Michael Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has finally hit theaters everywhere, with a slightly edited origin, and some crazy character designs the film is actually fairly decent considering all of the worry long term fans (including myself) had over the course of its development. While it’s not exactly the greatest 90s reboot out there, it’s certainly not the worst of the most recent bunch.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a 2014 action adventure film. It is produced by Platinum Dunes and Nickelodeon Movies, and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It is currently in theaters across America.

Warning: The following review contains complete, to near complete spoilers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Please avoid reading it until you’ve actually seen the film. You have been warned folks.

After all of the pre-production criticism, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is finally available for our viewing pleasure. Now that I’ve actually seen the film, I can honestly say that it was fairly ok. Nothing that terrible or unwatchable, but then not the best film out right now. And considering the material it’s a pretty fair status.

The Turtles as they appear in the new film.

THE GOOD: Like previously stated the movie isn’t the worst out there, while I can’t necessarily say that it’s on par with the original trilogy, I can say that there was a fair amount of enjoyable moments. And admittedly enough, the film is actually pretty damn funny here and there. Such as Mikey’s shell tightening joke when he and his brothers were reunited with April O’Neil. It was a nice surprise seeing Karai in the film, as I don’t recall her being announced so close to the film’s theatrical date.

Raphael getting ready to battle The Shredder.

I still find it amazing that the film could have been far worse, remember when it was under it’s code name of “Project Blue Door”? Had the script not been leaked by consistently credible Latino Review, the chances of that film being what we all would have seen four or so days ago are substantially high. With the amazing visuals, great action, and good comedy it’s a miracle we avoid the original vision for the film.

The Shredder attacks.

THE BAD: The extreme focus on Megan Fox was quite annoying. I understand that she’s a huge part of the TMNT lore, but isn’t the point of a TMNT film the focus of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and less focus on the outside human world? In every interpretation of the franchise the focus was always on the titular characters, and with a respectable, but little amount of focus on the human characters. Bay and co kind of did things backwards. And speaking of lack of time, I also felt that The Shredder could have used much more time, though I guess with the Foot Clan getting a considerable amount of screen time, it can be added up together.

Leonardo having a little chat with April.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: While Michael Bay’s TMNT isn’t exactly what we may have been hoping for when word got out of the reboot, it’s certainly not what we originally expected so many months ago. Some genuinely funny scenes, fantastic visuals, and great action it made for a decent film. However, too much focus on Megan Fox’s April O’Neil got extremely annoying and will likely be off putting to some of the movie goers. Despite this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a pretty ok film, and that’s just fine as is. Otaku Dome gives Teenage Mutant ninja Turtles an 70 out of 100.