TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (2014)
Great, funny summer entertainment with strong moral values.
Should You Watch It?
This is the kind of popcorn movie that earns its ticket. It is exciting, funny, fast-moving, and packed with jeopardy. The humor is often laugh-out-loud enjoyable, while the turtles’ banter and character insights give the action some heart.
The movie also offers a strong moral worldview. Bad is bad, good is good, and adolescents need to grow up and accept responsibility. Obedience, forgiveness, respect, honor, and self-sacrifice all receive meaningful attention.
The cost is mostly intensity. The action includes martial arts fighting, swordplay, dangerous weapons, and peril. The villain is menacing, and some moments may frighten younger children. For older children through adults, this is a lively and unusually clean action adventure. Take your middle schooler and up; use discernment with younger children.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESApril, an ambitious young reporter, wants to move beyond fluff pieces and uncover a serious story about the Foot Clan, a gang trying to take over New York City.
While investigating a mysterious vigilante, April discovers four six-foot-tall mutant turtles trained in martial arts. Soon, she and her new turtle friends face a plan involving a deadly toxin, a supposed cure, and the fate of the city.
Is It Any Good?
Four stars means this is excellent entertainment in its chosen lane. The movie quickly moves past its origin story and into high gear, combining the ensemble energy of a superhero adventure with the silly fun of a comedy.
The humor works especially well, from the turtles’ imaginary instruments in an elevator to the funny banter among the turtles and humans. The action is also impressively staged. A chase through the snow-covered hills of New York is described as one of the best action sequences of the year. Megan Fox gives April more than a performance built on appearance.
The Worldview
The film presents a very strong moral worldview with redemptive elements. Bad is bad, good is good, and adolescents need to grow up and accept responsibility. The story also affirms obeying rules, forgiveness, respect, honor, and self-sacrifice on many levels.
The martial arts are presented with an acknowledgment of self-defense and learning responsibility. The turtles’ creation and their mentor’s origins are explained through biochemistry rather than metaphysics. The film contains very little New Age or Eastern pagan martial-arts religion, although a villain refers to a great magician.
The turtles disobey their adoptive father, but the story ultimately emphasizes responsibility and works toward a good resolution. Its central moral vision aligns with Scripture’s insistence that knowing the right thing should lead to doing it: “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Content Summary
Very strong moral worldview with some strong spiritually uplifting, redemptive content where bad is bad and good is good and adolescents need to grow up and accept responsibility, with obeying the rules, forgiveness, respect, honor, self-sacrifice on many powerful levels, with very little New Age, Eastern pagan martial arts false religion and any time the martial arts are mentioned, it’s done with a real acknowledgement of self-defense and learning responsibility, except for the villain, who talks about a great magician, but evidently not too great to be defeated by the good guys, and the creation of the turtles and their mentor is explained in a bio-chemical, not metaphysical, way; four light obscenities (d***, bada** and a**es) and one possible light profanity such as MG, plus a light “butt” vulgarity; strong action violence includes lots of martial arts punching and kicking, martial arts sword fighting, one villain dressed in a robotic fighting suit has sharp knives and small swords attached to his hands and fights with them and sometimes launches them at the good guys, a chase scene ; no sexual immorality or similar salacious content but man wants to date pretty woman and mutant turtle keeps trying to attract the woman’s attention because she’s “hot”; no nudity; no alcohol; no smoking or illegal drugs, but there’s a use of adrenaline to save the good guys whose blood is being drained and the adrenaline gives them an “adrenaline high” for a brief period, but the effects wear off quickly; and, adolescents disobey their adoptive father but everything works out okay, a shot before the end credits shows two of the large mutant turtles hiding on the bra portion of a Victoria’s Secret billboard ad, villains hold civilians hostage but their plan is thwarted, and one of the villains is a businessman, but it’s not meant in an anti-capitalist, politically correct way attacking free market or conservative values.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
The turtles must learn to accept responsibility as they grow up. What responsibilities has God given you in your family right now?
Luke 16:10 · Galatians 6:5The film presents self-defense and martial arts alongside the need for restraint. How can courage and self-control work together?
Proverbs 16:32 · 2 Timothy 1:7The story values forgiveness, respect, honor, and self-sacrifice. Which of these is hardest to practice, and why?
Philippians 2:3–4 · Colossians 3:12–13The heroes face people who use fear and deception to control others. How should Christians respond when wrongdoing is disguised as a solution?
Ephesians 5:11 · 1 Thessalonians 5:21The Final Word
This is lowbrow but exciting entertainment with highbrow values. It is funny, well-plotted, and unusually clean for an action adventure, though its peril and scary villain may overwhelm younger children. For older children, teenagers, and adults, the answer is WORTH THE TRIP — MIDDLE SCHOOL AND UP.
