‘In a half shell, they're the heroes four. In this day and age who could ask for more? The crime wave is high with muggings mysterious. Our police and detectives are furious.’

The 2014 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle’s film is the fourth instalment of the classic cult ‘Heroes in a half shell’ franchise. The turtles struck gold with the original TV series and 1990 film, which promptly led to two further films in 91’ and 93’ as well as continued animated series, the most recent rebooting in 2012. When it was announced that TMNT would be making a comeback to the big screen, there was huge anticipation and excitement all around. With Director Jonathan Liebesman (Battle: Los Angeles, Wrath of The Titans) and producer Michael Bay (Transformers films) on board, you knew this would be a special-effects laden action fest. It may not tick any highbrow cultural boxes, but it delivers an excitingly daft bit of entertainment - frenetic and full of fun.

The basic storyline is still pretty much the same as the original but for a few modern tweaks. Megan Fox is pitted as, April O’Neil, a frustrated TV news reporter who wants to land a big story to make her cameraman Vern (Will Arnett) and equally her boss Bernadette (Whoopi Goldberg) eat their own words. While she witnesses an attempted Foot Clan attack in a subway station, she discovers the existence of the four half-shelled heroes and realises her connection to them via her late researcher father’s experiments. When Splinter, (Danny Woodburn) the turtle’s father/Sensei finds out about the meeting between them, he demands that April be brought to him for her safety. He explains to her about her fathers shady ex-partner Eric Sacks (William Fichtner) and how he has been helping Shredder (Tohoru Masamune) and the foot clan. From that moment on, the film kicks into overdrive as Shredder attacks and capture’s three of the turtle’s. The remaining turtle Raphael, (Alan Ritchson) then goes on a rescue mission with April and Vern to save his brothers and to stop Shredder unleashing a chemical weapon on New York.

Make no mistake — this Turtles film doesn't hide the fact that it's supposed to feel like a spin-off from a Transformers movie. The aesthetics and the CG are almost identical, as is the script which requires the human characters to spend 20 minutes setting things up so as some cartoon figures can spend the remaining hour engaged in fisticuffs at the top of a skyscraper.

Shredder's spectacular samurai-robot battle and the wild truck chase through snowy mountains are highlights and the integration of the foursome into the live action is flawless, which is made possible through some amazing motion-capture processing.

Although throughout the film there are some terrible cliches and the storyline is like most other super here movies, i still enjoyed watching it. Liebesman’s previous work with CGI (Battle: Los Angeles and Wrath of The Titans) shows through in the film and allows it to flow effortlessly from scene to scene. So far I have enjoyed all of Liebesman’s films, considering most of them have either been sequels or reboots, which i like as most of the time sequels are never as good as the original. He did a good job with TMNT, even with obvious signs of interference from Bay. He’s managed to reinvent the classic 90’s cult film, by giving it a modern touch and opened it up for a whole new generation of fans.