'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows': Better than 2014 movie?

A new “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” film, the second in recent years, is coming to theaters on June 3, and critics are mostly enjoying it more than its 2014 predecessor, though bad reviews didn’t stop the movie from becoming a box office success.

The new film “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” stars Jeremy Howard, Noel Fisher, Pete Ploszek, and Alan Ritchson as the title turtles and Megan Fox as their friend April O’Neil. 

Reviews for the new movie are so far mostly negative but some critics say the film is better than the 2014 movie “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” “This sequel is a good improvement over the 2014 adventure that rebooted the franchise,” Bill Zwecker of the Chicago Sun-Times writes. “The effects are better, the pacing is tighter and the overall impact is much more entertaining.” 

Hollywood Reporter writer Frank Scheck agrees, writing, “Better than the last one," while Scott Mendelson of Forbes wrote that "I cannot think of a time when a franchise starter as terrible as 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' produced a sequel as good as 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.'"

Critics panned “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” in 2014. Yet the movie became a box office success, enough so to presumably give executives confidence in a sequel. 

What drew audiences to the 2014 movie? Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for the media company Rentrak, told Variety at the time to never underestimate fondness for old properties. 

“A lot of it was nostalgia,” Mr. Dergarabedian said of the movie's opening weekend box office. “There is a generational affection for these characters.”

Variety writer Brent Lang noted that the film “appealed to both younger crowds and twenty-somethings who remembered the original 1990s television show, films and toylines with fondness.” 

In addition, Deadline writer Anita Busch wrote that the film’s studio, Paramount Pictures, did a great job getting the word out there about the movie. “[The movie’s opening weekend gross was] powered by a very well-executed marketing campaign (which included a national cross-promotion with Pizza Hut),” Ms. Busch wrote.