I didn't hate this movie, but aside from the animation style (I'm loving this new trend of blending traditional and CG-- also, I love how no one was designed to be necessarily cute or appealing save for the turtles) this is a pretty generic kids' movie. The story is honestly a bit of a mess (we have two villains, one of which is only there to set up the inevitable sequel, the other only elevated by Ice Cube's entertaining performance and a creepy character design) and the dialogue is so packed with pop culture references that it became tiresome.

As a TMNT outing, the film's biggest flaw is how the turtles all sound the same. The core of the everlasting appeal of the TMNT franchise is the give and take between the four brothers: Leonardo is serious due to his high expectations for himself, Raphael is a hothead with anger issues, Michelangelo loves partying to the detriment of his concentration, and Donatello is a geek who "does machines," to quote the '87 theme song. The best TMNT outings play up these differences, creating both tension and affection among the turtles. Here, these traits are downplayed so all the turtles can be loud, pop culture-spewing kids with ADHD. A lot of people have praised how they feel like "real teens," and yes, some teens are like this, but it ignores that teenagers are not one size fits all in terms of personality.

A few good things: while I prefer my Splinters to be wise and mature, Jackie Chan's paranoid Splinter cracked me up consistently. I also liked this new April more than I expected to. I prefer April to be an older sister figure to the turtles as she was in the 1987 and 2003 shows, and in the classic 1990 film. Lately, there seems to be more of a push to have April as a teenage friend/love interest, which I don't often like. I thought that was done well here though and I thought her chemistry with the turtles was excellent, their budding friendship very natural.

The group I went with (which included some massive TMNT fans) enjoyed the movie, but I just expect more out of family films these days. With PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH and the SPIDERVERSE films, we deserve family animation with more heart and originality than the likes of MUTANT MAYHEM or THE SUPER MARIO BROS MOVIE, both very attractive films with little else to offer. I still say the 1990 TMNT movie is the definitive big screen take: it had humor, great character dynamics, a gritty NYC aesthetic, and a tense finale. It's a great film that takes itself seriously, even when the filmmakers could have phoned it in and still gotten a hefty payday from box office receipts. I really wish the newer TMNT films would do likewise.

Rating: 5.0 Overall, a miss in my eyes as the animation style does not make up for its poor execution and writing (with its corny use of modern references and poor plot construction making it too short to leave any profound effect), though children/fans of the TMNT franchise may like this movie more than me.

Pretty Bad Direction (Moves the story in a pretty formulaic way (so decent); does a pretty good job in the action sequences as they are animated well; the interpersonal scenes feel more awkward as there is just a lot of empty space from it being corny and not relatable; the scenes where they try to drive messages and development forward are pretty shallow and not that meaningful; does not feel like he directed the voice actors well), Pretty Bad to Decent Acting (Decent from Jackie Chan (The main issue is I have heard Jackie Chan give better vocal performances than this and it just feels like he wasn't given that great of direction), Decent to Pretty Good from Ice Cube (The best vocal performance in the movie but feels like he was very limited given the direction and the movie being PG (he wanted to go off and be explicit and it shows)), Decent to Pretty Good from Ayo Edebiri (Does a good job in being the awkward side character and shows some depth and range), Decent from Giancarlo Esposito, Decent from Seth Rogen (Really is not given that much to work with but does a decent job), Decent from Paul Rudd (Does a decent job at being the comedic relief for the mutants), Decent from Maya Rudolph (Holds her own decently and does a good job at being a separate menacing antagonist), Pretty Bad from the rest of the cast (Does not include the child voice actors; it just feels like there were so many unmemorable performances in the movie that it was hard to keep up with who was even each character and how relevant they were)), Pretty Bad Story (The story was pretty formulaic and too short overall; there was not any character development for the principal characters (which is a shame cause its supposed to be a pseudo-origin story); does a decent job at tying the story elements together throughout the movie (like referencing parts from the beginning to help drive the end)), Pretty Bad Screenplay (The dialogue was pretty messy overall (I get the kids were doing improv, but I never wanna hear 'rizz' or 'ocky way' in a movie again (this movie will be cringey and dated in years to come); the attempts at humor missed the mark a lot of times as it came off more as corny than relatable for me; the symbolism was kinda shallow (but they did explain and tie things up well); foreshadowing was kinda decent (but a bit overt) as they used different elements from the beginning to tie things up in the climax), Decent Score/Pretty Good Soundtrack (though not very well used at times), Decent Sound, Pretty Good Visual Effects/Animation (The overall style had some charm to it being less polished and more choppy/comic-book based (which was a stylistic choice that I did enjoy, but there were many times where the dialogue scenes felt too cheap as the mouths of the characters did not match their words); the fight scenes were well animated; the cuts with real-world videos felt very tacky and cheap), Plot Structure was pretty formulaic and not that well set up as the movie was a bit too short (the rising action of them coming into their powers and rising as a fighting team was just a short montage (ruining their character development)); it would have been nice to have seen 15 minutes used to help give them more scenes where they learn to become better crime fighters, Pacing was fine (the issue is the plot was too short and could use a longer runtime), Climax was animated well (but felt a bit corny and predictable), Tone was pretty similar to other TMNT property (so a bit childish in its humor mixed with action fighting scenes)

I had high expectations for this movie. And it turns out that what is missing is Laird/Eastman core violence that truly permeates the graphic novel. Failed in every feature film format but the t.v. Show was the closest to the spirit of the writing.

Again, with the retread story of a rat who discovers baby turtles in some mutative ooze which causes them to speak. Splinterm the rat, has developed a phobia towards human beings. Having proven themselves to be cautious when it came to something different (by the way, this story takes place in New York where their garbage Mayor embraces criminality). Splinter does his best to hide his teens. But they dream of being...um...Ferris Bueller? Seriously.

No. At the core is them wanting to be accepted into the human population. Story of conforming? Seriously. Though the Humans are horrible brutes, they eventually are saved by the mutants (big surprise) because that's what the script wants. Tag on some odd romance story of Master Splinter and a Cockroach mutant and...yep, here we are in Seth Rogen Land.

This movie is anemic. The story is as basic as you can make it. Though I do like that the mutants share their distaste for humans, FlyGuy (played on point by Ice Cube) may have forgotten that his "Dad" was a human as well. The balance of humor to serious stakes fluctuates so much it's hard to keep up or care. It's your typical characters speaking over one another and you have to grab what joke you can. You don't know what era you're in since there are cell phones, social media but NYC looks like pre-Giuliani. A cesspool.

I get why the critics fall over themselves for this tripe. April O'Neil in this case is a frumpy doughy Black teen. To the directors' credit, they never once mention that to be the case. Nor is she immune to the cruelty high school moments of bullydom. That's a welcome change. Though they desperately want you to believe her attraction through the eyes of sewer dwellers who've only seen human girls from afar. This new movement to like everything intersectional is why the press stumble on themselves to love it. Now did that sound complimentary to her?

It's not a good movie. It's a series of ideas and jokes slapped together by a stoner's mind. They know where the laughs should land. And some of them do. When April's on-live t.v. Puke fest happens, I found myself laughing hard at how the public made memes of it. Maybe that wasn't the point.

It's a really good message. But there is a better way to go towards this without having it seem so blase about the entire project. It wants to tackle something serious but also it's too silly to have the message hit.

Anyway, seems like they have another one in the works, if you stick around for post credits.