $245.6 million, against its production budget of $135 million. It made around 50% less than its predecessor, which had grossed $493 million. In October 2016, in response to the film's poor commercial performance, producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller said they loved the movie, and they loved making it, but they were surprised by the film's performance and "it just didn't find an audience. We really don't know why". The Hollywood Reporter estimated the film lost the studio at least $75 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues.

Cancelled sequel
Noel Fisher stated in an interview that he and the other Turtle actors had signed on for three films. Megan Fox had also signed on for three films. Tyler Perry said that if a third film was made, his character, Baxter Stockman, would probably mutate into his fly form during the movie. Pete Ploszek also expressed his interests in reprising his role in a third film as Leonardo. In October 2016, in light of the film's financial underperformance, producer Andrew Form indicated that a third film was unlikely.

Animated reboot
In June 2018, Paramount Pictures announced a new reboot in the series with Bay, Fuller and Form returning to produce the film and Andrew Dodge writing the script. Fuller and Form said at the 24th Critics' Choice Awards that production on the reboot is set to start in 2019, but in July, TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman revealed that the film is still in development and believed that Paramount took the reactions to the 2014 and 2016 films "to heart", and that "its going to be a next-level type of stuff".

The reboot is reported to be a CG animated film with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg producing through their Point Grey Pictures production company; this will be the second animated film in the franchise following 2007's TMNT. The film will be directed by The Mitchells vs. the Machines co-director Jeff Rowe with a script by Neighbors screenwriter Brendan O'Brien. Nickelodeon president Brian Robbins has described the project as a "next-level reinvention of the property". The film will be released on August 4, 2023.

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Trivia

 * William Fichtner stated that he would be returning as Eric Sacks, but for unknown reasons, he ultimately did not appear in the final film.
 * Pete Ploszek provided both motion-capture and voice for Leonardo after Johnny Knoxville didn't return to voice Leonardo, of which was originally intended to be the case with the first film before Knoxville stepped in for unknown reasons.
 * According to Alan Ritchson, who played one of the turtles Raphael in the movie and its sequel, Alan hated working on the film and its sequel because of the production issues going on. At first Alan Ritchson was not sure about playing Raphael because he didn't want to play a motion-capture character, but the promise of being a star-making career move by the producers, Paramount and pleasing his son, a huge TMNT fan, convinced him to accept the part. The TMNT actors were then not given the same special treatments as their live-action co-stars Megan Fox and Will Arnett and often seemed to be mistreated and afterthought by most of the producers (including Michael Bay) and Paramount Pictures during and after filming of both movies, not even allowing much opportunities to do press for the picture and were not invite to the premiere as promised and instructed them to not give press interviews while claiming they (the turtles) were the ones refusing to give interviews but denying saying they wanted interviews. Ritchson personally emailed the late Brad Grey many times about the situation, Alan did not want to return as Raphael after having an unhappy experience making the first movie, but was bound by his contract to do so and then was promised it would not happen again on the sequel, but nothing much changed during filming the sequel either.
 * This is the first TMNT story where Casey Jones does not have long hair, when traditionally he wears a mullet; similarly, this is the first TMNT story where the Shredder has a beard, when traditionally he is clean-shaven.