What’s it about?
New York is under the thumb of a heavily armed gang (clan) called the Foot. Four mutated teenagers (spoiler – they’re evolved from turtles) fight back and get caught up in a series of implausible events. It’s worse than it sounds.

What did we think?
Anthony Sherratt says: The new TMNT movie is a cynical attempt to position a franchise for a new younger audience. Sadly it does so at the expense of the existing fanbase by serving up a flimsy, overly childish plot that is too simple for adults and laden with positively cringe-worthy dialogue.

It also pays scant regard to scientific reality and apparently, Splinter is Japanese for “exposition rat”. The retconning of their origin simply beggars belief (and this from a TMNT fan more than happy to accept the basic premise of 6-foot-tall ninja turtles existing).

Without the entertaining one-liners from Michelango this entire movie would be abysmal. Even so, the humour only elevates it to terrible. I only liked three things in this movie: Michelangelo, the fact Shredder is actually badass and the very last shot of the entire debacle referencing the song ‘So Happy Together’ which is, of course, a 60s song released by a band called The Turtles. Sadly this unexpected subtlety is the cleverest part of the entire movie.

There’s an impressive fight scene (singular) but overall this is mindless and occasionally painful. Cowabungle.