Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: August 8, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
31
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
1
Mixed:
17
Negative:
15
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
63
Chicago Sun-TimesBruce IngramAug 7, 2014
[A] basically brainless but intermittently adrenalizing, mostly-just-for-kids reboot. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyKyle AndersonAug 7, 2014
Turtles is head-and-shell better than "Transformers." Cowabunga? Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Aug 6, 2014
What the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lacks is not fidelity, but a spirit of genuine boyish fun. Read full review
58
HitfixDrew McWeenyAug 3, 2014
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is about as predictable as movies get these days. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleWilliam GossAug 13, 2014
A consistently workmanlike helmer, Liebesman (Wrath of the Titans, Battle: Los Angeles) keeps the pace brisk and the overall tone closer to that of the recent G.I. Joe vehicles, infusing this glorified toy commercial with an almost aggressively knowing sense of humor and exactly one fun action sequence on New York’s most conveniently located mountaintop. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaAug 8, 2014
A dark, shaky, standard-issue superhero picture. Read full review
50
Washington PostSandie Angulo ChenAug 7, 2014
While this reboot is fun, it’s also forgettable and occasionally infuriating. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreAug 6, 2014
The action beats are bigger and better than they’ve ever been in a Ninja Turtle film — brawls, shootouts, a snowy car-and-truck chase with big explosions and what not. But in between those scenes is an awful lot of chatter and exposition. For a film that aims younger (save for the die-hards who grew up with this franchise), that’s deadly dull. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterJustin LoweAug 4, 2014
The castmembers portraying Splinter and the turtles achieve a persuasive level of realism that was never possible with the elaborate puppetry required for the original film series and adequately fulfill expectations for their characters. Read full review
42
The PlaylistGabe ToroAug 5, 2014
It can't be overstated what kind of a marvel these Turtles are onscreen, however. As crude and unpleasant their design might be, they feel like living, breathing things, not special effects. Read full review
40
EmpireOlly RichardsOct 13, 2014
Heroes in a half-arsed shell. Read full review
40
SalonAndrew O'HehirAug 13, 2014
This extremely stupid movie, with its recycled Batman/Spider-Man-style plot involving a dead father, an evil scientist-tycoon (played by the reliably terrific William Fichtner) and a massive criminal underworld of masked thugs, also features the best action sequence of the summer, bar none. I’m not kidding! Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriAug 7, 2014
Largely indistinguishable from any number of bloated superhero spectacles that have already graced our screens. Your kids may not mind it, but it’s more insistent than it is fun. Read full review
40
The New York TimesNicolas RapoldAug 7, 2014
A certain kind of discipline and experience is at work here: It’s no accident that the action and dialogue seem blandly cartoonish, as if the moviemakers wanted to keep everything easy for all ages to follow. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesMark OlsenAug 7, 2014
Not out-and-out terrible enough to be completely dismissed, while also not particularly memorable either, perhaps the truest summation of the film is to say simply that the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a movie that exists. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzAug 7, 2014
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 full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfAug 5, 2014
Utterly inessential, this slightly cheap-looking reboot of the Turtles franchise is froth too — it might even be too tame for the kids who make up the target audience. Read full review
40
VarietyJustin ChangAug 4, 2014
Neither a particularly good movie nor the pop-cultural travesty that some were dreading. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 8, 2014
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 full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Cliff LeeAug 8, 2014
If TMNT the franchise is going to reach the same lofty heights of blockbuster-dom, it still needs to find its own inner hero. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comSimon AbramsAug 8, 2014
If nothing else, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reminds us that nostalgia is often used as a mandate for spectacularly lazy filmmaking. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTom RussoAug 7, 2014
The repartee, as ever, is weak. Even with all the extra layers of digital detail, it’s still tough to keep these four straight. And the CG characters’ slimy rendering and motion-capture expressiveness could go down with “The Polar Express” as a study in inadvertent, technologically misguided screen creepiness. Wackier would have been OK, guys — it’s the Ninja Turtles. Read full review
38
USA TodayClaudia PuigAug 7, 2014
Is there a word that means the opposite of Cowabunga? If so, that's the word for the charmless, dull and derivative new take on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Read full review
30
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonAug 8, 2014
This TMNT is bigger and emptier, a wasteland of pixels. Read full review
30
Film.comJames RocchiAug 6, 2014
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles isn’t a movie; it’s a brand re-launch that’s going to satisfy stockholders far more than it’s going to entertain the people who paid to watch it. Read full review
30
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeAug 4, 2014
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is 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 full review
25
New York PostKyle SmithAug 7, 2014
They’ve been around so long that they’re now the Middle-Aged Mutant Ninja Turtles, and their ’80s vibe — cowabunga, dude! — is so strong that I kept expecting a cameo by Huey Lewis or Max Headroom. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubAug 7, 2014
The narrative is a mess, and the overly long action sequences are easily forgotten.
25
Slant MagazineChris CabinAug 7, 2014
A film so overworked to ensure mass-market appeal that it loses the charming oddness and loose goofiness that has allowed these characters to endure. Read full review
20
The GuardianJordan HoffmanSep 9, 2014
Young kids will find the second, more action-heavy half of the film entertaining, but everyone else will want to crawl into their shell. Read full review
20
The DissolveNathan RabinAug 6, 2014
TMNT confuses “dimly lit” for “gritty” and humorless for substantive. It’s afraid of being too fun or too light, and doesn’t seem to know whether it wants to be a Nolan film or a 21 Jump Street-style spoof. Read full review
0
Rolling StonePeter TraversSep 4, 2014
Teenagers, even non-ninjas and non-turtles, have been eating up this cinematic waste product for weeks now. 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 full review
0
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierAug 7, 2014
The cloddish, confusing action scenes make no sense. Young viewers’ eyes will glaze from the first-person video-game style. Nonaction scenes feature people sniping at each other, or, in Arnett’s case, croaking out the script’s half-assed witticisms, until the Turtles show up. Read full review
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