Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), PG-13, ★

All of your "favorite" turtles are back.

The...turtles...are...back. I groan and quiver when I typed that sentence with ellipses and why do we need this sequel? Not many people remember the movie nor people that I talk to want it. It's basic nostalgia that takes a flashback through time to the late 1980s and early 1990s that people who were basically worshipping them as their idols. Look, I don't remember if I said this in my review of the first movie: I've never been a fan of the TMNT franchise. And, I gave this movie another chance to maybe improve upon itself and even though it is a tick better, it's like saying that a teacher gave you a  5 point curve on your grade but you still get a D.

Ok...Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo are back as they treat themselves by watching the basketball game in the Madison Square Garden while they are hiding in the jumbotron. Outside, Vern (Will Arnett) is enjoying his fame and celebrity status as he is known as "The Falcon" because they let him take down The Shredder (Brian Tee) from the earlier film. Meanwhile, April (Megan Fox) is investigating scientist Baxter Stockman (Tyler Perry) and after asking questions while praising his work allegedly. She thinks that Stockman was working for The Shredder.

When Shredder escapes from a prison and is thrown into a portal, he encounters Krang (Brad Garrett), a slimy pink "worm", I guess, that uses a giant robot to move around. His evil plan is to work with Shredder by unleashing a device called the Technodrome so that he may rule over Earth. Shredder will like to work with him on the condition that Krang helps him kill the Turtles. They have an accord and that's it because there's not much interest in the rest of the movie because you will not have a franchise. Oh, wait a minute, that may be a good thing.

Standing on another pile of...well, you can imagine.

Bottom line, I'm not going to go into details surrounding the movie because this movie sucks. There's still some chemistry amongst the turtles that is presented on-screen and also with the rat, Splinter (voiced by Tony Shalhoub). However, with a plot being so mind-numbing and convoluted, you don't get a single shred of potential effort from the filmmakers that can persuade you to say that "even though it's bad, I had a fun time." This is a bad movie which soul-sucks the intelligence out of younger viewers and waste older viewers' time like mine.

Megan Fox and Will Arnett do what they can and they earn a paycheck from their roles. Stephen Amell is wasted in his role as he provides nothing except using a hockey stick as a weapon. Is he trying to become Jason with a hockey stick? It is produced by Michael Bay and it is a movie that requires aspirin because you're going to get a headache after this explosive bonanza that'll blow up in your face. I had that same experience after watching Transfomers: Revenge of the Fallen once and that almost made me want to walk out of the theater. This is definitely parallel to that experience. This movie is quite lucky because I've seen a few worse movies than this but it's definitely one of the worst movies of the year.

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