I finally watched TMNT last night, after a few false starts (involving the stupid wrong listings the cinema puts up on their website).

Short review - It was an awesome movie.

Right. Now let’s move on to the longer, spoilery review.

Story
The story starts out with a brief introduction to the Ninja Turtles, and a little background to the story - the narrator was Laurence Fishburne. It then proceeds to show the current whereabouts and conditions of the brothers. Leonardo is training in the South Americas, and April O’ Neil found him there, and convinced him to go home to his brothers. April was in Central America for business - acquisition of some stone statues (which, in the opening, was described to be Generals of an immortal, whom the audience shall come to know as Max Winters).

April fails to convince Leonardo to come home to New York City, April came back and delivered the stone statue to Max Winters, who wants to reunite his generals and continue his grand plan to conquer the world.

When Leonardo decided to return home to NYC, things did not bode well with Raphael, whose aggressive attitude had led him to take up a new identity as the Night Watcher. The two turtle brothers had a fight and so on and so forth. Watch the movie yourself to find out more. Along the way, the Foot Clan got involved, and Karai (the current leader of the Foot Clan) is voiced by none other than Zhang Ziyi!

The ending will yield some mild surprises (especially the intent of Max Winters), but that is all I will say.

Characters
Oh c’mon. Who doesn’t know the Ninja Turtles characters already? Oh okay, since most of you are too young to remember Ninja Turtles, here they are:

[L-R] Michelangelo, Donatello, Sensei Splinter, Leonardo, Raphael, April, Casey

Leonardo - named after Leonardo da Vinci, he is the oldest of the Ninja Turtles. He wears a blue eye-band, and wields double katanas (though in this movie, his katana looks like normal swords, and towards the end, he wielded more than 2). Being the oldest amongst his brothers, he’s naturally looked upon as the leader, the responsible one.

Raphael - Raphael is the anti-thesis of Leonardo. He is rash, and quite irresponsible. He wears a red eye-band, and wields double sais. As the Nightwatcher, though, he wields heavy chains as his weapon of choice. He is named after the Renaissance artist, Raphael

Donatello - my favourite character in the past. He wears a purple eye-band, and uses a staff for fighting. He’s the genius of the group and is technologically adept. In the beginning of the movie, he works as a IT call support technician (which amounted to quite some laughs). Did I tell you that he’s my favourite turtle?

Michelangelo - is well, named after the real life Renaissance sculptor (who sculpted David). He’s the goof of the group, and often say silly things. His trademark callsign/battlecry is “Cowabunga!”. Wearing an orange eye-band, his weapon of choice is the nunchucks. He’s the comic element of the show, and the inner kid.

Sensei - Sensei was a little cute in this movie. Rats.

There was a good amount of character development for Leonardo and Raphael, especially when they were wresting for leadership. However, the other characters are kept quite flat. Not much is shown on Donatello or Michelangelo (though Michelangelo’s humor is still prevalent). As for Sensei, he’s just so cute. April and Casey are preparing to settle down, but other than that, no other development is available throughout the whole movie. The whole movie seemed to revolve mainly around Leonardo and Raphael only.

Good Cinematography
I felt that the cinematography of the show was extremely good. I mean, yea - the fight scenes all looked very polished, and the movie has a stylized feel to it. From the opening to the end, I felt that the movie was very old-school animation - i.e not a lot of individual details in, but feels detailed. I get the feeling that “this was how CGI was done in the past!”, but with upgraded lighting and shading techniques. To wit, I was right. There wasn’t any motion capture involved, and all the animation were hand keyed.

Oh yeah, back to cinematography. Watch out for the fight scene in the rain between Leonardo and Raphael. That was just superb. Watch for the very subtle lighting, and great angled shots. And New York City’s rooftop never looked so much alive than in the movie.

That said, I can’t say the same for the final fight scene. It was comprised of too many fast cuts, and in the end, it is pretty hard to follow the action. For me, it’s 1-up for the fight in the rain, and 1 down for the final fight. There were some other memorable scenes that impressed me quite a bit too, such as the war scene in the opening, and the scene where the 13th monster was chasing the Cowabunga Carl truck.

I was impressed by the quality of animation. It’s some good quality animation there. As I said before, it felt old school. Minimal objects involved, but with a smoothness that is uncomparable. This is how action CGI movies should be done. Oh.. there were two scenes in the fight-in-the-rain scene that were homages to Matrix Revolutions too.

Other Miscelleny (and Grouses)

• The movie, I feel, ultimately is about brotherhood. This is depicted especially in the Raphael-Leonardo conflict
• Leonardo seemed a little skinny.
• Karai had a small role (hey, this grouse is because I like ZZY)
• Not enough development of the other turtles. It was as if Michelangelo’s sole purpose was to provide comic effects, and Donatello… he apparently didn’t exist much.
• Music was fitting - rock all the way, but I am not such a fan of rock music individually, so no comments.
• I don’t mind the cartoony human characters. The turtles are rendered good!
• Sensei.. is so cute.
• The movie is kinda short

Conclusion
In conclusion, this movie is fun to watch. Boys’ fun. I’d give it a 7.5/10 for this movie. Watch it!

There will be a sequel to this - Karai gave a very unsubtle hint. I can’t wait!

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