I was not a fan of the first Michael Bay-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. It was all flash and dubstep, and the turtles didn’t act like teenagers. What’s more, Shredder’s face was kept in the shadows the whole time for no reason other than the fact that William Fichtner was clearly cast as Shredder initially but then they changed it because of cries of racism (justified cries, perhaps, but it really borked up the movie). So on my list of movies that I’m looking forward to in 2016, you can guess that TMNT 2 ranks pretty low. But maybe I’ve set the bar too low on this one, because about halfway through this trailer I actually…smiled. I got a big dumb smirk on my face, because while the movie still looks like garbage, I actually got to see three things on screen that I’d never seen before: the Party Wagon, Bebop, and Rocksteady. Then the trailer descended back into stupidity, but it did give me a moment of childhood happiness that the first film didn’t. I guess that’s commendable. Meanwhile, they totally showed Shredder’s face in this trailer, which means that hiding him in the shadows for the entirety of the first movie was pointless. Also, Tyler Perry as Baxter Stockman? Odd choice, man. At least Bebop and Rocksteady look like themselves, and aren’t the abominations that the Turtles still appear to be.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Out of the Shadows comes out June 3, 2016.