This is another movie retread of the four ninja turtles. This time, they must face Shredder and his evil Foot Clan in New York City to defeat their power over the city's authorities.While the action was pretty intense and fun and the acting was OK, there is really nothing new in plot to the movie that we haven't seen in previous TMNT films. The main difference is the heavy use of CGI and modern-day technology references.I personally prefer the original 1990 TMNT motion picture, which was cheesy at times, but had character, humor, realistic-looking costumes and a more fast-paced and engaging story-line.Grade C+

I wasn't particularly thrilled about this movie when it was initially released, especially since I didn't really see any greater need for why this franchise needed to be rebooted again.However, it turned out that this 2014 "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" was a rather enjoyable movie after all. And that was even with Megan Fox on the cast list, so that is some accomplishment in itself.Personally, it took me some time to get accustomed to the new appearance of Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo and Donatello. The turtles in this 2014 movie had taken on a somewhat very radical appearance compared to what we had seen in the previous older movies and in the animated series. But it will grow on you - as I guess mutations are in a habit of doing.And while this is, yet, another Hollywood reboot, then the movie actually turned out to be entertaining enough and adequate. I must admit that I am not really keen on reboots and remakes, it just oozes of a lack of creativity.The story in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is one that takes the turtle heroes from the sewers and up to the surface world, introducing the turtles to the world for the first time (well, not really, but just play along with this reboot, eh?).The cast was alright, although I can't claim to be much of a fan of Megan Fox, and it is obvious that she is in this movie for one reason only, and you know it. It was, however, nice to see Will Arnett here."Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" had some impressive CGI effects, which really carried the movie a long way. A movie such as this would naturally require superb special effects, and the special effects team had it covered nicely.There is a lot of action in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", which also adds flavor to the movie. And it is all spiced up with the traditional witty comments and dialogue that we know from the older movies and animated series.So strap yourself in and prepare for an action-packed ride. Whether you ride it out on your seat or on a shell is entirely up to you."Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" scores a rating of six stars out of ten from me.

Hands down, even many decades after their creation, everybody still knows and somewhat appreciates the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". That's why many, especially the fans I guess, must have been curious when they heart that the franchise is going to be rebooted in live action back two years ago. And this first film must have been successful enough as a sequel was greenlighted not much later. But in terms of quality, it is really far from enough unfortunately. The fact that I did not like the looks of the Turtles that much is purely subjective I guess, but the story just felt so generic, predictable and there is absolutely nothing individual to it I must say. And is this really a Turtles film? I must say I felt that it was really more "April O'Neill: The Movie". The reason for that may have been that they got Megan Fox to play the character and she is still quite a huge star, so probably demanded lots of screen time and a plot that revolves around her in order to say yes to this franchise. But apart from the fact that Fox is not a very talented actress, the story about her character also isn't effective at all. The plot about her dead father and with Fichtner's character responsible for the death feels so predictable and desperate to evoke emotions that it's almost cringeworthy. I think Fichtner is a fairly solid villain actor, even if he occasionally feels like a poor man's Christopher Walken, but he is still one of the better things about the film, even if he has very little to work with here. It is all about putting Fox in the spotlight, never about a good story.Now about the Turtles: I think that neither they, not Splinter and especially not Shredder fulfilled the great potential they had in terms of filmmaking perspective. Of course, it is quite a difficult challenge to construct a film about a life-sized rat and four life-sized turtles (especially with the joking around) as you have to give it the comedic approach at times. But here it did not ring true for the most part. The balance between comedy and moments where the film takes itself so seriously went pretty wrong most of the time. It is very shocking to see so many writers busy with the script here and the result is such a very weak outcome. About Will Arnett ("Arrested Development"), who is basically included for the human comic relief, the film intensified my opinion about him as an actor. His comedy can work in the right context and setting and some of his jokes work too, but most of the time you can feel the writes' desperate attempt at going for some cheap laughter. But what distracted me the most about him is the make-up and how they tried so hard to make him look 10 years younger than he actually is, so that we can accept him as a love interest for Fox' character. It's just another from a long list of oddities (in a negative sense) when it comes to this film. I saw the sequel received slightly better rating and reviews, but after seeing this one, I must say I have very little interest to check out movie number 2. The Turtles are a great challenge from a cinematic perspective, no doubt about it, and the people who made this movie here weren't up to it. I give these 100 minutes a thumbs-down. The title characters deserve much better. Not recommended.

I went into this movie expecting some light-hearted entertainment. Unfortunately, this movie is so full of *glaring* stupidity that I could not watch it all the way through. The following will contain spoilers, however they won't spoil this rotten movie. Just don't watch it. ANd don't make your kids watch it if you'd like them to grow up smart...It all started with April O'Neil who is obviously an imbecile and contrary to her aspirations she's well-placed in her job showing her face to the masses but leaving actual journalism to others. Apart from the fact that she just acts like she doesn't know what she's supposed to do (script anyone?), she tries to convince her boss to run a story on a vigilante with "that's the point, there's nothing!" – really? Yes, her boss is supposed to shoot her down in the beginning so she has to be the loner investigating on her own, but who could take that seriously? Her next try is even worse: instead of just showing her boss the video she made the night before, she raves on about talking turtles that only she herself has seen... Who wouldn't fire her after that? Then there's the focus on April. It's totally fine that the movie would start with her, seeing as the turtles are to be introduced as ninjas, which means they are usually invisible, and the initial perspective should really be with the normal populace so you can get into the mood. However, her presence is really annoying as early as the second scene with the turtles. The first one was OK, but now that the turtles rather visibly beat up some mooks, we see the woman's face more than half the time, and most of the rest, you just see the mooks flying around.Next up, the villains: they're kind of bland in the beginning, and it just goes downhill from there. Shredder's first appearance mainly consists of him being told that a bunch of batmans on crack just mopped the floor with his mooks. For a powerful man he's rather irritable, angrily ordering their deaths by any means necessary. But then again, maybe he's just an angry man with a short fuse – that actually could happen, so yeah. But when he actually joins the fight, he's not really a ninja master, but more like the carrier suit from "Aliens" (or "Alien 3"?) with some additional mechanic arms mimicking his natural arms and equipped with a bunch of throwable serrated swords?!? What? the? hell? That's not cool, that's just dumb. Let's not forget his "right hand minion", Dr Sacks, the rich scientist who wanted to use the substance that created the turtles for an evil plan he had with Shredder. And since he likes to brag, of course he tells the turtles this grand plan, and has it kind of (not really) illustrated by having one of the mooks murdering before their eyes. Their plan actually was pretty simple: poison the whole city and then sell the cure for lots of money... Erm yeah, sounds like the writers tried to copy the plot of "Batman Begins" but failed to understand the subtlety in the League of Shadows' objective of actually killing everybody and not saving them for money. And why would Shredder even hatch a plan that just benefits his pawn's bankroll? It's just a very stupid excuse for a plot.There's one major aspect I left out so far: the Turtles themselves. They are the only thing that was not completely botched in this obscenity. The CGI was decent, their characters were mostly well portrayed, and the choreography was nice. Then again, their fighting was more like the Hulk than the Batman, and we all should know which of those is a master ninja. Just because they're green doesn't mean they need to resemble the big green guy who "SMASH" everything... In the subway scene, they first toss the mooks around like tennis balls before leaving them tied up in a neat row. That just doesn't mesh. Batman does beat up mooks and leaves them tied up, but he beats them up ninja style and actually needs more than a second to tie up two dozen guys...So all in all, just a stupid movie, in the bad sense. If you don't know the good sense, watch "Deadpool" – that's a stupid movie, as well, and it's a hilarious, well-made, movie. Also, I usually don't review movies, but this one is so bad, I felt I had to. Don't watch this, watch "Deadpool" for light entertainment or "Batman Begins" for ninjas.