When I found out they were making a new movie, I was a little skeptical about it.  One of the main reasons was that the film was going to be C.G.I., which is the way most kid’s films are made these days.  I was also curious as to why they were shortening the name to just TMNT.  My guess would be that they could not use the full name again since it was already the name of the first film. 

This time around, since the film is animated, they put a bunch of famous actor’s in it.  We all know that the famous Vanilla Ice starred in the second film.  TMNT stars Sarah Michelle Gellar (I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scooby Doo), Patrick Stewart (if you do not know where he is from, you might as well not be watching movies), Ziyi Zhang (Memoirs of Geisha, House of Flying Daggers) and my boy Kevin Smith actually makes a little cameo. 

The Plot: TMNT has your basic super hero plot.  Someone has plotted to destroy the entire world and one group of super heroes are going to stop them.  At this point in the Turtle’s lives, the gang has stopped fighting crime and have their own day jobs.  Leonardo, the blue Turtle, has been gone for over a year to better his leadership skills.  Splinter sent him there, so that he could the better the team.  Michelangelo, the orange turtle, is an entertainer for young children.  Donatello, the purple turtle, has become and IT software helper.  He would be the person you would talk to if your crappy computer stopped working.  Raphael, the red turtle, is still fighting crime, almost like a Batman type-character.  He would dress up in the middle of the night and rid the streets of its crime. 

Leonardo ends up coming back from his year long training to see that his brother’s have fallen apart.  He wants to get them back together.  On the other end, there is a 3000 year old battle warrior who wants to fix a curse that he started years ago.  Monsters have come to life to destroy the earth.  The battle warrior’s job is to gather these monsters and throw them into a portal which will delete them from the earth.  The legion of warriors he is using to collect these monsters have plotted against him.  The Ninja Turtles find out about this and have to stop it. 

The Review: Overall, I thought this was a very decent kid’s movie with a great adult side to it.  If you watched the movie as a kid, you will definitely appreciate this.  The C.G.I. looked absolutely stunning.  I do not think this movie could have been made any other way.  The fight scenes were great and the dialogue was actually pretty good.  Of course the movie had its cheesy moment, but you have to expect those. 

One of my favorite lines in the movie was actually the cheesiest part of the entire film.  The battle warrior’s name is Winters.  He is thrown to the ground from an extremely high distance.  One of the characters notices this and says, “Looks like Winters.”  Michelangelo makes a joke and says “Looks more like Fall, Get it!”  I know that is cheesy, but I really dig those kinds of jokes. 

The Verdict: I give the movie a solid 3.5 BDK, because I feel that it should be either seen as a matinee in theatres or as a rental.  If you are really excited about the movie and grew up on the series, you should definitely check it out in the theatres.  Just go see a matinee show because it will be cheaper.  If you really have no interest, but would like to see a decent kids movie, check it out at Blockbuster when it comes out, hence the 3.5 BDK rating.