‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2’ Trailer: Out of the Shadows, Into the Shadows of a Movie Theater
I like that this video explains who the Ninja Turtles are for the benefit of those people who have been living in a cave (or maybe a sewer) since the late 1980s and have somehow avoided all of the previous movies, television shows, toys, comics, and video games about these characters. “Oh Donatello is the purple one, ohhhhhh. For the last 30 years, I thought that was Raphael! My bad.”
Nonetheless, if you were confused, you are not anymore! These are the Ninja Turtles and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is their second live-action movie. (This time around; they had three of them back in the early ’90s.) Though the last Ninja Turtles movie went a bit darker and grittier (at least as dark and gritty as you can get in a movie about giant wisecracking turtles marketed to children), this one seems to be channeling the vibe of the old TMNT cartoon show I remember from my youth. It adds Casey Jones (Stephen Amell) who fights crime with hockey, the ridiculous Party Wagon (it shoots manhole covers!), plus surprisingly faithful-looking versions of the evil warthog and rhinoceros Bebop and Rocksteady. There’s even Krang, the evil brain that chills out in the stomach of a robot, played by Fred Armisen.
There’s nothing dark or gritty about that stuff, but there doesn’t need to be. These are the Ninja Turtles. They should be goofy and silly. I don’t know which one is Donatello (the orange one?) but I know that much. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows opens in theaters on June 3.