Nearly fifteen years after their last big screen adventure, everyone�s favourite reptilian crime-fighting team have been brought out of retirement to prevent New York from being overrun by ancient monsters.
After a convoluted prologue involving an ancient curse, we catch up with the sewer-dwelling bipeds, which have grown apart as a superhero unit. Leonardo (James Arnold Taylor) has been despatched to South America to brush up on his leadership skills, whilst rebellious Raphael (Nolan North) has become a lone vigilante called The Nightwatcher. Donatello (Mitchell Witfield) is a one-turtle IT help desk, and fun-loving Michelangelo (Mikey Kelley) has resorted to plying his wares as a children�s entertainer who goes by the name of Cowabunga Carl.
Having been killed off twice during the franchise�s live-action incarnation, the demise of arch nemesis The Shredder, appears to be permanent (at least for now.) In his absence, we have Max Winters (Patrick Stewart), a powerful billionaire with a penchant for reanimating ancient artefacts. Winters is aided by old Turtle adversaries, The Foot Clan, some 3000-year-old stone generals and a bunch of bad-tempered monsters that wouldn�t look out of place in Monsters Inc. It�s down to the Turtles� overgrown rat mentor, Master Splinter (voiced by the late Mako), to see to it that the adolescent ninja warriors pull together to defeat this primeval army.
Visually �Turtles� is impressive; The all-new turtle power is unleashed in cutting edge CGI so there�s no blokes jumping about in ropey latex suits this time round. Imagi Animation Studios have created a film noir-ish vision of New York that is closer to the darker undertones of the original comic books than the cartoon series and feature films. The Turtles, themselves rendered incredibly life-like, spend their time moving around in the shadowy night between the city�s sewers and the rooftops of a stylised Manhattan skyline.
The filmmakers faced the challenge of keeping the Turtles child-friendly enough to appeal to a new generation of fans, whilst maintaining faithfulness to their comic book origins. To a large degree they�ve succeeded. TMNT hasn�t gone down the in-jokes-for-adults route of some family films, relying instead on fast-paced action and dazzling visuals for a wide appeal. However, some hardcore fans may be disappointed that the Turtles� style of martial arts-trained combat cannot be fully realised in a PG rated film.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles goes some way in undoing the damage to the credibility of the franchise done by the previous live action films. They are still the same pizza-loving, wisecracking Turtles, but there are less of the cheesy catchphrases and dated surfer speak that made previous films such a chore for older audiences. Thankfully, they�ve dispensed with the Turtle rapping altogether.
With a plot that takes second place to explosive action set pieces and an exploration of the Turtles� individual personalities within their family dynamic, TMNT feels like an extended � albeit entertaining � preamble to future instalments, designed to re-familiarise audiences with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle brand. The ending sets things up nicely for a sequel�and the return of a familiar villain who just refuses to stay buried.
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