I'm a hard guy to impress.

He loves the show. Absolutely loves it.
Loves the toys, too. Just got a bunch for his fifth birthday, in fact.

So I couldn't believe it when he said, rather emphatically, he didn't want to see the movie. There are few things I can recall him ever being so passionate about. It even got to the point where he said, You can go, Dad. I'll wait in the car, okay? Eventually he copped to being scared of them, but you know what? Maybe he just knew that the movie wasn't for him. Or me.

Or anyone?

Thanks for the offer, but my hands aren't going anywhere near your staff.

That might be a bit harsh, but seeing the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, without my son, was a bit of a letdown. Even with fairly low expectations. That actually should be considered shocking, though, as just about every single thing in the movie works for the most part. Except for one thing: the turtles.

Yeah, it's not so much Megan Fox being miscast as April O'Neil, the fact that Foot Clan aren't even ninjas (more like volunteer terrorists), or even that Splinter is impossibly horrifying to look at. No, the main problem with this film lies squarely on the shoulders on the man or woman who decided that the turtles should look like deformed pirates on steroids. Green deformed pirates on steroids.

Anyway, if you can manage to look beyond the creepy character design, everything else is serviceable enough. When the turtles actually show up, they kick just enough PG-13 butt to entertain boys (and probably not girls) under the age of ten. Unfortunately, I have the mentality of someone at least three years older than that, so I was left wanting more. More of what, I'm unsure. Though, a little Casey Jones would've been appreciated.

Now that I've mentioned my favorite action figure ever (dude, he came with a golf bag full of weapons!), might as well make the smooth transition to no one's favorite anything ever, the Yays and Boos.

She just found out that she is, yet again, in a movie based on a cartoon.

Yaaaaaaaaay!

• The animated beginning was kind of cool, even if it featured entirely too much fruit slicing.
• Megan Fox on a trampoline three minutes in? Thanks for that.
• That cat is playing chopsticks...with chopsticks!
• Splinter, truly a product of my nightmares, at least redeems himself by punching someone five thousand times.
• Oh, and his little scrap with Shredder was actually kind of cool (think Yoda vs. Dooku-esque brilliance/ridiculousness and you're on the right track).
• Speaking of, if there was thing that was done right, very right, it was Shredder. He looked pretty badass (even when falling to his death).
• Snow chase! Sure, it makes no sense. But that whole mountainside snow-battle scene was awesome.
• The new turtle van was rad. Too bad it showed up at the end. Though, thankfully, the movie was ending.
• And finally, that silly elevator jam. I don't know what it was, but we needed more of that. Less of everything else. Well, minus the trampoline bit, naturally.

Booooooooooo!

• Okay, what's up with April's roommate? In a movie with giant talking turtles, this is the character I don't buy. I mean, who dis bitch?
• So, after the tenth mention of Skype in the first eight minutes, I was getting pretty annoyed at the barrage of product placement. In fact, I went home and Skyped everyone my anger.
• Speaking of things said too much, I'm pretty sure the words crime and wave are mentioned together just over one billion times.
• Whoopi. I think that being in this movie undid Ghost altogether. Every line she said made her prior career disappear like that photo in Back to the Future.
• No offense, really, but that Asian chick looked frightening, She looks pretty hot otherwise (aka in any image not from this movie), too.
• So, you remember how I said that the turtles kind of sucked? Well, so does this movie in the long stretches of their absences. A real dilly of a pickle, no?
• One of the turtles, Mikey I think, mentions that the mere sight of April makes his shell tighter. Thanks for that, guys. The turtles are scary enough, now I have to imagine one of them with a massive green boner.
• Ah, farts. Letting you know just how bad the movie is since....well, forever.
• Hope you like spinning cameras!
• Oh, damn! They done blown up the turtles' lair! Good thing Raphael wasn't inside. Or Splinter. Or April. Or their medicine. And computers. It's like your house burning down...six years after you moved out of it.
• Their shells are bulletproof. Really? Hmm. Someone get me a gun. Now. And a turtle.
• Megan Fox. Chick can roll down an entire mountain and hit the bottom with salon-quality hair.
• And finally, even though not enough of them were, one of the turtles felt compelled to say that asses were kicked. I hate it when characters swear when there's no need to. It's f--king pointless.

My son turned five today, and the bulk of what he got (toy-wise, anyway) was Turtle-related. Which despite this movie being completely underwhelming, I'm completely in favor of. Though he did make it clear that he wanted the toys from the totally rad Nickelodeon cartoon, and not the freaky figures based on this flick.

And as my wife watched me happily putting his giant playset together, she leaned over and said something to the effect of, whose birthday is it? That's funny, because I don't even get presents anymore. At least, not the ones that I asked for.