Heroes to Come Out of Shell

The artistically named, combat perfected turtles known to what should be just about everyone as The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or just Ninja Turtles for short, are making a much-anticipated cow-a-bung-back. That was too much with the word play, but it also seemed like the right thing to do.

Initially a cult favorite comic book from the 1980s, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have gone through just about every media medium. There were the comic books early on, the very popular cartoon TV show, (One of my favorites as a kid) the movie franchise, the action figures, and one of my favorite old Nintendo games. The Turtles have made their way around town, but with all the reboots and surge of comic book based movies, it’s actually been surprising how little the Teenage Mutants have entered into the spotlight in the last decade. It’s possible they were a bit overplayed in the ’80s and ’90s. The franchise may have jumped the shark at the same time Vanilla Ice did, and who to blame is still up in the air. Vanilla Ice, of course, mad a cameo in a Turtle movie, and it wasn’t long after that when both started to tank.

Today we can look forward to a reboot of the franchise coming out of Paramount Studios and directed by Jonathan Liebesman. Liebesman is the director of the much-promoted Wrath of the Titans set to come out on March 30th. We can also look forward to more than a few explosions and probably some less than stellar story representation since Michael Bay will be one of the producers. I know it’s become almost cliché to hate on Michael Bay, but who cares, it’s easy and fun. Just like his movies.

The writers are coming off of Paramount’s Mission Impossible– Ghost Protocol, so they’re also no rookies when it comes to action based, popcorn flicks. I actually think there’s potential in this franchise still, but as we learned from Superman Returns, it all comes down to that first installment in the reboot. If it sucks, we may not hear from the Turtles for another decade. However, if it’s good, prepare to strap on your Spiderman and Batman shoot-it-until-it-dies-3D-fun-never-stops plastic glasses. I really hope it’s good because the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were my Harry Potter and Twilight growing up. Only instead of lots of pale white, there was lots of green.

Harry potterJonathan liebesmanMichael bayParamount picturesSuperman returnsTeenage mutant ninja turtlesWrath of the titans