This is not objectively a good movie, but as a child of the 80s/90s I was on full nostalgia overload the entire way through.  For some reason nothing speaks to my childhood more than Rocksteady and Bebop.  That alone is enough for me, but we also get Krang and the Technodrome too!  And Baxter Stockman!  And Casey Jones!  After the ‘realism’ of the first movie (and I use that term very lightly), I was surprised to see how crazy this movie got.  There is an actual Avengers style alien invasion in this movie.  Actually, the third act is basically identical to the Avengers.

There’s a lot of silly elements at play here.  Rocksteady, Bebop, and Krang are all extremely cartoonish.  There’s an incredibly transparent fetch quest that takes up most of the movie.  Shredder basically has nothing to do the entire movie, and his motivations make no sense whatsoever.  Karai is there for reasons.  But if you can look past all that and enjoy it on a superficial child-like level, it’s pretty entertaining.  There’s a particularly inventive river chase action sequence that’s hilariously improbable.

TMNT Out of the Shadows

7.4

Story/Writing

5.0/10

Characters

8.0/10

Pacing

8.0/10

Emotional Connection

8.0/10

Wildcard

8.0/10

Pros

  • Silly and cartoonish.
  • Everything you could want in a TMNT movie gets thrown in.
  • Rocksteady! Bebop! Krang! The Technodrome!

Cons

  • Silly and cartoonish.
  • Everything you could want in a TMNT movie gets thrown in.