If you go back to the early 1990s, turtle power was up there with Birdseye potato waffles and Smiley Faces in terms of absolute cool and thanks to the rebooted Michael Bay franchise it’s about to get another anthropomorphic shot of slime in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows. Continuing on from its 2014 predecessor, it sees Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michaelangello going toe-to-toe with all of their biggest enemies all at once, so it should be an action-packed ninjathon of a wild ride.
It’s been a massive 32-years since the Turtles first appeared in the Mirage Studios comic book created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, and with the new movie series it looks like they’re almost as popular now as they were in the 90s heyday. Reboots will always get a lot of flack, but the big kid inside of us is honestly looking forward to the new movie, which from the look of the trailer below is going to be going all out to impress ten-year-olds of all ages.
Release date
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows UK release date has been confirmed for Monday the 30th May 2016, a little ahead of the US release on the 3rd June 2016. It’ll be available in both 2D and 3D screenings and with the impressive special effects featured in the trailer below, we’d have to say that it’s a good shout for the magical David Bowie specs.
It’ll be out in the cinema in the UK on the same weekend as Warcraft: The Beginning, so it’ll be the battle of the CGI beasts at the box office, but our money’s on TMNT to take the crown.
Run time: 126-minutes
Story
After their first battle with Shredder in the 2014 series opener, the Turtles are back and ready for their next big New York City-saving outing, but the knife-fisted leader of the Foot Clan has got two new weapons to aim towards the amphibian fight team. Recruiting the nefarious science of Dr. Baxter Stockman, he’s able create his own killer mutants, Beebop the warthog and Rocksteady the rhino, giving Splinter and the Turtles a whole lot of heavyweight might to go up against.
However, there’s an even bigger threat descending on the city as Krang opens an inter-dimensional portal between NYC and his own Dimension X to lead an invasion on earth. It’ll take the collective efforts of the TMNTs, Master Splinter and April O’Neil, along with the new addition of hockey mask vigilante nutcase Casey Jones, to stop them all and return the planet to enjoy pizzas and Renaissance painters in equal measure.
Cast
Megan Fox (Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen) will be back in the role of April O’Neil, having kicked things off in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014). Will Arnett (The Lego Movie) returns as Vern Fenwick and William Fitchner plays Eric Sacks once again.
However, there have been a number of changes to the cast for the sequel with Brian Tee taking over from Tohoru Masamune as Shredder, Brittany Ishibashi covering for Minae Noji as Karai and Tyler Perry replaces K. Todd Freeman as Dr. Baxter Stockman. The voice cast is the same though with Pete Ploszek as Leonardo, Alan Ritchson as Raphael, Noel Fisher as Michelangelo, Jeremy Howard as Donatello and Tony Shalhoub as Splinter
There are a couple of new names in the cast too. Stephen Amell takes on the challenge of masked vigilante Casey Jones, Gary Anthony Williams plays Bebop, Stephen Farrelly plays Rocksteady and Fred Armisen voices Krang.
Production
David Green is down as the director, taking over the baton from Jonathan Liebesman from the previous movie. The screenplay has been written by Josh Appelbaum & André Nemec, who were a part of the three-man writing team behind the 2014 film. Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, Andrew Form, Galen Walker and Scott Mednick have produced the film, which will be distributed by Paramount Pictures.
First impressions
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows is already looking every bit the blast that it needed to be to live up to the name of the comic book, classic TV series and original live-action movie. It looks like it’s going to pull zero punches in its bid to be the biggest TMNT film to-date and we can’t help but salute director David Green and producer Michael Bay a little for it. Heroes in a half shell, Turtle Power!
