Retro Review: Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid - (1969)

(As always, potential spoiler alert.)

I find myself with some free time on my hands today. After waking up early today to film and edit an ice bucket challenge, I wondered what to do with the rest of my day. So, browsing through my DVD collection, I decided to watch one I picked up on sale. Namely, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

I'll be the first to tell you, I'm pretty far behind on classic movies to watch. My knowledge is more of modern films, but I try to educate myself when I can. I had always heard good things about this film, so I took it as an opportunity to learn a little bit more about what makes a classic movie a classic. I'll treat this as a review, but after pros and cons, since this an older film, I'll give you my opinion on whether or not it still holds up today. I'll only be doing that last bit for older films. Let me know what you think, but for now, let's begin.

Plot Summary:

Our story begins with Butch (Paul Newman), Sundance (Robert Redford), and Butch's hole in the wall gang (Sundance considered himself seperate from the group) deciding that they want to rob a train called the Union Pacific Overland Flyer, a train known to be carrying money to and from it's respective end points. They decide to rob it coming both back and forth. The first robbery goes off without a hitch, but the second one ends when a posse lead by the best trackers and lawmen in the west come after them. After a grueling chase, Butch and Sundance meet up with Sundances girlfriend Etta Place (Katharine Ross). Realizing that they'll never stopped being chased, the three of them decide to go to Bolivia. After a string of successful robberies, they suspect the lawmen from the states have followed them to Bolivia, causing them to rethink what to do. They land a job and attempt to go straight, but after being ambushed by robbers and having to get the money back, they decide to return to robbery, but Etta returns to the United States. After stealing a payroll themselves, they arrive at a nearby town and are discovered by the police and the army. Butch and Sundance to decide to go out fighting and......the movie ends. It leaves you to decide what happens to them.

Now, the next step.

Pros - Where do I begin? First off, the chemistry between Paul and Robert is amazing. The Real Butch and Sundance were friends, but Paul and Robert sell it like they were the best of friends. They bounce off each other perfectly humor wise as well. The movie is full of humor and every joke is spot on. The cinematography is fantastic as well, especially in the chase sequence, there are so many fantastic shots of the complex landscape of the west and all of it is gorgeous.  There's even two montage sequences that are supposed to show large passages of time going by and they do those well too. The pacing in this film is perfect, you never feel like anything has arrived out of the blue.I would complain that Etta is sort of barely in the film, but I can overlook that by the fact that they don't force some stupid love triangle between the three of them.

Cons - Honestly, aside from Etta not being in it enough, I can't think of any. Maybe how the film sort of just plops you in in the beginning, but even then that's a minor nitpick at best.

Does it still hold up today? - Absolutely. You don't get put into the national film registry by being mediocre. They even tried making a prequel to it. I've read it got mixed reviews, but even that got nominated for an Oscar.

Final Score - 10/10

The first one of these I've given since doing this, this film easily deserves it. If you get a chance, I may have a  DVD copy, but I know it's on Netflix, and if you need a solid western with a fantastic sense of humor, I'd easily recommend this.

And that's the first Retro Review. I rather enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoyed reading this.

Until next time, I'll see you around.

Review: Sin City: A Dame To Kill For - (2014) Was the nine year wait worth it?

(As always, potential spoiler warnings ahead)

The original Sin City came out in 2005 to mostly positive reviews. It was hailed as a highly stylized, action packed, guilty pleasure of a film. Had I been reviewing it back in the day, it would've gotten a 9/10, just short of being a masterpiece, but still a bad ass film. It was derided by some though as just mindless violence lacking a story. The sequel though does attempt to try and provide a more story driven film, but with actually quite a bit less violence as a result. Does it work out? Let's find out.

As always, it'll go plot summary, pros and cons, and final rating.

Like the first film, Sin City: ADTKF has multiple stories, some of which are broken up into multiple pieces. But for the purposes of this review, I'll tell the stories one at a time separately, marking any intersections that happen. What I can tell you though is that the film starts after the death of John Hartigan (Bruce Willis) but before the death of Marv (Mickey Rourke.) With that said, let's go to the individual stories.

Marv's Story: "Just Another Saturday Night"

The film starts with Marv at a car accident, trying to remember how he got there. Retracing his steps, he remembers that after leaving Kadie's saloon, he encounters four frat boys lighting the homeless on fire. He then chases them into the projects, his old deadly neighborhood, he dispatches of the frat boys with the help of the locals. Arguably the shortest story in the film, I honestly can't think of anything really wrong with it, as it just shows another night in the life of Marv. Mickey Rourke is just as good as he was in the last film, and he will be throughout.

Johnny's (Joseph Gordon Levitt) Story: "The Long Bad Night"

Johnny, a cocky young gambler, arrives in Sin City and finds himself in Kadie's place. He plays the slot machine's, hitting the jackpot every time. He attracts the attention of Marcie, who he brings with him into the back room poker game as a good luck charm. The game is being run by Senator Rourke (The father of the yellow bastard from the first film), and after quite a few impressive hands, he busts out Rourke. After a night on the town with Marcie, Rourke's goons find Johnny, and bring him to Rourke. He is then beaten and robbed of his money, and also gets his fingers broken. (At this point the film jumps to the next story.The following takes place where the film picks it up again. )Bloody and broken, he manages to find a doctor and gets his hand fixed. Heading back to his hotel room where he told Marcie to meet him, he realizes that she is unprotected. He enters his room, only to find Rourke waiting to chase him out. Heading to a diner, he decides he has to find at least a dollar, to pick up his winning streak again and be able to play in the next poker game. At the diner, a waitress takes pity on his condition and gives him the dollar. Earning enough money at the slots, he then heads to the game, this one also run by Rourke. I won't spoil the ending, but I will say this, I was kind of disappointed. Even with a couple of surprise cameos, I argue this is the weakest story of the four. It's not bad, but compared to the others, it just falls behind.

Dwight's (Josh Brolin) Story: "A Dame to Kill For" (Hey that's the name of the film!)

Years before his story in the first Sin City (where he was played by Clive Owen originally, but if you know the details of the first film, Clive Owen was actually "Dwight's new face") Dwight is working as a private detective, and leading a life of sobriety. His old flame Eva calls him up and asks to meet him, and that's actually as far as I'm going to go with the summary of this one. This is the main story of the film, easily the best one (it pretty much had to be,) this is the one where you'll notice the lack of violence from the first film. The story is actually quite impressive and well played out. The only real flaw with it is this silly side plot involving two detectives, while well acted by Christopher Meloni and Jeremy Piven, it feels like padding that only really serves one minor purpose that ultimately kind of feels pointless.

Nancy's (Jessica Alba) Story: "Nancy's Last Dance"

You get a glimpse of the beginning of this one during Long Bad Night, but the last story finds Nancy on the verge of collapse after the death of Hartigan. Deciding she has nothing to lose, she teams up with Marv and seeks revenge on Senator Rourke. Again, won't say too much about it, but this is the one that bugs me the most. It's mostly two details (one major and one minor) that again I won't spoil, but if you can follow the continuity of the films, leaves you with a couple of questions. While one is slightly easier to answer than the other, it does kind of hurt the ending if, again, you know the details. If you don't it should be find otherwise.

Summary's over, now the next step.

Pros - The film easily manages the same impressive visual style as it's predecessor, and everyone is firing on 100% acting wise. I can't think of any faults with the acting what so ever, even with the smaller roles.

Cons - The drop of violence in favor of more story telling, while mostly awesome, kind off leaves the stories more open to slight problems in terms of the smaller details. Dame to Kill For is the best story, but the other three don't match up to it. Marv's is too short, Johnny's has that really bland ending, and the small detail problems in Nancy's drag the film down.

Final Verdict: 7/10 - Overall, the film is great, but it does not live up to the original Sin City. It's still worth a watch, but if you want to go on a Tuesday, no one will blame you at all. With the box office returns at the time of this article, it seems like a lot of people might be doing the same.

So sadly, while still good, Dame to Kill For falls victim to the sequel syndrome. Still worth a watch though.

I'm not sure when the next post will be, but until then, you folks have a great day.

DVD Movie Review: Joe (2014) - A modern Nicolas Cage film that doesn't suck....mostly

(Spoiler Warning)

It's been kind a weird few days for me. So I felt like watching something a bit different than what I usually watch. I like drama films, I have a few in my collection, but I can't think of any that are my favorites off the top of my head (Although 2012's Mud was awesome) . So when I came across a DVD of Joe in a pawn shop a while back I thought,why not. So on this weird day of mine, I figure I do a review to give me something to distract myself. So like before, I'll do plot summary, pros and cons, then a final score. Let's get to it.

Our story follows and ex-con by the name of Joe, played by Nicolas Cage. He runs a small company charged with cutting down sick trees to make way for new pine trees to be planted. While working one day, a young man named Gary, played by Tye Sheridan, asks for a job. Joe gives him the job, and after the day is over, Joe tells Gary he can being his dad who needs a job with him if he likes. Gary's dad is an abusive alcoholic and I'm going to be honest there's a lot going on in the movie. I would've just quoted the wikipedia page summary, but it's a sentence long. I'm not joking. But basically Joe takes a liking to Gary and helps him out, while Gary's dad goes around town getting into trouble and then the two things intersect at the end.

So, let's get to the pros and cons.

Pros - Nicolas Cage and Tye Sheridan are fantastic. I give Tye the slighter edge, but mostly because Joe is mostly a reserved kind of character and that can be considered easier to do. He does have his funny and intense moments, but Tye does most of the heavy lifting here. The film also captures the setting and tone of the story really well, and at moments it can really draw you in.

Cons - First and foremost, the films pacing grinds to a complete halt and it just feels slow. Like, I know how dramas are supposed to play out, and they can do a good job with keeping people invested, but Joe does this really stupid thing of having too many minor subplots going on and even one subplot where Gary's dad murders a homeless man for his wine that's never resolved. Stuff like that can kill the pacing of a film and while there are a few good moments in between the slower bits, it feels like it's on a 2:1 ratio.

Final Score: 7/10

I was going to give it a six, but I can't deny how awesome Cage and Sheridan are in this movie. The movie would've been much better though had it been maybe twenty minutes shorter, and didn't have so may subplots going on. If you can find it for cheap, and don't mind the slow parts, I recommend it. I myself though might not be re-watching it any time soon.

So there you go, a Nicolas Cage film that doesn't completely suck. A rarity to see nowadays, but maybe he'll get lucky and we can see a few more in the future.

So until next time, you folks have a good one.

DVD Movie Review: Under the Skin (2013) - Art-house films never looked so good

(Spoiler Alert)

Anyone who knows me knows I love movies. Hence this blog, and the over 400 movies in my collection (at last count anyways.) I'm always looking for new stuff I haven't seen, and favorites from the past. Today I'll be looking at a movie in the latter category.

Made in Scotland last year, Under the Skin had a brief limited run before being released on to DVD last week. It actually was in theatres one week before Lucy came out, I mention this because both of them star Scarlett Johansson. Let's begin the review shall we? I'll give a brief plot summary, then point out pros and cons, and give a final score.

Scarlett Johansson stars as an alien of unknown origins. After stealing an outfit from a dead woman that was brought to her by her motorcycle riding fellow alien (it's an art-house film the whole summary is going to sound like this.) She begins traveling around the city, looking for men who are alone. She then seduces them, and brings them back to her (completely black) lair. Once in her lair, she has them follow her until they begin to sink into a mysterious ooze that appears in the floor. Once they sink into the ooze, their skin is peeled off of them, while their body is ground to mush. After luring a few victims, she meets a sexually inexperienced man suffering from facial neurofibromatosis. After luring him to the lair, she suddenly decides to let him leave and he flees into the Scottish highlands, only to be pursued and killed by the motorcycle rider. She then wanders Scotland herself, and starts trying to brace humanity herself. There's more I could write, but I don't want to spoil the rest.

So, now we'll do the pros and cons.

Pros: To start, it's a very pretty movie. Every shot looks carefully planned, even the few scenes that were improvised (mostly scenes of the alien talking to men.) It has a very Tree of Life type feel to them, where it feels like there's more going on then what's on the screen. Scarlett Johansson also gives a really good performance as the alien. From tempting seductress, to lost in world unknown to her, she's gives a wide range of emotions and pulls it off wonderfully.

Cons: It being an art-house film, that basically means very little dialogue going on. While not every film needs a lot of dialogue (nor was it bad in anyway) you're supposed to follow the story by actually watching the film, and that can turn a lot of people off from liking it. And in the story as well, it's never directly stated that the aliens are in fact aliens, I personally learned that from reading up on the film when it first came out. I have no problem with art-house films, but you risk alienating a lot of people from liking it because of that.

Final Score: 8/10

It's not a film everyone will like, but I really enjoyed it. I would call it a film to watch if you want to watch something completely different, and with a running time of 108 minutes, it won't drag on for hours. In fact the film, despite the lack of dialogue, does move at a steady pace. I got it for $15 dollars, but if you want to wait for a price drop, it'll be more worth it to you then.

So there we go, my first DVD review. I might try to do one or two of these between theatre releases, and maybe even throw in some retro movie films as well. We'll just see how it goes.

Until next time, I'll see you folks around.

Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) - New contender for the worst movie ever made.

2016 Edit: Hey All, After reading this review, why not come back up here and find out what I thought about the sequel, which you can read here.

As always, SPOILER ALERT. But honestly, let me try and save you $15 bucks by telling you what happens anyways.

I have seen my far share of bad movies. I have a t shirt from the room, I have the episode of MST3K in which they watch the beast of yucca flats, a movie which I would love to do a bad movie review on some day. But do you know what's actually kind of awesome about those movies? they're so bad, they're actually kind of funny. But mother of god, TMNT fails do even do that. This slow, boring, painfully told, piece of torture should be seen by absolutely no one unless you have a gun to your head (and even then, death might be the better alternative.)

If you're looking for a short answer: It's awful don't see it. 

But if you want to know why in full detail, I will be going over the entire plot of the movie in detail (because of how painfully it burned itself into my brain) so you don't have to. Lets begin.

In present day new york, the city is being threatened by a terrorist group calling themselves The Foot Clan. April O'Neil is a reporter for channel six news trying to find her big scoop related to clan robbery of chemicals to try and get herself out reporting fluff pieces. (The fluff piece they give as an example in this case being an elaborate excuse to get Megan Fox to jump on a trampoline. I'm not making that up, I'm not that perverted.)

While trying to find a lead on the story, April comes across a clan robbery in progress at the docks. As she's trying to get footage, someone starts attacking the clan and foils the robbery causing the clan to flee. April then catches a glimpse of the hero, who she starts referring to as a vigilante. She also takes a picture of a Japanese symbol left behind by the hero. April realizes that this is the scoop that she is looking for.

The movie then jumps to Shredder (it's not a spoiler it's so obvious it's splinter you can see it from space, also I warned you) talking to his lieutenant about the failed robbery earlier in the film. She tells Shredder that they were attacked by a vigilante, so Shredder tells her to draw them out by taking hostages. (A plan that has kind of a giant hole in it, which I'll cover in a bit.)

The next day at work, April tries to show the photo to her boss at the station (who is played by Whoopi Goldberg of all people surprisingly) but with just the one photo in hand and no other proof, her boss and colleagues dismiss her claim, even her own cameraman Vernon Fenwick (played by Will Arnett who might also be the only one actually trying.)

Later on, while covering a speech given by Eric Sachs, a scientist and business man who is helping the NYPD fight the foot clan, she talks to him afterwards where it is revealed that April's late father worked with Sachs and that he also knew her when she was a kid. 

While driving back from the event, April sees people running in the opposite direction and decides to go find out what's going on. She arrives at a subway station, and sees members of the foot clan. While going to investigate, she herself gets captured and thrown in amongst the other hostages.

Does this all make sense so far? I hope so, because holy shit does it get worse from here.

After rounding up all the hostages, the lieutenant (whose name they never say but it's clearly Karai from the cartoons) shouts down the subway system to the vigilante that they have hostages who they will start killing if he doesn't reveal himself.

This is the first problem. Remember how earlier she said there was a vigilante that stopped them? Yeah, that's literally all they know about. They don't who he is, where he comes from, or that he's A TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE! So basically, they're shouting out loud on a subway platform (no literally, she just stands on the platform and yells the info, they use no other means of trying to contact the vigilante) for him to come and rescue the hostages, just hoping he happens to be in that particular part of the underground subway system at that particular time, IN NEW YORK CITY, which has a massive subway system. And if he was any other hero, why the hell would he be doing his patrol in the fucking subway? They're basically doing this all on dumb luck. And no, they don't know that it's actually the turtles, cause later on they realize it was them the whole time it's a surprise to them. So at the time, they had no fucking idea. If this was any other hero, why the hell would he be in the subway system before hand? what other hero regularly patrols the fucking sewers? maybe they think he has some way of finding it out through a security system, which again, still a gamble because what if they don't?

But lord and behold by pure fucking luck, the turtles have a sewer surveillance system that actually picks up the situation and they head out to intervene. When they arrive, they defeat the clan and take off, while the entire time April (who remember is a journalist) fails to get any photos or videos of the entire fight (How do I know this? once again I'll tell you in a bit.) By the way, the turtles escape by using one of those chutes construction sites have to throw garbage down through from high places. April by the way saw them (meaning the audience also saw them) escape that way, yet they have other hostages talk about them climbing up the chute with the worst ham fisted lines of exposition this side of the last airbender.

April manages to follow who she suspects is the vigilante to the roof, only to discover in fact that there are four of them. While the four of them are talking in the dark about how they defeated the clan without being seen, April's camera (which is actually her phone like a true "professional") flashes, causing the heroes to realize that they have just been spotted. 

They confront and reveal themselves to April, which causes her to faint at the sight of them. When she comes to, the turtles reveal that they erased the photo from her phone and tell her that if she tells anyone about them, they'll come find her.

I have two problems with the reveal. One, is that when Leonardo talks, for the first ten seconds you can clearly tell that it's Johnny Knoxville (who voices Leonardo) before he actually switches to his Leonardo voice. Small nitpick, maybe. But the reason it bugs me, is that it means either:

A) They used the first take, or a mistake take of the line (or just didn't give a fuck), because if they wanted Leonardo to be voiced by Knoxville normally, why would they have him change voices after ten seconds? 

or

B) They were hoping people who are fans of Knoxville that happen to be in the audience to hear it and go "Hey, Johnny Knoxville is in this, it just got better."

So it's either a mistake, lazy editing, or pathetic pandering. You decide. Also, they turned Michelangelo (my childhood favorite) into nothing but a horny teenager. FUCK YOU Michael Bay, and FUCK YOU everyone else involved in the movie.

So after telling April that they'll come find her, they run off into the night, during which April takes one photo of them. Only one. They don't see her do it because she turned her flash off. Yet still, only one photo. "Professional Journalist."

April then realizes that she recognizes the names of the turtles from somewhere.

Now what I'm about to tell you, was the tipping point for me. This was the moment where I realized the movie was going to suck. This was the point where the scales tipped so hard for the movie that it did a triple back flip and fucked up the landing in what was the equivalent of breaking your neck.

Realizing that she recognizes the names, she runs home, and pulls a box out of her closet that has never been mentioned before. She opens it, revealing it to be full of her fathers research and while looking through it, not only finding the symbol from earlier, but also finding that her fathers test subjects for the experiment were in fact the teenage mutant ninja turtles and splinter before they were mutated. She even went as far to treat them AS HER OWN PERSONAL PETS.

That's right, the heroes of our film were April's pets and her fathers test subjects. So instead of having THE REPORTER IN THE MOVIE ACTUALLY DO SOME FUCKING RESEARCH FOR HER REPORT, they basically HAND HER THE ENTIRE ORIGIN STORY OF FUCKING TURTLES IN A FUCKING BOX, THAT SHE ALREADY HAD IN HER POSSESSION.

BOX EX MACHINA EVERYBODY! The writers of the movie, didn't actually bother to WRITE THE ORIGIN STORY OF THE HEROES OF THE FILM. Instead, they wave off the whole thing as they were test subjects who April treated as pets. What, the, FUCK?! If the writers of the fucking movie itself refuse to take enough of an interest to write the fucking thing, how can they expect us to take enough of an interest to care?

"But Ryan they were just trying to save time by not having to repeat an origin story we already know" bullshit. They've done it for every other superhero movie, that's no excuse for lazy writing.

Getting back to the steaming pile of horse shit movie, after realizing the connection, April decides to ignore the turtles warning and present the information to her boss the next day. How does she do this? I'll tell you in a bit.

Meanwhile, the turtles try to sneak back home, but are caught by shredder, who sends them to the Hashi. What is the Hashi? I'll you that in a bit as well.

April in the meantime, tells her boss that the symbol she found, has been found at the site of other clan incidents, and that it's the symbol she found in her fathers old research, and that the vigilantes are in fact six foot tall talking ninja turtles, the entire time NEVER SHOWING HER BOSS THE PHOTO SHE GOT OF THE TURTLES RUNNING ACROSS THE ROOF SHE TOOK EARLIER. The one photo she got of the whole thing, she doesn't even show it to her boss. She also never tells her boss that her father was a scientist, instead only saying that it was a symbol her father had amongst his papers.

She gets fired for wasting the bosses time, and as she's leaving she runs into Vernon (which will remind you that oh yeah he's in this movie too) who she asks for a ride up to Sachs house (because remember, he and her father were partners for his Box Ex Machina lazy screenwriting research papers.)

In the meantime to that, after spending eleven hours in the Hashi, (which is basically a spot where splinter gets the turtles to do difficult tasks as punishment) Splinter finally gets them to reveal why they snuck out, by bribing the not real Michelangelo with pizza (which is basically done as the least subtle corporate sponsorship plug I've ever seen in my life.) They tell them they ran into April as well, and Splinter tells them to bring April to him.

April, in the meantime, arrives at Sachs house on the outskirts of the city, which is another infuriating point for me in this movie. Why? I'll tell you why, because (for reasons never stated) Sachs property and what seems like everywhere else in the immediate vicinity IS COMPLETELY COVERED IN SNOW. The snow, which by the way, is being seen FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THIS ENTIRE MOVIE! Why is this bad? because everyone in New York, IS DRESSED AND ACTING LIKE ITS THE MIDDLE OF SPRING! Hell the city itself looks like its the middle of spring. So basically, the outskirts of the city is covered in snow, while the city itself is in the middle of spring. "Maybe it's just a little bit of snow" Wrong, cause later in the movie there's a fucking avalanche. In New York state. Where there has never been an avalanche in recorded history, because an avalanche in New York state I found out is GEOGRAPHICALLY IMPOSSIBLE!

After all that, it gets even worse, because when Sachs opens the door and sees April there, he jokes that "April has come early this year."

You can't hear me, but I'm banging my head on a wall. Hard. That one line, fucks up the entire period of time the movie takes place in for either one of two reasons.

1) In the improper context, if it's after April, not only does the joke not make any sense, but also means that its snowing heavily to later trigger an avalanche sometime after THE MONTH OF MAY, WHICH IS THE SPRINGTIME, IN ONE VERY SPECIFIC LOCATION AND A VERY SMALL AREA SURROUNDING IT! "But Ryan what if it's further up north where it's still snowing heavily?" They state in the movie that the house is very near one of the tail ends of the New York city sewer system, which would mean it stretches on for miles into the country where there are barely any houses. Also, "IT WOULD STILL BE EITHER MAY OR LATER, which means there should be or should have been be some kind of freak snow storm going on, except it's not snowing, the snow is already on the ground. And they make no mention as to why it's snowing

2) In the proper context, the line would mean that it's before April, which means at best it's March at worst, it's one of the THREE MONTHS where it should be snowing enough that both New York and Sachs house should be covered in snow. And it does snow in New York folks, here's the Google image search link to prove it. So that basically means New York is in some sort of freak heat wave, but no acts like or even mentions anything about a heat wave, once again they all act like it's spring. April wears a fucking spring jacket for most of the movie.

So yeah, this movie is so bad, it doesn't even know what season it's taking place in. We are not even close the even the middle of the film, and it's already made this big of a fuck up. Am I the only one noticing this? I feel like I'm taking CRAZY PILLS! and don't tell me its just a dumb throwaway joke line they wouldn't have said it if it wasn't fucking relevant to the time frame (in theory.) And if was just that, then congratulations you still fucked up the movie anyways.

I'm still going to keep writing this, because there might be some of you willing to overlook that, but you shouldn't. If we let shit like this slide, there's no telling where standards might drop otherwise.

Now, lets get back to the piece of shit, lost in time  story.

Sachs invites April into the house, where she tells him that she found the turtles from the experiment and what they have become. It is then that Sachs reveals the basis of the experiment. They were injecting the turtles and splinter with an alien substance (that they never name) in hopes of making a cure that they can use in case of a chemical attack (which is so vague in description I'm convinced they missed a word while typing the script and no one noticed.) He then asks April to bring the turtles to him, to which she agrees.

Later, back at her house, (while she's, for some reason, typing into google the phrase Vigilantes in New York city) Donatello hacks her computer and tells her to meet them at a specific location. When she meets them, they put a bag over her head and bring her to Splinter.

Splinter recognizes April, and he recounts to April the story about her fathers experiment, how he died, and how they came to be (which was that April ran into the lab which her father had started burning down and rescued them and ultimately released them, also her dad died in the fire) , to which April acts like she's hearing it all for the first time. Even though she was there at an age when she was not only talking, but was able to fully use a video camera and pretend to be a reporter, which they showed her doing in flashbacks earlier when she found the box originally (she also watched the tapes she made during that time as well.) 

Basically, April does not remember the day her Dad died or what she did during that day. "Maybe she repressed it?" It's never stated that she repressed it, and again, she acted like she was hearing it for the first time (you could blame Megan Fox's "acting", but it doesn't help in the setting of the film.)

Splinter asks April if she told anyone about them, and she tells she told Sachs, who in the meantime told Shredder about the turtles and he tells the foot the find them. Splinter tells April that Sachs is the adopted son and servant of Shredder and that he was doing the research on them for Shredder's plan. It is then the foot clan, having found the turtles hideout, attack.

They injure Splinter badly, and all the turtles are captured except Raphael, who gets buried under rubble and is presumed dead. He climbs out of the rubble, Splinter tells him to go rescue the others, and April recruits Vernon to drive them there.

When they arrive at Sachs house (which is still covered in snow, and once again, New York city is still in the springtime) Sachs is telling the turtles about his plan.

He wants to drain the turtles of their blood to recover the stuff he injected them with during the original experiment (which they thought they lost in the fire, I also don't remember the name of the substance because honestly the name is kind of irrelevant) because he wants to make a cure for a chemical attack that himself will launch on New York. He figures the government will quarantine New York city (which Shredder will then become ruler of) and after 30 days, he give the cure to the government for a huge sum of money.

Here's the flaw in that plan. The government would most likely send the army into New York to help spread the cure, during which they could easily figure out Shredder is running the city, so then they'll just throw the army at him. And I'm sorry, I know Shredder and the foot clan are supposed to be Ninja badasses, but it's US Army for fucks sake they'd still lose. So basically Shredder would rule a disease ridden New York for at most two months. Way to think long term there chief.

Anyways, April, Vernon, and Raphael burst in and rescue the other three, while Sachs takes one container of the turtles blood and flies in a helicopter towards his tower in New York. The heroes then chase him through the snowy countryside.

This next part is also fucking stupid. Donatello tells them that the nearest entrance to the sewer system is 3 miles away. Foot soldiers are chasing them, one of whom fires a missile and causes the avalanche I mentioned earlier. The stupid part? The avalanche actually pushes them down the hill, during which Donatello states that it's actually helping them get to the sewer entrance faster.

Then why did you need the avalanche to push you there when you could've just driven down the hill? Sachs is flying to the city in goddamn helicopter, and you're taking the long route to the only way to catch up to him quickly? The movie would've been so much better if driving down the hill had been the actual plan, instead we got the most convenient avalanche ever on film.

After an admittedly kind of cool fight that takes place while they're all sliding down a hill, they eventually reach the entrance into the sewer, but Sachs also states he's less than five minutes away from the tower. Let's talk about the logistics of this for a second.

In the time it took for the turtles to get three miles to reach a sewer entrance on the outskirts of the city, Sachs was five minutes away from his tower in the heart of the city. So basically, they have to reach the center of New York city, from the very edge of it, in five minutes, and they're racing against a helicopter. I don't care how fast you are or how well you know the sewers, even if it was one long pipe that lead straight there, you're not going to make it. Ever. It's impossible. I realized this because this movie was (and still is) such a gigantic piece of shit that I had long ago threw my suspension of disbelief out of the window (or maybe it committed suicide I'm not sure.) And yet they still reach it.

When they get there, April and Vernon go after Sachs, who is trying to make the cure (who also admits to shooting April's dad, even though Splinter said earlier he died in the fire so good bye continuity....again) while the turtles stop Shredder from starting the chemical attack and take the vial of the chemical that Sachs extracted from their blood earlier (which we never actually see him do I just realized, also they take the vial because they need to heal Splinter which no one had made any reference to earlier.) They defeat the bad guys, Splinter is healed, everything ends happily ever after, and I almost decide to try and get a refund on the ticket which I thankfully got for free.

So there you go, TMNT in a nutshell. If you're crazy enough to still go see it, please only do it if you can get the ticket for free, cause no one involved in the production of this piece of shit deserves any of your money. Some might call it another lazy kids movie, but honestly, should we really be rewarding that? Should we really be handing over money to mediocrity?

Now in the tradition of most reviewers, I shall give this a final score. I'm going to use a scale of one to ten, with ten being a masterpiece. I'm also going to do a quick pro/con list as well. So, in summary:

Pros: Will Arnett. That's it. He was actually kind of funny, and the only person who actually looked and acted like he gave a shit.

Cons: Everything else. Megan Fox should not act, the whole movie is full of lazy writing, and it even fails on the most basic things. I've never seen a film where the seasons change that drastically over a small amount of distance during a time of the year that also gets completely lost in the process. Not even the room fucked up that badly. The whole thing is boring, the dialogue was awful, it's cliche as all hell, they even did the thing where the villain twitches to show he's not dead at the end. As of the time of me writing this, I consider this the worst movie of this year. I'm still debating if this is the worst movie of all time that I've seen, and that'll be one I'll have for a while.

The Final Score: 1/10

This is the new low for this year. Hell, it might even be the new low for most of next year too. This movie doesn't deserve to be called bad, because that's an insult to bad things. No this is the bottom of the barrel. This is not even so bad it's good. I'd rather watch the room for 24 hours straight then watch this again just once. Stay far far away from it, and keep your friends and loved ones away as well.

Man that took me a while, but I feel so much better now. Thank god I went and watched Guardians of the Galaxy again right after this or I might have punched someone. In fact, if you haven't seen it, skip TMNT and go see Guardians instead.

Until next time, I'll see you folks around.