8A - Monday, March 26, 2007

The Michigan Daily -' rnichigandaily.com

New
'Turtles'
no party
'TMNT' BASTARDIZES
OLD-SCHOOL NINJA
TURTLES CHARM
By ELIE ZWIEBEL
DailyArts Writer
TherecomesatimeineveryTeenageMutant
Ninja Turtle's life when he
needs to realize the world
is changing and they must **
adapt to new circumstances.
This time is called Teenage TMNT
Mutant Ninja evolution, and
it's not to be confused with AtQuality16
Teenage Mutant Ninja mat- and Showcase
uration, which apparently Warner Bros,
makes up the bulk of direc-
tor Kevin Monroe's modern
"Turtles" update. Unfortu-
nately, "TMNT" epitomizes how the develop-
ment of our childhood cartoons has left them
less than what they used to be. If your only
reason to see this movie is nostalgia, then you
actually have none.
Conceived in 1984, the classic turtle band
of four brothers named after famous artists
found joy in eating pizza, sparring with each
other, rescuing the sumptuous red-headed
reporter April O'Neil and dueling with their
tenacious arch nemesis, The Shredder. When
we were kids and the turtles were just taking

off, every episode, comic book,
video game were all the same.-
Cowabunga: a proven formula.
Ten years later, it's become read-
ily apparent that a new generation
of turtle themes has emerged from
the New York sewers. As blue-
banded Leonardo finishes
his leadership training in
Latin America (not kid-
ding), the other three
have started to lose their
fraternal bonds, meanwhile
struggling to save the worldd
from monster or immortal-
stone-statue-induced destruction.
Which would be fine were it remotely
familiar. We find the Turtles are no longer
fighting crime as a team because The Shred-
der has been defeated at some previous unad-
dressed instance. Donatello now works as
a tech-support and Raphael is just a rogue,
patrolling the NYC streets under the guise
of the "Nightwatcher." Michelangelo, though
still the group's comic relief, no longer banters
with wit but relies on slapstick, one-liners and
simple stupidity. Lame.
For anyone hoping to hear the classic Teen-
age Mutant Ninja Turtle rallying fight song or
even see tertiary characters like Mondo Gecko
or mutated exterminator Scumbug, you will
be sadly disappointed. There's no Krang, no
Bebop, no Rocksteady and no Shredder. This
is utter blasphemy: The Shredder is the antith-
esis of everything Turtle. Without him, the
Ninjas are incomplete and even pointless. It's

All suffering in Rock's

Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Dude ... cOWABUNGA!
Superman without Lex Luthor: It's an insur-
mountable void in the storyline regardless of
the plot.
The number of redeeming features in
"TMNT" can be counted on one Turtle hand
(which, although inflamed to awkward pro-
portions, notably has two fewer fingers than
the normal human one):
1. Voice-overs by Kevin Smith ("Clerks II"),
Patrick Stewart ("Star Trek"), Ziyi Zhang
("Memoirs of a Geisha") and Laurence Fish-
bourne ("Bobby");
2. Casey Jones; and
3. the animation is pretty dope.
That said, who cares if elementary school
kids ogle over Splinter kicking Foot-clan ass?
Any true Turtles fan will be distracted by the
fact that the our Turtles eventually cooperate
with the ever-nefarious Foot. The world must
seriously be coming to an end.

By NORA FELDHUSEN
For the Daily
Having played an angel and the
president, Chris
Rock is now try-
ing his hand at a
sort of middle- I
ground: a faithful I Think
husband. Love My
With decided-
ly mixed results. Wife
The equation of
"I Think I Love At Qualityl6
My Wife" is and Showcase
familiar: Richard Fox Searchlight
Cooper (Chris
Rock, "Head of
State") is an investment banker
who works in Manhattan and lives
in the suburbs. He has a beauti-
ful wife and two children, but his
marriage has completely ceased
to satisfy him. He spends his train
rides and lunch breaks fantasizing
about other women he sees around
town - but even when Richard
dreams about these women his
pretend relationships end in mar-
riage and the same ensuing bore-
dom. What's the message here?
Marriage blows.
And women suffer the brunt
of it. Cooper's wife, Brenda (Gina
Torres, "Five Fingers") is gorgeous
but exhausted from raising two
kids and working. To escape his
boredom, Richard begins hang-
ing out with an old friend's flame
who shows up at his office one day,
Nikki Tru (Kerry Washington,
"The Last King of Scotland"), a
seductress without the sex.
She lets her outfits do a lot of the
talking. Sexy, confident and subtle,
Nikki is every guy's dream; the first
day Richard sees her she looks like

marriage
she might be headed to the run-
way. She has the laughs to go along
with the looks - we never cease to
wonder whether or not they'll do
that other thing that's been lack-
ing in Cooper's marriage.
Brenda, on the other hand,
epitomizes the boring wife. When
Richard takes her to a car show
on one of their weekend trips
into Manhattan, she has a special
moment (music, slow-mo shots and
all) fantasizing about a minivan.
Ultimately, Richard's struggle
between these two women is bor-
derline mind-boggling, consider-
ing that Chris Rock isn't exactly
dreamy. Unfortunately, after 90
'Everybody
Hates Chris' as
an adult, too.
minutes you don't even really care
who he ends up with.
"I Think I Love My Wife" is
Rock's second effort as director,
and he tries some new things-
slow-motion shots, fantasy scenes,
.an eclectic soundtrack and a sur-
prisingly pleasant, small role for
Steve Buscemi as his sleazy friend.
Rock tackles his trademark social
issues - stereotypes and race in
upper-class white society - with
his usual blatant style, which he
infuses throughout the film via his
own voiceover narration. His sig-
nature style finally gets in the way,
however. Rock can't seem to accept
that the film is in fact a drama.

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Top 10 most
vicious, deadly
and enduring
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The Filter.
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