Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) on Netflix
PG-1320141h 41mActionAdventureComedy
April O'Neil, a reporter in New York, looks into a crime wave carried out by the Foot Clan. Her search brings her to four mutant turtles and their rat sensei, Splinter.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb5.8/10232,049 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes21%
Trailer
Plot summary
April O'Neil reports for Channel 6 News in New York, where a crime wave carried out by the Foot Clan has her working the story. One night at a dock she watches the Foot raid cargo containers, an unseen vigilante strikes the thieves, and a symbol is left behind. Her supervisor Bernadette Thompson is oblivious to the story, as are her coworkers. At a charity event held by Sacks Industries, April thanks the chief executive, Eric Sacks, once a lab partner of her late father. Shredder, who leads the Clan, grows frustrated by the vigilante and sends Foot Soldiers to seize hostages at a subway station, hoping to draw him out. April is among those held. Four figures appear and overpower the Clan, and when she follows them to a rooftop she finds they are mutant turtles.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Megan Fox was cast as April O'Neil in February 2013, her first collaboration with Bay since she compared him to Adolf Hitler over his treatment of her during filming of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen; Jessica Biel had also expressed interest in the part.
SPOILER
The character Eric Sacks, an Anglicised version of Oroku Saki, was at first intended to be the film's Shredder, but the idea was abandoned in favour of casting Tohoru Masamune as an authentically Japanese Shredder following widespread whitewashing accusations; reshoots made Sacks the Shredder's adopted son, though the tie-in video game kept Sacks as the Shredder.- In Australia a poster showing the four turtles jumping from an exploding skyscraper, promoting the film's September 11 release, caused controversy because of its resemblance to the September 11 attacks; Paramount apologized and removed it.
- A leaked script draft called The Blue Door drew a cease and desist order from Paramount Pictures to the website hosting it; Peter Laird read it and blogged that “all true TMNT fans should be grateful” that the new powers that be did not allow it to go any further, while Bay said the draft predated his involvement and had been rejected.
- To give the digital turtles more nuanced facial expressions the technicians used a new motion capture system that filmed the actors' faces with two high-definition cameras, capturing roughly one terabyte of data a day; effects supervisor Pablo Helman said “Donatello is more like a basketball player, Raph is more like a football player and Mikey is a very short Messi”.
- The actors playing the Turtles were not given the same treatment as live-action co-stars Megan Fox and Will Arnett, were not invited to the premiere as promised and were instructed not to give press interviews; Ritchson emailed Brad Grey saying he did not want to return as Raphael, but was bound by his contract.
