After several postponements, the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie was finally released today, Aug. 8. According to the box-office preview released by Entertainment Weekly's InsideMovies, the nostalgic movie will be contending with the once-obscure Marvel Comics property, the "Guardians of the Galaxy," which is topping the local box-office charts right now.

The "Guardians" opening weekend raked in $94 million. This weekend, EW is projecting that it will still top the leaderboard with an estimated ticket sales of $42 million, followed by "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" with $40 million.

The Turtles movie is being launched in more than 3,800 theaters in North America and will also be opening in 17 international territories this weekend, including Mexico and Russia. The "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie will focus on the origin of the four turtles, their destiny to save New York and how they will work with April O'Neil. The villains will be Shredder and his cohorts.

The movie had a production budget of $125 million was directed by Jonathan Liebesman and produced by Michael Bay.

Despite the nostalgia that surrounds the four lovable turtles who were named after Italian Renaissance painters, movie critics gave the film a beating. Although some thought it to be better than the latest "Transformers" movie, they did not mince words. Most of the influential review sites gave it an unfavorable rating.

Rotten Tomatoes gave it just 17 percent, saying that it was not entertaining enough and quite dull. Entertainment Weekly's Kyle Anderson rated it a C+. Metacritic gave the movie a score of 34 out of 100. New York Post gave it just one star and the Los Angeles Times commented that the film looks half-hearted.

The movie did receive a positive review from Hollywood Reporter based on the production quality of integrating live-action with cutting edge VFX. Dallas Morning News said that the turtles looked terrific and that the movie has heart, giving it a rating of B. Most of the critics complained that the movie took itself seriously, tried too hard and had one-liners that were half-witted.