I don’t know what I’ve done to upset Lainey, but for some reason today I’ve been given the punishment of looking at the second trailer for the CG abomination that is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The trailer is only eighty-one seconds long but cripes, it’s hard to sustain eye contact for longer than twenty seconds at a time. The turtles are just so freaking ugly. I can’t get over how awful and nightmarish they are. And this trailer adds extra nightmare fuel by giving us clear looks at not just Leonardo and Michelangelo, but also Donatello and Raphael. They are each more vomit-inducing than the last.
The voice over is the same as in the first trailer, with William Fichtner providing the narration with the kind of gravitas that begs for a better movie (if Marvel ends up having to recast the Red Skull because Hugo Weaving kind of hated the gig, may I suggest Fichtner as a replacement?). I’m still stuck on his “heroes aren’t born, they’re created” line because if you’re setting out to create a perfect hero, WHY WOULD YOU USE TURTLES? I really hope the entire movie is just people going, “Turtles? Really? …TURTLES?” Or that it’s just a misdirect for the more traditional “they were accidents, that’s why turtles” origin. We were trying to make a supersoldier, but then we spilled this goo all over some turtles, and lo, these unholy eyesores were born.
This trailer does have a little new footage, including a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it look at Shredder and a blurry something that may or may not be Splinter. Oh God, if the turtles are this horrible I can’t imagine how repulsive a life-sized upright rat is going to be. I literally shudder to think it. There’s also a turtle skateboarding and Donatello wearing some strange gadgetry because, science, and a teensy bit more of the turtles in action.
I can’t figure out who the market for this movie is, though. Michelangelo and the turtles playing lacrosse with one another, and the skateboarding, makes it seem like movie is targeted squarely at little kids, but then Fitchner’s narration and the dark, dour tone of what we’ve seen so far seems more in line with an older-skewing PG-13 release. It’ll be interesting to see if this can pull a PG rating. With an August release date, TMNT is up against Guardians of the Galaxy and they’d be wise to not try to take on the same direct market.
