I'm Sad Now

So... this looks really underwhelming. And surprisingly cheap, too. Say what you will about Michael Bay (who only produced this one), He's at least got style, whereas Johnathan Liebsman really is sort of a rote point-and-shoot guy, at best:



Animators? Look, I get that deadlines and budgets are a thing and that studios want you to use facial-tracking algorithms instead of taking the time to animate a character's expressions independently... but this thing (a direct result of that approach prevailing) where otherwise inhuman characters have overly-humanoid eyes, noses and (especially) lips? It just never looks good. Uncanny Valley and all that. Please, trust me: No plurality of filmgoers have ever expressed the following sentiment: "I was totally onboard with the premise of six-foot tall amphibians trained in ancient Japanese martial-arts until I noticed they're mouths shouldn't be capable of producing human-sounding syllables!"

Look. New origin for the TMNT? I can dig it - they aren't exactly Superman in terms of modern mythmaking. But man, they really did just lift the (already shitty) "your father was a scientist working with the bad guy to create this" psuedo-predestination wankery from "Amazing Spider-Man," eh? I'll have more to say on that front in the near future, but until then enjoy freeze-framing that one shot where Leonardo actually looks sort-of cool.