Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

Fifth TURTLES feature is a reboot primarily influenced by the 2003 show, and focuses on the four brothers' first big adventure outside of their sewer home. The origin-story differences fit well for this particular story, but unfortunately focuses a little too much on April O'Neil (Fox) and not enough on the turtles or even Splinter—TRANSFORMER-like Shredder comes off as almost a secondary antagonist. Arrives at full speed and never slows down; but it doesn't ware the audience out nearly as quickly as other movies Michael Bay has been responsible for. By far the darkest TURTLE movie (first to receive a PG-13 rating). Pays much homage to predecessors (i.e. April's yellow jacket from the cartoon series or a slice of pizza landing on the top of Splinter's head like in the 1990 film, just to name a few). Nice to see the live-action debuts of Karai (Noji) and Vernon Fenwick (Arnett); let's hope to finally see Bebop and Rocksteady in the sequel(s), as well as the return of Casey Jones. If you hated this movie, at least be grateful they didn't go with Michael Bay's "original" idea of having the turtles be aliens. All-in-all, it's the dialogue that really brings this outing down; but ultimately, the experimentation works pretty well. Creator Kevin Eastman makes another cameo, this time as a doctor.