Mark Reviews: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Just as I was about to go see TMNT, I got this review in my inbox from our good friend Mark Wahlberg, so there's one less movie I have to review. - Jack

Hey everyone I'm back and I got all new thoughts on a movie I saw. A few days ago, my mom called and said that she's missing me and Donnie. So I packed Donnie's backpack and we flew out to Boston to see the family.

After a dinner at our family's restaurant Wahlburgers (19 Shipyard Drive, Hingham, MA, if you're in the Boston area check it out and tell my brother Paulie I sent you), Donnie really wanted to go see this movie about turtles or something and I told Ma I'd take him, even though I knew he'd get tired and fall asleep.

First of all I'm pissed off that Michael Bay didn't put me in this movie. I could have played like Will Arnett's character or a turtle (or all four because I'm that good). I thought we had it good Michael, you already put me in two movies.

I'm so good I can play my own son

Anyway, Donnie fell asleep like I thought he would and I got really bored. Something about ninjas attacking New York (which I totally would have stopped if I was there) and the fact that these things are supposed to look like turtles. Whoever made this movie has never seen a turtle. I have to feed Donnie's pet turtles all the time so I know what they look like.

I suppose that Megan Fox is pretty good to look at, so it was a total waste. And that Johnny Knoxville can be pretty funny, but I really did want to see him fall down some stairs or get hit with a golf club.

So, I guess if you like looking at big monsters pretending to look like turtles or like falling asleep, you're gonna love this one. The weirdest part is that Donnie knew the exact parts of the movie he liked even though he was asleep during them. I gotta stop taking my brother to the movies.

The Last Stand

This really should be Arnie's last stand. While it was a fun romp through the Nevada desert, Schwarzenegger has no business fighting crime. It is a young man's game and even he acknowledges the fact.

The Last Stand revolves around Sheriff Ray (Schwarzenegger) and his rag-tag group of deputies trying to stop an escaped cartel boss from making his way to Mexico. The plot is almost that simple. The reason the cartel boss escaped is due to FBI agent John Bannister's (Forrest Whitaker) negligence. The whole thing could have been avoided if he checked up on his agents and moved his prisoner in daylight instead of the wee hours of the morning.

I feel like this movie could have been a whole lot shorter than it's 107 minute running time. There are a whole bunch of extraneous shots of glances between Deputy Sarah Torrance (Jaimie Alexander) and Frank Martinez (Rodrigo Santoro), I'm still not sure what his role was in this movie, and these shots in this modified Corvette, where cartel boss Gabriel Cortez (Eduardo Noriega) shifts gears. Although they looked cool, we only needed to see them once or twice, not every single time he changes speed.

There is a strange sort of familiarity between Ray and Cortez. I feel as though we are missing some scenes where we find out that Ray has run into relatives of Cortez during his stint as a LAPD Narcotics officer. Although they barely hint at this, it would have been nice in this sort of movie to have that explicit connection. It would also explain the reaction Ray gives when he finds out who is making a run for his town.

The cast (apart from the few who I will point out) were not suited for this film. Of course this role was written for Arnie and he does fit in. The same is said for Johnny Knoxville, who is just playing Johnny Knoxville (like he has any other setting!), and Luis Guzman, as the loyal but hesitant and insanely funny deputy.

On the other hand, Forest Whitaker is playing just an angrier version of the role he played in Species. He only really comes off as incapable of following proper protocol. The other person not suited here is Jaimie Alexander. She is capable of extraordinary range and I felt that she was a wasted talent. The way that they built up the character of Cortez, you were expecting a name actor when he would finally be revealed, but instead we get an unfamiliar face.

The person who sort of defies both of those positions and is in sort of a middle ground is Peter Stormare. Whilst you would expect to see him silently shoving body parts into a wood chipper (Fargo, anyone?), here he is playing a loud gunslinger type and at the end of every scene with him, I was waiting for him to spit his tobacco on the ground.

Verdict: Some great driving sequences coupled with callbacks to old Arnie one-liners ("Consider yourself deputised") make for a great action movie. My recommendation to Arnie: quit acting while you're ahead, maybe move into producing and directing like your Twins co-star Danny DeVito.