You know...instead of raping them?

Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the special effects. I mean, talk about the uncanny valley - it was horrific, nauseating, creepy, grotesque. An appalling parody of life-like facial features, and stilted, incomplete attempts to mimic human expressions. Whoever was in charge of the CIG for April O'Neil's face should consult with the guys who animated the turtles, because they were much better than the ones who tried to render Megan Fox.

Anyway, onto the nostalgia component. These are different from the Ninja Turtles I remember as a kid. But I'm not going to scream "Heresy!" and try to light Michael Bay on fire, because I'm an old school Catholic, for whom that stuff is serious business, but also because to have heresy you need dogma, and what is the dogma, really? The other movies? Give me the CGI turtles over those rubber suits & animatronic faces, and obviously attached color-coded masks. The cartoons? The handful of pages of the Eastman/Laird comic book I perused years ago which were significantly more grim and gritty? The way I played with a pair of muscular reptilian humanoid toys carrying a pair of swords and a staff was significantly closer to the book than the cartoons and TV shows. But then my GI Joes also shot people, pilots and tank drivers did not always bail out of their craft before they exploded, and He-Man cut off heads. I respected Luke Skywalker a lot more for manipulating a situation to the point where he could massacre a bunch of powerless ugly people in the wilderness without the Force getting pissed at him, than I did He-Man for taking Skeletor prisoner all the time. So I don't think those cartoons where the Foot Clan were robots so the turtles didn't have to kill anyone were necessarily something so worthy of preservation. TMNT is a successful version of Snakes On A Plane. It's inherently cool, and not because any particular vision or artistic presentation. I liked the ninja turtles because they were teenaged mutant ninjas who lived in the sewer and ate mostly pizza. At a certain age in my life, that was the highest possible state to which you could aspire. A little older, and the irony and juxtaposition of those things developed its appeal. But first and foremost for me, the TMNT were toys that I used as a starting point to my imagination. I buy my nephews toy nunchucks and katanas with TMNT logos on them because I wanted one so bad when I was their age! I had to make do with a wooden slat torn from a broken lattice, with an angled tip similar to Leonardo's plastic sword. To the chagrin of my brothers. Because I'm the oldest and I SAID you're the Foot Clan.

This movie is someone's imagination playing with the idea of mutated young reptiles (not amphibians, you stupid fucking cartoon) who are stealthy martial arts experts. There are some cartoonish aspects, like Splinter "interrogating" the turtles by waving pizza around until Michaelangelo (of course) cracks, and confesses their curfew violation. But it's a thing for kids, so deal with it. The action is pretty good, even if it reaches a bit. I mean, a fight scene set as vehicles and turtles go down a snowy mountainside is hardly what I would think of as the natural penultimate battle sequence, but it's not badly done, and there are limits you have to accept for the amount of violence and death that can be shown.

One visually interesting thing is the turtles are somewhat distinctive physically. Raphael is notably bigger, Donatello skinnier. Splinter looks a little wierd, particularly the snout, but more...animated, than the pile of fur in the older movies. The foot clan are more like a well-armed mafia than transplanted ninjas, outcast delinquents or robots who can be stabbed and bludgeoned without incurring the wrath of the censors. Will Arnett is a much more likable and capable Vernon than the cartoon character.

IMO, the major flaw of this version revolves around April O'Neil. I never thought I would be saying this about Megan Fox, but she's the least attractive of the various actresses, CURRENTLY. Paige Turco? Check out "Person of Interest" on CBS, where she is a recurring character (check it out anyway, it's good), and nearly every line of dialog she exchanges with Jim Caviezel sounds like a filthy inuendo. Judith Hoag? Sons of Anarchy. In the first couple of seasons, she plays Elliot Oswald's wife. Not exactly sexy babe, but prettier than Katey Sagal, for my money. Megan Fox (2014) has the face of a 52 year old soap opera actress desperately still trying to get 28 year old roles. Until I saw TMNT, I was perfectly willing to overlook her acting shortcomings, because it's not like her characters were carrying significant dramatic portions of films. I haven't seen her since Transformers, and holyhell I can't imagine why a woman in her 20s needed to have that much plastic surgery! Her mouth has two modes, open and closed. Actually, that's pretty much the extent of her facial expressions. Sometimes it looks like she tries to widen her eyes, but that doesn't seem to be an available feature on this model either.

Unfortunately, her role is more than "establish reasonable doubt that Sam is not fucking Bumblebee". As in the first movie, April is supposed to be the audience surrogate for being introduced to the turtles, and the filmmakers chose to tie their backstories more closely together in this, so the ability to convey emotions is a little more critical. Also, it was kind of pointless, except in the cause of verisimiltude, i.e. giving the turtles a reason to seek her out, because what kind of expert ninjas let a TV bimbo track them down? But they chose to tie the turtles' origin in with the villain's and with April, all together, which didn't work out so good, IMO.

I'm going to say that eliding April's whole story from the movie, and concentrating on a bunch of turtles who fight crime from the shadows might have been a better choice. But it was still pretty good.