A few questions to ponder: Why do the Ninja Turtles wear masks—how many other six-foot-tall turtles are running around New York that the masks add anonymity? If Splinter has a limp and walks with a stick, how does he still kick ass when he needs to? If the turtles can't be seen by humans, how do they get all that pizza delivered to them or, for that matter, all of their weapons?
None of this is germane to ""TMNT,"" the newest iteration of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie franchise, but it does put you into the right mindset to watch a fun and creative movie. So long as you've brought your sense of humor to the film, you're in for a ride.
""TMNT"" replaces the clunky foam turtle outfits of the first three films with agile computer animation, and the results are stunning. Gone too is the overly jovial atmosphere of the '80s television series, replaced with a serious film with serious feelings. Don't misunderstand—there are still plenty of laughs, but the plot isn't ruled by jokes, though it accommodates many of them.
""TMNT"" is meant as a sequel to the other ""Turtles"" movies—The Shredder has been defeated and the foot clan has been disbanded. Each of the Turtles has gone his own way—Leonardo has gone to South America to learn what it means to be a true leader, Donatello has become a technical support operator and Raphael has disobeyed Splinter's orders to stay hidden and has become a masked vigilante. Michelangelo—in one of the film's funniest scenes—has become a children's entertainer wearing a foam turtle suit calling himself ""Cowabunga Carl,"" a nod to the Turtles' campy history.
But the Turtles, along with April O'Neil and Casey Jones, must band back together when a 3,000-year-old general tries to end his curse of immortality by releasing his four generals who have plans for world conquest.
The voice talents of many of the actors are very good—Patrick Stewart, Lawrence Fishburne, Kevin Smith, Ziyi Zhang and the late, legendary voice actor Mako all lend their voices to characters.
But what buoys the film more than anything are the fantastic-looking visuals. All of the set pieces are astounding, rivaling the best work of bigger studios like Pixar and Dreamworks. Most of the characters look cartoonish, but they are expressive and impressively fluid in motion. The film features several great fight scenes, the best which depicts a rainy rooftop fight scene between Leo and Raph and a battle with a large monster at a construction site.
First-time feature director and screenwriter Kevin Monroe creates a film that is at once a crowd-pleaser and yet intensely personal. By doing what filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and Sam Raimi did for Batman and Spider-Man, Monroe makes his film better simply by taking his source material seriously rather than making it just a parody of itself. At its core, ""TMNT"" is not simply a cartoon action movie, but it's also a fable about the importance of family and growing up told through mutant turtles and stone warriors. It probably also helps that Peter Laird, one of the Turtles' creators, serves as executive producer for the film, which no doubt helped preserve some of the Turtles' darker themes and more adult sense of humor.
""TMNT"" is engaging, energetic and funny and will be enjoyable for kids of today and of the ‘80s. Though it may not quite be the Turtles you remember, the spirit that made them fan favorites remains strong in the film even if they've grown up a bit since you last saw them. After all, how long can the teenage years last anyway?
