Biggest Plot Holes In TMNT: Out Of The Shadows

Sure, your inner child (or any child of your own) is probably going to enjoy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, but you don't need a Krang-sized brain to notice its inconsistencies and numerous plot holes. The film is obviously geared towards youngsters who probably won't notice or care for these moments, but that doesn't mean the film is absolved of all its narrative shortcomings.

Obviously, a movie about ginormous humanoid turtles performing ninjitsu is going to defy the laws of physics every once in awhile, but there's one major lawbreaker throughout the film: Michelangelo. In particular, Mikey's skateboard just seems to openly disobey gravity. His rocket-powered board is a callback to the Turtles having similar devices in the cartoons and comics (that stayed on the ground). The scene in the Turtles' lair depicting Mikey flying through the air, chasing Donnie's remote-controlled drone, makes no sense. Mikey's board has two small afterburners aiming straight behind it and wouldn't be able to slowly traverse the air, yet the 400 lb. turtle floats around as effortlessly as the drone.

The Foot Clan busts Shredder out of incarceration as he's being moved to a new facility. Sure, we can buy that. Casey Jones is one of the corrections officers in the car with Shredder, Bebop, and Rocksteady during their escape—we can buy that too. Shredder then teleports away using alien technology found by Baxter Stockman, gets inadvertently sent to Commander Krang, and makes a deal for global domination. Why not? Oroku Saki agrees to locate and assemble parts of Krang's mass teleportation device so the alien can invade Earth and stop the Turtles. All pretty sound stuff for TMNT, but our problem is with the actual teleporting. If Krang can't port himself, his robot suit, or his base to Earth, how was he able to send Shredder back? How did his alien technology land on Earth in the first place? It's best to eat a slice a pizza while not thinking about it.

On second thought, after finishing that slice of pizza, we decided to think about the plot again. Shredder is supposed to be a criminal mastermind, right? It was pretty obvious that Krang's machine was going to be a giant weapon to lay waste to most of the world, so why was he down with the brainy being destroying the Earth? Krang could have taken care of the Turtles for him, but it's kind of tough to control the world after an alien has destroyed most of it. Then again, that's a classic Oroku Saki move: wanting to control the world, Shreds and Krang cook up some crazy plot to try and destroy it—cue the Uncle Phil evil laugh from the original cartoon.

Speaking of old metal-head, he sure looks a whole lot different this time around (as does his second in command, Karai). We know supporting cast members often change between sequels. Heck, Johnny Knoxville skipped out on voicing Leonardo a second time. The problem here is that Shredder looks nothing like he did in the 2014 movie. Even in his armor, he appears to be 3-4 feet shorter than he was during the last movie's rooftop fight. While Tokyo Drift actor Brian Tee does a decent job with the villain, consecutively watching both films will leave you questioning just how good the Foot Clan's plastic surgeons are. At least Tee's mug's a lot easier on the eyes than the 2014's Shredder's Darth Vader visage—and it's light years better than the rumored original idea to have William Fichtner's Eric Sacks don Shredder's armor.

Last time we checked, Megan Fox's April O'Neal was still fired from her news reporter gig by her supervisor, Bernadette Thompson (Whoopi Goldberg). TMNT: Out of the Shadows doesn't really acknowledge whether or not April returned to being a reporter after the events of the first film. When we first see her, April's still helping the Turtles above ground during the daytime hours—and still being sexualized for no reason in another TMNT movie intended for children. You would think that she literally broke the story on Shredder and the Foot Clan, so she could've easily gotten her job back (or a new one at pretty much any news/TV company). Living in New York is awfully expensive, and we doubt you can pay rent with whatever money the Turtles aren't spending on pizza.

In complete Avengers fashion, Commander Krang and the Technodrome arrive via a giant portal manifesting above the New York skyline. While we're not trying to say we've totally seen that before, what we did notice a recurring theme between movies like The Avengers, Godzilla (2014), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows: a lack of fighter jets. You'd think with a huge, potentially world-ending event like this, you'd see choppers and jets throughout the skies in an attempt to fight back against the menace. Yeah, this sets up the boys' fight against Krang while maintaining their anonymity, but we couldn't imagine something like this happening without scrambling the Air Force or something like that. Where's Steven Hiller when you need him? (Definitely not in Independence Day: Resurgence, that's for sure.) It's almost as crazy as Leo and Raph never using their weapons to stab the bad guys, despite being fully trained ninjas.