Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) [Movie Review]

A few weeks ago I sat down and watched all of the live action TMNT movies from the '90s. I did as sort of a quality check, because in my childhood I loved literally everything I saw. Nowadays I only like most things. In my re-watching of those films, I realized that my nostalgia glasses were on a bit too tight and, while I still love the movies for nostalgic reasons, it was clear to see that they were all cheesy and poorly written.

I bring this up not to compare the Jonathan Liebesman's version to the films from the '90s, but to reinforce that we need to look at each film as a separate entity. The large majority of the people I have talked to have expressed disinterest in this film because of it being different. One person's response made me laugh, this is the exact quote, "Michael Bay my destroying my childhood". Now I'm not going to delve too far into why that is an illogical complaint, I simply thought it might be worth sharing.

So, I took my nostalgia goggles off and put my 3D goggles on and was determined to enjoy this film. And I did. I did. However, that's not to say that this film is any less cheesy than it's predecessors. Oh no, this film is still quite cheesy. And cliche. When the main plot device was revealed, I was trying to count the number of times I'd seen that exact plot in the past 5 years. The number was a little high for my taste.

Thankfully though, the 'teenage' in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was not lost. All of these Turtles felt like teenagers, probably even more-so than it's previous incarnation. It was, however, more of a movie taking snip-its from it's source materiel and ultimately creating it's own story than another re-hash of the same old story. This is, to me, a great thing. To many others it will lead to nothing but hate for something they already wanted to hate.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is another film that I can't really recommend, but can't really say to avoid it. Be wary when approaching the film, but go in with an open mind and you might even find yourself enjoying it!

Rating: 68/100

IMDb Page
Wiki Page