With no offense to my fellow ‘bot Neverbot, he is way off-base in his review of the new Ninja Turtles flick. This “film” is barely coherent and while it doesn’t deserve much of the scorn that is being heaped on it by denizens of the internet, it suffers from being outclassed on all sides by films like “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” “How to Train Your Dragon 2,” and “The Lego Movie.” Riddled with plot holes, lame jokes, and action sequences that are too little, too late, it defies even the most liberal interpretation of the laws of movie physics, good taste, and good film-making.

The movie doesn’t seem to understand its audience. On one level, it’s a stupid kids movie, in which case it can be forgiven for fart jokes and incoherent plot cobbled together from another half dozen better movies. But on another, it tries to be more adult, throwing in an erection joke (Michelangelo admits his shell is a little more tight after seeing April O’Neil – gross) and martial arts weaponry that earns the movie’s PG-13 rating and should make any parent think twice before taking young kids to see this.

But this movie doesn’t deserve ALL of the hate it’s getting. It’s not overly Michael Bay. They didn’t mess with the origin story too much. (Though they did make it a little bit too pat, with an entire backstory for April O’Neil saving the turtles, etc). And I thought they did a good job giving each of the four turtles a distinct personality and character. And the final action sequences in the third act are pretty good, but it’s a big case of too little, too late.

Specifically, the first half of the movie just drags on interminably. And I know they wanted to tease the reveal of the turtles and keep them mysterious (why? exactly? seems like a dumb choice) but keeping these big fights and action sequences in the dark made it impossible to see what was happening. Maybe it was also the completely useless 3D that also made it darker, but it’s just a waste.

Oooh, and now let’s go into “the plot,” if we can even call it that. {Spoilers ahead, because I’m going to deconstruct some of this). So, the master plan by Shredder and the Foot Clan? Release a toxin on NYC from the top of the fictional Sacks Tower near Times Square, then mastermind Eric Sacks can sell the cure, making him, in his words, “stupid rich.”

Ok, hang on. Besides this being almost the exact same plot as about a half dozen other movies (Amazing Spider-Man?: Mission Impossible II?), if you already own a skyscraper with your name on it in midtown Manhattan, as well as a swanky NYC apartment and a castle/compound somewhere upstate (more on this in a second), you already ARE “stupid rich.” With holdings like that, you’re probably on the Forbes 100 list. How much richer do you need to get? Also, you’d probably make more money off of hedge funds anyway. And it would probably be less ethical than holding the Big Apple hostage and killing millions of people. (Yes, I’m saying Wall St. is actually that evil.)

So, the final act takes place starting in Sacks’ upstate compound/castle, where there is magically snow on the ground despite it being early spring in NYC. This could be explained by this place being located in, say, the Catskill Mountains, over a hundred miles from midtown Manhattan. But somehow the turtles need to get from there to get to Sacks Tower in 20 minutes, accomplished by driving straight down a snowy mountainside in a semi that somehow manages to not start flipping and rolling down the hill (Who knew Will Arnett was secretly an expert trucker?) and then into a magic hatchway that has a sewer line that runs straight to the city.

Ok, convenient magic tunnel aside, you know where you can get in 20 minutes from Times Square? Barely out of the Bronx if you’re lucky. To the Catskills? Google maps puts it at 2-3 hours with zero traffic. So, let’s say there is a convenient magic tunnel — our heroes on the half shell would have to slip n’ slide at speeds of OVER 300 MPH (do the math) to get there in time.

But let’s take them at their word that there is such a place within 20 minutes of Times Square. I’m here to tell you that there just simply isn’t, and anyone who has spent more than a milisecond in New York knows this. So why the 20 minute ticking clock? To build tension, I guess, which is just ridiculous.

Other script problems? Well, there’s the fart joke, the erection joke, but there’s also a boobs joke. . . almost none of the jokes in the movie are funny. It’s forgivable if something is a little bit crude if it’s entertaining. These are just cheap attempts at humor from people trying to shoehorn “funny things” into an otherwise dull script and hope it works. Wackity-schmackity-doo!

Otherwise, this plays out like a paint-by-numbers script told in the most incoherent method possible. See, we told the origin story in THE MIDDLE so it would be a big surprise how April was connected to the turtles from the beginning! *sigh* And then the detail from the beginning of the movie that the brothers always messed up? Somehow that’s going to be the thing that saves the day in the final battle, isn’t it? *double sigh*

Lastly, I have to quibble a little bit with Splinter’s origins. The whole reason he was a ninjitsu master was he was the pet rat of a master himself (or, in some versions, the master himself who is transformed into a rat). But we’re to believe they all learned martial arts just by reading a book? That seems like too much of a stretch.

Also, of any of the character designs, Splinter seems the least “real.” Well, none of them actually looked real, which is a bad place to be during the summer of 2014. Oh, yeah, there’s just a giant tree, a talking raccoon, and an army of damn dirty apes that look incredibly lifelike. They might have gotten away with it if this movie had been released earlier this year. But, coming out a week after “Guardians of the Galaxy” might be the most damning thing possible for the digital characters in this movie.

Oh, but I didn’t hate Megan Fox. She was just kind of there, which is possibly the nicest thing I’ve ever said about one of her “performances.”

It’s not so much that this is a bad movie. It is just outclassed by its peers and a half-assed attempt at a cashgrab for a franchise who is already doing quite well on the small screen. They should’ve left good enough alone or hired some competent people from the TV side to put a real movie together.

4 out of 10