Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Four turtles, brothers. Raised by a rat as they mutated in the sewers. We all know them, but this time they’re different. The origin story plays out with heavier involvement from April O’Neil, Splinter has no connection to Shredder other than knowing of him and at one point in this film taking him on in a fight. Shredder’s plan in this one is taking over New York City and helping someone get rich quick with a set up disease and selling a cure made with the Turtles’ blood. There’s a good amount of joking about from our heroes but the movie takes a more serious tone to the old ones. Plenty of action comes into this and there’s a modern, high-tech idea to both the Turtles and the Foot with Donny having goggles and Shredder looking like Super Shredder from the second nineties movie. We do get a dancing Turtle and a few cowabungas. The story is alright, there’s some humour and the action is pretty good with the Turtles creatively working together to win. It’s a good movie that’s good for a night in.

Out Of The Shadows – The brothers are back. Shredder gets out of prison with the help of his scientist ally, together they work to mutate two idiot criminals to a point where they can take on the Turtles and together they work to help the alien Krang gain a presence on Earth. It’s a good action packed movie with car chases, stealth bits, tanks, combat and an exploding aeroplane. Casey Jones joins the Turtles as some hockey stick wielding muscle and the animation is all pretty good. There’s a decent level of humour too with the goofy Bebop and Rocksteady and of course Michelangelo who has plenty of charm. The one thing I didn’t like is that Krang looked like a chewed up piece of gum with a face (Mikey’s words, not mine), it just made him look less threatening than he should have. It used a lot of what I remember of the show I watched as I grew up and made for quite a good movie.

Extra

• It’s a Michael Bay series, make of that what you will.
• It seems strange how they changed the origin story from what was in the nineties films, it works for these films though.
• I’m a bit annoyed that April was nowhere close to being a redhead or ginger.
• I’m not a fan of the extra guy that drives April around, he did steal a bit of Casey’s spotlight.
• I hope the turtles get a crossover with the DCEU or another sequel at some point.
• I do prefer the silliness of the nineties films.