Metacritic reviews

The new film is a fast, funny, engagingly unpretentious 88 minutes that, moving between martial-arts dustups and random satirical jibes, achieves a more successful mix of action and humor than the first. There is plenty for adults here as well as children.

This lacks the darkness and subtlety that makes the first film so good, and so adult, but its simplified plot and gags will appeal to the under tens.

Retains the essential elements that first turned the world Turtle - the affectionate squabbling between the four, the pantomime villains, the cracking one-liners - and the bigger budget is a blessing.

A reasonably entertaining blend of Three Stooges and Bugs Bunny, using gracefully choreographed martial-arts slapstick without any infantile sound effects.

The humor, which made the first movie appealing to more than just TV kids, is far less adroit.

This slap-- sequel is primarily for the cognoscenti -- that is, for other teen-age mutant ninja turtles, or very small children. The rest of us it happily ignores.

If the Turtles insist on remaining a mainstream box-office attraction, at least they've now had the decency to make a mainstream movie.

In most ways, a sequel-as-usual: a little warmer, with slightly less zip and flurry.

Today's kids are learning from the Turtles that the world is a sinkhole of radioactive waste, that it's more reassuring to huddle together in sewers than take your chances competing at street level, and that individuality is dangerous. Cowabunga.

The movie slogs along in between combat scenes. Only a precious few of the bantering jokes among the green quartet hold any amusement for those over the age of 10.