TMNT (2007)

Written & Directed by Kevin Munroe

As a kid, I loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and even though I haven't really watched much of the newer series that was on Fox a few years ago, the few episodes I did catch when I used to work at Target were good, I like the idea for the series, and I enjoy the characters. Still, I wasn't too sure of this reinvention of the series and characters, and going into it I liked the animation style, even if I didn't absolutely love the character designs. Either way, the biggest breaker for me would be the story, would it pick up where something left off? Or would it be yet another reinvention of their origin, which is something I'm gettting quite tired of.

I'm glad to say it wasn't the latter, the story picks up at a point where Leonardo has left on a year sabbatical to train to become a leader, Raphael is moonlighting as Nightwatcher, a night vigilante, Michaelangelo is working as a children's birthday party entertainer, and Donatello is a phone-based IT guy for a PC company. In other words, besides Leonardo, all the guys are miserable, Donny and Mikey are working jobs they hate, and Raphael is only seen sleeping all day, no one has a clue he's out fighting crime on his own as Nightwatcher. Splinter is up to his usual, meditating, and keeping his sons in line.

April O'Neil on the other hand, has become an anthropologist of sorts, finding and reclaiming sculptures for Mr. Winters, a New York billionaire art collector who runs a museum of sorts. At the same time, she is dating Casey Jones, who is also still out fighting crime vigilante style in the city. So it's not a reinvention, you have to be previously acquainted with the characters to get where this story is at, even though I don't think it's a direct sequel to anything in particular, but the director obviously knew everyone was tired of the same origin story being told in a bunch of different ways. So the story picks up in the middle, with April going to a South American jungle searching for a stone statue for Winters. While there, she runs into Leonardo, and tells him of all the trouble his brothers are having without him around to guide them. Soon, he returns to NYC to set things straight, and to tell Master Splinter that he has failed in his training, he has not become a great leader.

Of course, this sets us up for the second half of the movie, where Leo proves he is a great leader, Raphael proves he can indeed work together with his brothers for the greater good, and Donny and Mikey are the two that are eagerly waiting to be part of something again, which they are when it is revealed that the statues Winters is collecting are a part of his past. Three thousand years before, Winters was a general in a mythic army, who became immortal through a curse he didn't expect, which turned his generals into stone statues and unleashed 13 monsters upon the Earth. Now, he has sent his newly reanimated stone generals out to gather the monsters in order to send them back to the dimension they came from and remove the curse immortality has brought him.

Yes, the story is kind of similar to some Dimension X stuff that has been played with before in Turtles lore, and the Foot is back as hired hands after the death of Shredder (only lightly touched, but I was glad to see something different) who end up actually working with the Turtles. The thing I really liked about this movie was the animation style, most everything in it is really original and inventive, the story is very interesting and well written, and the characters are all well drawn, even if I don't like the way they are visually designed. This type of animation suits the Turtles best, I really hope they keep making more of these, even if they're lower budget and DTV, I'll keep watching them. The other thing I was really impressed with was the cityscape of New York, the animators did some impressive things in recreating the city. Overall, I really enjoyed this movie, and if I were still buying DVD's, I would definitely snatch this up, as it also has some really interestinig special features, as well as some bad ass monsters in it.

8.8/10