Ranking Every Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Film Worst To Best
Heroes (and duds) in a half-shell.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a massive cultural phenomenon. Starting in 1984 with a small independent black and white comic book published by Mirage Studios, it only took a few short years to explode into a franchise that has spanned multiple generations of fans. It was originally intended as a one-shot comic that acted as loving satire of the medium, but TMNT has gone further than anyone ever anticipated.
Since the original 40 page comic book hit shelves, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has branched out into toys, role playing games, video games, multiple TV shows, merchandise, and of course, numerous movies. From live action, to animated and CGI, the Ninja Turtles franchise has tried about every avenue available to show audiences what anthropomorphic Turtles might look like on both TV and the silver screen.
As with all long running franchises, there have been some fairly extreme highs and lows. With seven different Ninja Turtles movies to choose from in this age of comic book movies, it might not be clear which ones are worth watching and which should simply be skipped.
For the sake of everyone's sanity, direct to video movies without a real narrative plot like the Coming Out of Their Shells Tour or We Wish You a Turtles Christmas don't count here. Just assume they'd be joint bottom...
7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
With the comic book movie bubble only ever expanding, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were brought back to movie theatres for the first time in seven years. Following the rights to the franchise being sold in 2009 to Viacom, this was the first attempt at a new film series and it's abysmal.
This movie misses the mark in just about every way possible. With massive production troubles, the final product is an absolute mess. From the characters to the story, the movie is difficult to sit through. The design of the Turtles has been mercilessly mocked and the characterizations don't fare much better. They are simply ugly and unlikeable.
This movie was panned upon release and is generally reviled by everyone who had the misfortune of sitting through it. The juvenile humour didn't connect with adult fans and all of the overt sexualized jokes made about star Megan Fox weren't appropriate for kids. The movie alienated itself from any possible audience.
The story of the film is rushed and convoluted. The reshoot scenes are painfully obvious as the filmmakers tried to change the original narrative. Originally, actor William Sachs was intended to play the Shredder. However, this choice was met with a massive backlash since it changed Shredder's nationality and origin.
The plot was then butchered to fix this in post production, resulting in a clunky final product. This movie's only saving grace is that it's relatively short at 101 minutes.