Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014): Review

This weekend I went and saw the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) movie and I was more hoping then expecting it to be any good.  I was disappointed in the movie but I know that it will be something that will thrill the younger kids who it seemed to be targeted for.  Besides a few Easter Eggs thrown in for the older generation it didn't really didn't do it for me.
 
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) is a reboot of the Turtles movie franchise and besides some fun references to the movie has nothing to do with the 1990's movies.  It focus around journalist April O'Neil, played by Megan Fox, as she discovers that there are four Mutant Turtle Nina Teenagers (Donatello, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo) who are acting as vigilantes fighting against the criminal activity of the gang called The Foot Clan lead by a Ninja Master Shredder.  They have are the result of a science experiment and along with their Sensei and surrogate father Splinter they grew training in the art of ninjutsu.  Can April and the Turtles save New York city from the evil plan Shredder has planed and is there more to their background then April originally realized?
I think that some of the hardest things for me to get over for this movie is because I am quite attached to the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies and that would be the way the turtles look and sound.  To me they just didn't have the right voices and their characterizations where just off to me.  Also they just looked weird.  I don't know why movies are doing these movies where there are tying to make the non human characters more human looking, and with the video game type graphics it was hard to look at the turtles.  To me the CGI was obvious and jarring while I was watching the movie and this made it really bad to watch.  I usually don't mind crappy action movies as long as they are fun to watch, but for this the CGI was very obvious and like I said seemed very video game-esq.Also it is important to note that Splinter just looked really bad, just horrible.

This movie also spend a lot of time trying to make the science of what is going on seem to make sense and to me this is unnecessary in movies.  I mean it is a movie, it can just be magic or a few throw away comments making it just be, I don't care for it to be explained in detail like it might actually happen in real life, like come on it a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie.  The stars are life-size turtles its already out there.

The one thing I did like about this movie in reference to some of the other big budget action movies that have been released lately it is had a villain that seemed formidable and that was actually a villain worth being a villain.  Shredder was cool and besides how they showed him outside of the suit too much is a guy who you believe others are scared of.

I was surprised that I didn't mind Megan Fox so much as April and it was more how she was too whiny of a character was and did not have the savvy that I want from her as a TMNT fan not that bugged me.  I liked her outfit especially the jacket as it was the correct color. The supporting cast was okay with William Fichtner as Eric Saks, Will Arnett as Vernon Fenwick, and Whoopi Goldberg as April's Editor.
To me this movie was okay but had quite a bit to bug me as a 1990's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan and a child who was the right age for the whole Turtles phenomenon.  That being said I think that this movie will be something that younger kids would like and has the appeal for this new generation.  I have to remember that I am not hip to the young people and that to be teenagers today the turtles would have to have been born after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 came out in 1993.

My Rating: 1