Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2014

Christy Lemire, ChristyLemire.com: It's essentially a Transformers movie - a Michael Bay production complete with mass destruction, urban panic, white-hot lighting, inane quips, product placement, explosions and, well, Megan Fox. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: Turtles fans might have been looking for their own Avengers. They get Alvin and the Chipmunks on performance enhancers and mass-market pizza instead. In Hollywood, history repeats first as farce, then as marketing. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: The comedy-action mash-up is as weird as if the Dark Knight took a break from belting the Joker to plug Pizza Hut and bang out a hiphop beat on his nunchucks. Read more

Soren Anderson, Seattle Times: If ever there was a movie that should not have been made, this is that movie. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: Neither a particularly good movie nor the pop-cultural travesty that some were dreading. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: What the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lacks is not fidelity, but a spirit of genuine boyish fun -- the sense that anyone involved saw more than a very specific shade of green in the freshly digital scales of these 30-year-old characters. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: It's just kind of a mess, as unfocused and immature as the four mutant turtles at its core. Stuff happens, stuff blows up and this is probably a good time to mention that Michael Bay produced the film. Read more

Tom Russo, Boston Globe: The repartee, as ever, is weak. Even with all the extra layers of digital detail, it's still tough to keep these four straight. Read more

Drew Hunt, Chicago Reader: The light, comedic tone is weighed down by unimaginative pop-culture references and half-witted one-liners. Read more

Nancy Churnin, Dallas Morning News: Cowabunga, dudes. Read more

Adam Graham, Detroit News: There's enough turtle power to please kids and fans of the original series. Read more

Kyle Anderson, Entertainment Weekly: Too-brief thrills only shine a harsher light on the film's laborious pacing and cringeworthy one-liners spilling from the maws of the ninja teens. Read more

James Rocchi, Film.com: "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is designed to fill a pipeline, a matter of volume more than quality. It's bland, familiar, lazy and drunk on a deadly mix of nostalgia and unthinking adrenaline. Read more

Justin Lowe, Hollywood Reporter: Liebesman relies on his genre-film resume to keep events moving at a brisk clip and the motion-capture process employed to facilitate live-action integration with cutting-edge VFX looks superior onscreen ... Read more

Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times: There is something half-hearted about the entire film, as if those behind it were involved not because they wanted to make it, not because they should make it, but just because they could. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: If you thought Michael Bay had forgiven Megan Fox for saying he was "like Hitler," this new April O'Neil role is proof he hasn't. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Rougher and slightly funnier than the 1990 original, but still harmless junk at best. Read more

Tomas Hachard, NPR: There's no lack of craft here, but there's certainly an absence of character. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Even youngsters may wonder why any hint of charm or fun has scurried away. Those new to the franchise may withdraw their head into their neck, turtle-like. Read more

Nicolas Rapold, New York Times: Attached to this movie, the title no longer sounds zany; it looks like a series of keywords. Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a reboot that plays as if it were made from a starter kit. Everything comes right out of the 2014 blockbuster catalog. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: The kind of cliched, misfit crimefighters-versus-demented villains scenario that Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird happily parodied when they came up with the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic books way back in the 1980s. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles doesn't so much provide brainless enjoyment as it pummels the viewer into submission. "Shell-shocked" is a reasonable description of the experience. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: In one way, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a triumph for producer Michael Bay in that it is equally as godawful as his Transformers: Age of Extinction and a hit nonetheless. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: I had to draw on my own ninja training and reflect intensively on the transitory nature of all phenomena, just to fend off the profound yearning for death. Read more

Bruce Ingram, Chicago Sun-Times: It's pretty much business as usual: one personality trait per turtle (with the most screen time for party-dude Michelangelo), lots of wisecracks, plenty of thin-crust product placement (Pizza Hut this time around), and even a last-minute cowabunga. Read more

Cliff Lee, Globe and Mail: For having gone to the trouble of making a self-descriptive movie called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, its producers seem ultimately unsure about its most basic concept. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Not much of an effort is made to differentiate the personalities of the turtles, who all frankly look as grotesque as a Terry Gilliam cartoon. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: A movie that takes its characters and its premise seriously, until it doesn't, and that operates at two speeds: tortoise (ponderous) and hare (head-spinning). Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: This is as generic as Hollywood gets. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Is there a word that means the opposite of Cowabunga? Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: Your kids may not mind it, but it's more insistent than it is fun. Read more

Sandie Angulo Chen, Washington Post: While this reboot is fun, it's also forgettable and occasionally infuriating. Read more