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Witless, cartoony action movie puts 'Turtles' in the soup

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have become a mere shell of their former selves.

In Dave Green's juvenile, wit-challenged “Out of the Shadows,” only two of the reptilian quartet - Michelangelo and Donatello - possess strong personalities while Leonardo and Raphael struggle through less defined roles.

It doesn't matter that much anyway, because all get stuck in a generic, action-heavy movie that looks and feels like other Michael Bay-produced CGI action movies emulating video game visuals at the expense of the characters.

Back in 1990 when they made Jim Henson's live-action “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” the New York sewer vigilantes gave us a crackerjack comedy about something important: how too-busy parents who ignore their children render them susceptible to evil influences like the Faginesque Shredder, who entices children into his criminal underworld by exploiting their feelings of abandonment.

In the blander “Out of the Shadows,” the Turtles stick their necks out to save the world from more villains who don't even possess a discernible motive for destroying it.

This new adventure, a sequel to Jonathan Liebesman's 2014 reboot, has no doubt been inspired by Saturday morning cartoons and “Transformers.” (Which makes sense, inasmuch as 2007's “Transformers” director/executive producer Bay also produced this movie.)

Megan Fox stars as April O'Neil, a TV reporter who barely ever reports on anything, in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows."

“Out of the Shadows” opens with TV reporter April O'Neil (again played by the beautiful but charismatically cold Megan Fox, also the star of Bay's “Transformers”) securing confidential information from a male courier by stealing clothing from strangers so she can dress up like a fantasy high school student dispatched by a call-girl agency.

She discovers a plot to break arch-villain Shredder (Brian Tee) out of prison.

She tips off the Turtles - Leon, Raph, Donnie and Mikey (voiced by Pete Ploszek, Alan Ritchson, Jeremy Howard and Noel Fisher) - but they fail to prevent Shredder's ninja foot soldiers from busting their master out of a police escort van driven by New York cop and super hockey fan Casey Jones (Stephen Amell).

In short order, Shredder conspires with super scientist Baxter Stockman (an amusing Tyler Perry emoting fantasies of grandeur) to destroy the world with help from Krang (voiced by Brad Garrett), a slimy pink alien resembling a wad of expectorated bubble gum. (Mikey calls him “Bubblicious.”)

The Turtles spring into action to save the Big Apple with help from Jones, now a hockey-masked vigilante, April's former cameraman Vernon Fenwick (Will Arnett) and a reluctant police chief (a slumming Laura Linney).

Meanwhile, master Splinter, the Turtle's giant rat martial arts teacher (voiced by Tony Shalhoub) gets relegated to the narrative sidelines so that Shredder's comic relief henchmen Bebop and Rocksteady (Gary Anthony Williams and Stephen Farrelly) can eat the scenery (and messy pasta) after being turned into a rhino and a warthog.

“Out of the Shadows” isn't a bore, but it's not particularly funny, pulse-pounding or touchingly dramatic, either.

For a moment, the Turtles share an opportunity to become human and blend in with other New Yorkers.

They decide to take a pass.

By doing so, they stand up for diversity, despite the fact that the only visible Asian and African-American actors get stuck with the evil characters.

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows”

★ ½

Starring: Megan Fox, Laura Linney, Will Arnett, Tyler Perry, Stephen Amell, Noel Fisher, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, Alan Ritchson

Directed by: Dave Green

Other: A Paramount Pictures release. Rated PG-13 for violence. 112 minutes

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