[Shellington]

The films were okay IMO. Standard superhero fare which took elements from the TMNT story, and was reasonably faithful and enjoyable.


The problem is they couldn't get together a good origin for the mutated animals, which really spoiled things.

The first film took from Rise of the Planet of the Apes (animals used as lab subjects for a new medication, that grants them intelligence and humanoid capability) and The Amazing Spider-Man (lizard-like humanoids, fight on a tower), and also from the IDW TMNT comics (Turtles and Splinter raised in a lab, the reincarnations of Hamato Yoshi and his four dead sons). But they removed Hamato Yoshi, so it didn't feel right.


The second film did a little better IMO with introducing Bebop and Rocksteady and Krang, and slightly embracing its cartoonish cowabunga crazy nature. And then they used a different mutagen origin: inside every human there's a dormant animal gene from an animal ancestor, and the Mutagen Ooze allows that gene to dominate the human and turn into its respective ancestor. Thus, Bebop and Rocksteady evolved from warthogs and rhinos and the Turtles could evolve into humans if the mutagen was altered. That logic makes no damn sense, even for 1980s Ninja Turtles which was over-the-top.


Also, the Shredder was underused in both films. In the first film he was the stepfather some white businessman who wanted to use the mutagen to kill people and then make a cure to sell to people, becoming stupid rich (his own words). Actually, the white dude was supposed to be the Shredder but people complained so they brought in a Japanese actor.
The second film kept him Japanese, but had him be Krang's errand boy and later slave, and didn't even give him good armor or a fight with the Turtles IMO.


I have to admit, I don't know where the third film could have gone. Would it be Turtles in time (again), or Turtles in space?


Anyway that's it for Michael Bay's TMNT.