Believe me, when I first heard about the Michael Bay-produced reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I had the same reaction that most of the internet did: how dare he ruin my childhood!?!?* I prejudged the idea of the movie based on the initial rumors: that Bay was going to make them aliens and remove the “mutant” part of the turtles. Had that actually happened, I think my reaction to the movie would have been different.

*Only in the sense that my childhood could be in fact ruined by a movie.

And sure, the secondary backlash after the initial trailer landed with the new look for the turtles should have dissuaded me further, but I wanted to give the movie a chance…unlike what seems like 85% of the rest of the internet, guilty of judging the movie by it’s trailer, or the thinking that explosion master Michael Bay will somehow travel through time and remove my original experience to the original turtle films or cartoon that I grew up with. Despite the horrible reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, I trusted my gut and decided to give it a chance, and while it is not the best movie I have ever seen, it definitely exceeded my expectations.

(Minor spoilers ahead) Continue reading “Today’s Movie Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)” →