Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo; four mutated, turtle, ninja-warrior, brothers, leave the sanctuary of the sewers to save New York City from the dreaded Foot Clan led by the evil Shredder.

I'll preface my review by saying I was a huge Ninja Turtles fan as a kid. I had all the toys, religiously watched the cartoon series, played all the video games, even my 9th birthday party was an outing with all my friends to see the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie in the theater back in 1990.  We all left the theater jumping and kicking, pretending we were Ninja Turtles.  It is for the aforementioned facts, that much of this movie brought out the 9 year old in me, reminding me of the fun, comedy, and action of the original concept.  I'm sure some of the enjoyment came from my history with the characters, but there is a lot of fun action and some simple, nostalgic/juvenile humor.  That said, this was produced (not directed) by Michael Bay and company, so of course there were certain points that the action was pushed to be a little too wacky.  The story feels like it had the right elements, but wasn't given the time to work out all the kinks and really make it flow.  Some purists might be upset with changes to some characters origins, although I think they work better in this case.  The running time is nice and sleek at 1 hour and 40 minutes, unlike Bay's 2 hour 45 minute Transformers movies.  It also keeps the juvenile humor a little more kid friendly than the other said Bay franchise.  Perhaps the effects and motion capture work is getting overlooked because of the groundbreaking work that was released and heavily covered by the press just a month ago in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but the effects and motion capture done for the actual turtles is beautiful, amazing stuff.  Overall it's action packed, stupid, silly, nostalgic fun.

**1/2 out of 4.  Theater worthy for fans of the Turtles and big FX action movies.  Rentable, if that for the rest.