Hollywood
‘The Mutant Ninja Turtles’: Fun for kids
MUMBAI: By chance or by choice, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) has always been a reflection of its time. The new TMNT is also a time capsule, so to speak.
Even though the 97 minute film is far from perfect, it is everything a turtle movie usually is – fun for kids.
The movie has the elements of all the other Ninja Turtle movies like the Ninja Turtles who loves pizza (this time from Pizza Hut), the city of New York at risk and villains. The movie has nothing new to offer except for a flash back unlike the other installments
The basic plot, the TMNT lore has changed very little over the years. Four turtles come in contact with a man-made mutagen, grow up in the New York City sewer system learning ninjutsu from their adoptive father Splinter, a mutated rat. As in all stories, there is an evil organisation led by a man known as The Shredder, who really likes the idea of eating ‘turtle soup’.
The movie is based on a comic dreamed by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird 30 years ago intending to be a parody of comics at the time.
The film opens with a sequence of the city of New York in the grip of a crime wave unmanageable by the police officials. A channel 6 news reporter April O’Neil (Megan Fox) goes after the trails a group Foot Clan, who she thinks is behind it. While searching for the group, he finds herself crossing paths with the last thing she ever thought to find: a quartet of 6-foot tall, crime-fighting turtles that – coincidentally – have a link to her past. When her colleague dismisses her discovery as a part of her overactive imagination, she seeks out the counsel of old family friend and billionaire scientist Eric Sacks (William Fichtner). As in all the movies, Sacks knows more than he’s letting on, and it isn’t long before O’Neil and her new turtle friends are thrust headfirst into a plot that threatens the entire city.
As O’Neil, Megan Fox gives a decent performance. There are also a handful of other humans with speaking roles, all very one-dimensional: a snarky-and-lovelorn co-worker (Will Arnett), a take-no-bullshit boss (Whoopi Goldberg), and a duplicitous businessman working with the bad guys. Comedians Arnett and Goldberg are sadly wasted in minor roles in the movie, as is Abby Elliot, in a cameo as April’s roommate.
Neither the narrative is strong, dialogues are too basic (even though they have tried to add a pinch of comedy) nor the music is extraordinary. Still the one thing the movie gets right is the individual personalities of the turtles. Even after the redesign, these are the turtles we love, adore and know: Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines, Raphael is cool (but rude) and Michelangelo, of course, is the party dude
Curiously, the film takes no time to introduce the characters, much less their individual names, so if you’re going in without prior knowledge, you may find yourself lost for a stretch.
If you are a fan or have a kid who is, the movie can take you to the ninja world. Don’t think and you might have a good time!
Cast: Megan Fox, Alan Ritchson, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, Noel Fisher, Will Arnett, Danny Woodburn, William Fichtner, Johnny Knoxville, Tony Shalhoub
Producers: Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Bradley Fuller, Galen Walker, Scott Mednick, Ian Bryce
Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Hollywood
Paramount Skydance posts $8.15bn in Q4, warns of ‘below Wall Street estimates’ Q1 growth
Linear TV drag offsets subscriber gains and price rises at Paramount plus
LOS ANGELES: Paramount Skydance forecast first-quarter revenue below Wall Street expectations, blaming a continued slide in its legacy television business even as it predicts robust growth in streaming this year.
The David Ellison-led group said revenue for the first three months of 2026 would land between $7.15 billion and $7.35 billion, narrowly missing analysts’ expectations of $7.36 billion, according to data from LSEG. The outlook underscores the structural strain facing traditional broadcasters as audiences abandon pay TV for on-demand platforms.
Paramount Skydance struck a confident note on streaming, pointing to subscriber growth and price increases at Paramount plus as key drivers. The platform ended 2025 with 78.9 million paid subscribers and expects further gains this year, helped by the addition of the Ultimate Fighting Championship to its exclusive lineup.
The company’s fourth-quarter results reflected the same fault lines. Total revenue edged up to $8.15 billion, just above estimates, while its TV Media unit posted a 5 per cent fall to $4.71 billion, hit by weaker advertising and declining affiliate fees. Paramount expects further softness in the segment this year, broadly in line with industry-wide pay-TV headwinds.
By contrast, filmed entertainment revenue jumped 16 per cent, largely due to the consolidation of Skydance licensing into the group’s accounts.
Investor attention, however, remains fixed on the corporate chessboard. Paramount Skydance described its bid for Warner Bros Discovery as an “accelerant” to its long-term strategy, though it declined to comment further on the talks.
Warner Bros Discovery’s board is weighing whether Paramount’s revised $31-a-share offer for the entire company tops a competing $27.75-a-share proposal from Netflix for its streaming and studio assets. The contest centres on prized film and television libraries housing franchises such as Harry Potter and Game of Thrones.
(Note: The cover image is AI-generated and is for representational purposes only.)
