The** Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles** team, led by director Jonathan Liebesman and producer Michael Bay, still has some way to convince many hardcore fans that the odd, performance-captured CG take on the heroes in a half-shell will work. But more of the characters’ personalities is starting to peek through, including in this new TV spot for the movie.
Aiming to spin another origin yarn for the four titular heroes – known separately as Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael – the story this time apparently finds the turtles created in an experiment designed to create mutant heroes, albeit one that possibly didn’t go as planned.
A lot of the rest of the usual Turtles tropes are present and correct, as mutated rat Splinter teaches them their martial arts skills, they meet and befriend reporter April O’Neil (Megan Fox) and end up having to tackle the nasty Shredder (William Fichtner, looking like he's been through an explosion in a knife factory). With Bay on board, we’re naturally expecting and lot of bang and boom, but also hopefully one or two decent TMNT moments.
With Will Arnett, Whoopi Goldberg, Alan Ritchson, Noel Fisher, Johnny Knoxville, Tony Shalhoub, Abby Elliott, Jeremy Howard and K. Todd Freeman on board, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is out on October 17.