In theaters this weekend is a fun film featuring plenty of laughs, fun creatures, and invigorating storylines that proved as an overall great time. And that film… is Guardians of the Galaxy. I guess we should talk about thing though.

So Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a heavily-anticipated film for fans of the original movies and original cartoon, and it has had its fair share of production issues. At one point the turtles were aliens, at one point Shredder wasn’t in it, then Michael Bay came onto the project, but anyhow, we are now here. So how is the movie? Well, not good really …

I guess we should start off with the cast. Megan Fox is in the movie as April O’Neal, and it has been a while since I’ve seen her in a movie. I saw the first Transformers like three or four years ago and, call me crazy, but I think she’s a worse actress now. I know why she got cast, don’t get me wrong she’s great looking, but she’s not a good actress. Honest to God, the first few scenes she’s in this movie are possibly the worst performances I’ve seen in a while. And then Will Arnett is her cameraman, Vernon Fenwick. He was such an annoying clown in this movie, it baffled me. Then we got William Fichtner as the only actor actually taking the movie seriously. He was functional in his role, and was probably he best part other than the turtles.

And speaking of the turtles, let’s talk about them! I know that Michael Bay didn’t direct this movie, but in true Michael Bay fashion, the turtles are these side-characters and April O’Neal is the main focus of the movie. The turtles are cool for what part they’re in though. Well, let me rephrase that. The only turtles that seem important in the movie are Michelangelo and Raphael. Leonardo and Donatello feel completely useless. Michelangelo was cool though. He annoyed me at parts, sure, but he did have a couple funny lines and made the movie enjoyable.

The whole ‘plot’ of this movie is what really got me. Yes, on top of the already terrible acting, the writing in this movie was absolutely horrendous. The first 20-30 minutes were absolutely unbearable. The next hour and a half weren’t bad, but they ultimately felt like wasted potential. And do not even get me going on this next part! This movie stole from ALL KINDS of movies. It varied from The Dark Knight Trilogy, to the Transformers movies, to other Ninja Turtles movies, and I swear to you all, hand over heart, that the final half hour of this movie is copy and pasted straight from The Amazing Spider-Man script. I kid you not.

And if your favorite movie wasn’t ripped-off in this movie, you can bet there’s a cheesy Michael Bay-ish joke about it in there. My heart was breaking when the turtles were actually making X-Men, Harry Potter and Dark Knight references. And speaking of Michael Bay-ish-ness, the product placement in this is off-the-charts. Microsoft must have given money to produce this because everyone in the movie has a Windows phone, Surface tablet and a Skype account. The product placement isn’t as bad as Transformers 4, but it was not much better.

The good of this movie was the visuals. I thought the turtles design was really cool, and the action looked neat. Granted, it made my eyes sore afterword, but in the moment the action was neat. DON’T see the movie in 3-D though. I took off my 3-D glasses at one point and the movie, I kid you not, looked NO DIFFERENT. I try not to do the 3-D gimmick anymore, but to go to the earliest possible shows, they’re usually in horrible 3-D.

You could really knit-pick this movie apart, but ultimately if you’re forced to see it, you’ll be entertained that things are moving on the screen in front of you, while you sit in a throne-like chair and put kernels of corn in your mouth. If I felt this movie was made for kids, then I would have no problem giving it the ‘effort’ rating of a 2, but that’s not what they were going for here. The movie was trying to be older, grittier and darker for the tween audience, and tweens will not enjoy this movie. Not everything nowadays has to be dark and gritty, especially talking turtles who say cowabunga. The acting annoyed me, the script was abysmal, the product-placement and corny jokes were so, so terrible and the ripping-off was just unprofessional. I could be a nice guy and give this a 2, but I’ll just give it a decimal rating.

1.5/5

It’s not as bad as Trans4mers, but better than I was expecting, if that means anything. But like I said, just go see Guardians of the Galaxy again…

***

So guys, those are my thoughts on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turdles (yeah, like turd, get it?). What are your thoughts, and what are you going to see this weekend, there are a lot of underperformers out there now (other than Guardians). Whatever those movies may be, let me know down below! And as always, thanks for reading guys.