"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)" Heroic Analysis of April and the Turtles

Spoilers ahead: 

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are one of my favorite superhero teams of all time. Their adventures are heroic, action-packed, and explosive with humor. I love the 80s cartoon, the 90s films, and even the rejected live-action television series that I used to watch on TV along with the Power Rangers and Dragonball Z. For what it is worth, the producers of this film attempt to present a newly cinematized and modernized version of classic heroes that we all know and love, however it fails in spotlighting what makes films about heroes so good – the heroes!

The 2012 Nickelodeon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoon is awesome, and represents everything that this film could have been. The heroes are the turtles and the story is driven by their actions and their decisions. They fit the archetypal heroes that I blog about – mysterious childhoods, strong mentor figures, shadows with desires in direct opposition to what they desire. The 2014 film has some of this, but in very minute amounts, and is also confused about who the hero in a movie about the turtles should be.

Confusion about who the hero is supposed to be

The writers of the film attempt to make April O’Neil (Megan Fox) and the turtles Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello, and Raphael (Noel Fisher, Pete Ploszek / Johny Knoxville-voice, Jeremy Howard, and Alan Ritchson respectively) the heroes of the film. This had potential to work in a stimulating and clever way, however they fail to properly execute either of the story arcs well enough to pull it off. April is the hero for approximately the first half and a few of the final moments of the film, while the turtles are the "heroes" for the latter half - although April is still debateably the central hero and protagonist. For this to have been successful, we would need complete and relevant arcs for all hero characters, which the film ultimately and unfortunately does not deliver. Instead, viewers were treated to underdeveloped heroes.

The first step in a heroic journey is to show the hero in his ordinary world – which the writers (Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec, and Evan Daugherty) of the story do well – sort of. We do get the turtles in comic book fashion in the very first instance of the film. Their ordinary world is hidden in the shadows, in the “world below.” The turtles are not ready to rise to the surface, but we know that one day “that day will come.” This was quick and familiar, and the comic book art style of the introduction is really cool to see, especially since the franchise originated as a comic. It is how viewers would expect a movie about the titular heroes to begin. But this lasts for all of 2 theater minutes, and then we get the ordinary world of the other hero, April O’Neil (Megan Fox).

As usual, O’Neil is a reporter in New York. Her ordinary world is her life as a reporter. She searches for that one story that will change her career into what she wants it to be. She wants to be a serious journalist – she doesn't care about foam, froth or whatever it is that makes babies taste good – wait, what did Vern (Will Arnett) say? At this point in the film. April O’Neil is more of the central hero than the turtles are. It is April’s story because she is the viewpoint character. The film makes us want to see her story unfold more than the turtles’, and that is what is such a bummer about this film is.

Crossing of the Threshold and Thrust into the Sewers

Next in the archetypal journey is the point where the hero leaves the ordinary world and enters, for the first time, into a world that is unfamiliar and / or dangerous. Again, this happens for April. In the first moments of the film, we are told that the Turtles were not ready to come to the surface, yet when April runs into the foot clan and the turtles appear to fight them, they seem to be handling themselves in a way that does not say that they are green behind the shell – see what I did there. If this is true, then we don’t even get to see the turtle’s real separation from their ordinary world into the world filled with danger – but April’s world is completely new when she sees the turtles. This establishes April as the hero and the turtles as allies or heralds in HER journey. But for the sake of holding on to all that is decent in the world, viewers still can have some hope that the turtles will be heroes – We’re only 9 minutes into the movie!

So, O’Neil now has a proper call to adventure and her journey is shaping up to be a good one. Unfortunately, not so much for the turtles. They are not looking for a great news story, and they don’t have an awesome threshold guardian in the form of Bernadette Thompson (Whoopi Goldberg) as O’Niel does. April has obstacles – Bernadette and her peers do not believe her, her roommate thinks that April is crazy, Vern is a chauvinistic pig that would rather see April bouncing than doing well in her career, and the turtles have… a foot clan that seems to be doing well, yet according to the Shredder (Tohoru Masume) they need to “rise again.” For a large scale crime organization that reporters desperately try to get press coverage of because it could make their career, I’m pretty sure the Foot Clan (and it’s many leaders, but that is for later) are doing well enough. Though, the film does not give the foot proper development if at all. They are just sort of there.

With both the Turtles and April, there really isn't a strong refusal of the call. But that is okay because this step is often left out or minimized in larger scale heroic journeys. Sometimes the hero seeks the separation from the ordinary world, such as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, but there are moments of early regret when they realize just how dangerous the new world can be. For April, this is her first meeting with the turtles. In this case, the turtles serve as one of her threshold guardians. They attempt to scare her into returning to her ordinary world, further making them not the central heroes and even villainizing themselves to a certain extent.

Without knowing the proper hero, who is the proper mentor?

As the generic plot of the corrupt businessman, Eric Sacks (William Fichtner) rolls out, we now get the connection that O’Neil, Sacks, and O’Neil’s father have a connection. This connection sets April up for some sort of atonement with her father, or at least hints that it could possibly happen. Heroes tend to have a certain history with their parents that is mysterious or filled with pain, and April is set up to have such a fatherly connection because her relationship with her father affects the drive she has in her career, which seems to be what her heroic journey is turning out to be about – and by now, it IS clear that the journey is hers to be had.

Even though we get a good amount of turtles (Finally) their origin stories seem to be shoehorned into April’s only to help catapult her deeper into the special world. The meeting April has with them only jogs her memory of her childhood recordings (and we also get more father atonement set up).

At this point, the hero usually meets their mentor. This mentor is supposed to help the hero learn about the special world and help make the hero’s transition easier. The CLEAR mentor of the film is Master Splinter. However, he is the father figure and the mentor to the turtles, who are not the heroes of the film, or at least not yet with how the film is established. April has not yet met Splinter when she transitions into the special world, nor is any of his advice indirectly given to her (albeit maybe some indirectly through the turtles, but there is little evidence to build a strong case with). Bernadette isn't April’s mentor - not only does she not help April by guiding her through the special world, she fires her and calls her crazy, thus preventing her from ever getting her ultimate boon and been the reporter for a unique, career building story. The question I think that could lead us to the answer is this: are the turtles April’s mentor figures? (The turtles are so much of a backdrop in their own movie that anytime they are on screen without April feels like filler, and this is sad because those are the best moments in the film, i.e. 99 cheese pizza). Later, Splinter tells the turtles about how April rescued them when they were younger, but April already knew all of this so he gets no bonus mentor points there. Splinter ain't even a proper mentor in this film, ya'll. 

The Shredder vs. Eric Sacks as Shadows

Well into the film, the viewer is now immersed in the diegetic universe of this New York. April is established as the films protagonist hero. She has crossed the threshold and is about to start interacting with the special characters in her journey, i.e. shadows, mentors, allies, heralds, threshold guardians, etc. all while in the special world all leading up to the apotheothetic (I think I made that word up) moment in her journey, mainly the primary villains of the film.

Another serious problem with the film are villains who viewers cannot sympathize with, care about, or believe. Eric Sacks is rich but wants to be richer- for what? The Shredder wants to control New York City – FOR WHAT? What happened in Shredder’s past that makes him such a villain? There is no feud with Hamato Yoshi so there really is no reason, and Eric Sacks is just a mad scientist hungry for power in one of the lamest ways in cinema to date (On that note, how does Splinter even know who the Shredder is. He talks about him like they have this history when telling the turtles and April about their past, but in actuality, all of his knowledge is secondhand and second rate – just like how he learns martial arts in this film retelling). He wants to kill a lot of people so that he can be a hero for a few people, though in killing a lot of people he is losing a large amount of potential profit from the people who he would most likely like to rule. This is simply ridiculous and stupid. But either way, we have shadows in the form of Karai (Minae Noji) (Is her name ever even said in the film? Such a weak rendition of Karai I could cry), the Shredder, and Lame-ass Eric Sacks.

So we get bunch of back story and exposition before and during what I think is a weakly timed, choreographed, and written fight with the Shredder and the Foot, and the Turtles and Splinter. And, to put icing on this card-board cake, 3 of the turtles are captured and made into damsel in distress (just rude!) figures for O'Neil to rescue. Yes, Raphael is involved in their rescue, but he is NOT the central hero – April is. Raphael comes across as no less of a sidekick than Vern. Vern is even arguably more useful than Raphael because he can actually drive April and Raphael to the place where they need to rescue the other turtles. Raphael then loses his fight with Shredder, and is of just no help at all, whatsoever. What. Kind. Of. Shit. Is. That? (Said in either a Batman or an Eric Sacks mocking voice) And the fight between Shredder and Splinter is weak because they have no history at all to make it have meaning.

But there is no way a counter argument can be made that Shredder is the primary villain / shadow. Just like the Turtles were robbed of their central hero status, so too was the Shredder robbed of his. Sacks is really a villain for April to deal with. They have the relationship (Though the turtles have a semblance of one as well). Shredder didn't kill April’s Father, Sacks did. To atone with the father, we know that April has to defeat Sacks more so than Shredder.

The end of the Journey

The end of April’s journey is rushed. April has to venture into the belly of the whale and rescue the turtles (You heard that right, April has to rescue them). Here is why the ending of the film is bad, and the ending of her heroic journey does not work. Although April overcomes the primary antagonist and atones with the father by defeating Sacks, the rest of her journey is unresolved. She never has a true apotheosis and she doesn't receive a boon. Her main goal is to get a good story, and she not only does not get a good story, but she is fired from her job! This trivializes one of the main points of her entire journey. April never seizes the metaphorical sword. Also, April nor the Turtles have the important moment where the hero dies a metaphorical death and are symbolically resurrected. Never happens, so April, NOR the turtles, never become true heroes with a complete journey.

Closing Remarks and Summative Review

Overall, I actually thought this Ninja Turtles film could have been amazing, though it did a lot of things very wrong. Scenes like the adolescent Mikey dancing to “Holla Back Girl” or with the martial arts styles of Master Splinter made it well worth the movie ticket. The elevator scene and the snowy mountain chase scene were really well done. But the film did not have enough focus on who should have been the central hero. The turtles visually sell the movie, but thematically their involvement is rushed and neglected in a film that is at its core about an adventurous reporter that stops a naive businessman with the help of mutant turtles. Whether you are a fan of the original turtles or not, this film is a perfect example of how a super hero story that does not fit into the Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth theory can fail.

But there is a lot wrong with the film that I failed to discuss in this already long analysis. The Foot organization wasn't treated very well in this film. We don’t know why the foot or the Shredder were at all involved in Sack’s plan to sack New York. The rivalry between Shredder and Splinter was non-existent. Karai didn't have much of a role and could have, for the sake of April’s journey, been cast as henchman #8 or whatever an rng could produce. The turtles themselves were no more than sidekicks that needed to be rescued – in the story and from it. Contrary to what fans of this movie will, nearly ALL of the acting was dry and the dialogue was terrible. But ultimately, the film about heroes fails to deliver proper heroes, and that is so sad for a film that had so much promise.