Review of TMNT (2007) by Dominic F — 25 Sep 2011

You've got to hand it to the turtles. They've been in nearly every form of media, from comic books to traditionally animated television series to live action movies. This movie marks their first foray into CGI animation, so how do our shell friends fare in this new form?

Like Superman Returns, TMNT is a sort of sequel to the live action films, though like Returns it kind of ignores the events the previous two. Following the defeat of Shredder, the turtles have gone thier separate ways, with Leonardo even leaving the city to head to Central America for training purposes. Unfortunately, their separation came at a bad time, because monsters have started appearing in the city, and wealthy company head, Max Winters (who's not all what he appears to be), gets Karai and her footclan to capture these beasts. Their first attempt goes pretty poorly, but Winters has other, far stronger helpers, in the form of four stone generals, who are far more successful, capturing the beasts one by one. Leonardo, meanwhile, has returned to find the other turtles disbanded. Now, they're going to have to learn to work as a team once again if they're to stand any chance against these four generals.

When TMNT was released, it was in general well received by fans of the turtles. Critics, however, weren't as impressed. Watching the movie, it's not hard to see the reasons for these reactions.

First of all, unlike the previous live action movies, this film is more serious in tone, following the newer cartoon series and the original comics, which will no doubt be a pleasure for a lot of fans. It's also got most of what Ninja Turtle fan could ask for. It's filled with tons of fight scenes, with the turtles battling numerous monsters, free from the constraints of the live action films, allowing the turtles to move swifter and faster than ever before. It's also pretty faithful to the characters (at least if you go by the newer cartoon series and the comics) capturing all the different personalities of the four turtles, as well as Master Splinter, Casie, April and Karai.

On the other hand, the story itself is not so impressive. The previous turtle movies aren't exactly known for their substance, but here the problem, ironically, is too much substance. There are just far too many characters that feel practically jammed into this movie. You've got the usual characters we see in nearly all the different incarnations (the four turtles, Master Splinter, April, etc) and then you've got the 13 monsters, the four generals, Karai and her Footclan (who feel included for the sake of tying up with the previous films), Max Winters, not to mention the mysterious Nightwatcher (who - spoilers - turns out to be Raphael) The amount of characters in this movie is really made apparent in the climax, which while featuring cool fights scenes, also feels a little too confusing (Spoilers, there's Max Winters who wants to use the portal to lose his immortality, the four generals who want to use it to summon more monsters without losing their immortality, the turtles who want to use it to destroy the generals, and Karai who's....just there).

Also, a lot of the drama feels like we've seen it before. Seriously, how many times must Raphael get mad at the team and try to do things his own way? Speaking of which, is it just me, or does it seem like all the sequels put too much focus on Raphael?

Moving on to the visual effects, they're not exactly realistic, but then again they're also very stylistic and some of the shots of the film are really breathtaking. Also, because this is an animated movie, the cast is much more impressive than the previous films (though I am glad that all the A-listers in the film were for the supporting players and not for the turtles themselves and Master Splinter, as I didn't want their voices to be ruined for the sake of a big name).

TMNT is a full of entertainment, with lots of impressive fight scenes and very stylistic visuals, though it suffers from far too many characters and drama that we've seen too many times before. Still it's certainly a big step up from the last turtles film, though hopefully the planned reboot can also show improvement (though, I'm not too optimistic).