Four turtles have ooze spilled on them, are raised by a rat, named after the Renaissance artists and trained to be crime fighting ninjas. Who wouldn’t want to dip into whatever these guys were on?
It has been 13 years since Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird published 3,000 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic books, and now your ten-year-old cousin can draw into the same 1980’s craze that sent many children into cowabunga fever. Story lines have shifted and a more over-emotional and egotistical generation of Turtles have developed.
Group dynamics have been torn since the defeat of their old arch nemesis ‘The Shredder’ and things have fallen apart in the home of our heroes. Leonardo has ventured to an anonymous location in Central America and Raphael is busy saving New York City at night, while his brothers take their chance with the working world.
With the help of human friends April O’Neil (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Casey Jones (Chris Evans) the group is reunited and the adventure can begin. The group must once again face the Foot Clan, who have teamed up with millionaire Max Winters, voiced by “X-Men’s” Patrick Stewart, to gather 13 monsters terrorizing New York City.
It seems Mirage Studios is milking the TMNT idea as much as it can by exaggerating the drama between the Turtle brothers and creating a new tale with fresh monsters to draw in a young crowd.
But not all is lost for the adults attending the film. Be sure to watch out for Donatello reading a porno magazine, “Oral II.” A cover of Ram Jam’s 70’s hit “Black Betty” rocks in the background of a fight sequence between the Turtles and the group stands in-front of a sign that displays ‘Red Eye Club’, possibly an admission to artistic inspiration. It also seems “Kill Bill’s” Uma Thurman has lent her ninja outfit to April O’Neil for her fight with the bad guys, how creative!
It was nice to experience the nostalgia of childhood and the action scenes would fulfill any kid’s fight-craving dreams. It wasn’t a complex or intricate story line, but being a TMNT flick, it was to be expected. Computer animation has let the characters explore a more malleable environment and bust into superhero extreme movements which are both fast and enjoyable.
This is a great movie to take a younger sibling to, or to go with mind-altered friends. It is funny at times and nice to see the ‘tubular’ heroes hit the screen again.
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