TMNT Film Review

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles really do need no introduction as everyone has grown up with these characters. Yet alot of people seem to forget that before Mutant Mayhem and before Turtles Forever there was another animated movie featuring the heroes in a half shell with that movie seemingly being forgotten about as it's not really talked alot about by anyone this is despite the fact that it's actually really good movie in it's own right and so then join me as I review the film that sees the heroes in a half shell make there big return to the big screen with the film in question being called simply just "TMNT" enjoy.

The plot of this film is when a mysterious new group starts causing havoc in New York the turtles along with a returning Leonardo had to learn to be more then a team and fight them off in order to save the world. Now then interms of what i personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad with the films plot being one that does fit the turtles perfectly in that it's a plot that you could see them having on the big screen whilst also remaining true to the original comics and while yes the films plot might not be as good as the plot for the 1990 movie it's a damn sight better then both of the plots for the 2014 movie and it's sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows with this films plot actually doing something new with the turtles characters whilst also staying true to who they are as characters as well but in saying that tho this films plot does feel really undercooked as the film does have so much to do plot wise that it does forget to actually have a plot alot of the time as we have to deal with Leonardo returning from training to be a better leader as well as him and Raph having a subplot where they both have to learn where the other is coming from as well as dealing with the turtles learning to be a team and a family again and because of that the film doesn't really devote alot of time to it's plot which does make it feel really undercooked as the plot does have some really good ideas that could have worked in a better movie with the plot of this film also being really entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. 

Starring in this film is James Arnold Taylor as Leonardo , Nolan North as Raphael and Mitchell Whitfield as Donatello. Also starring in this film is Mikey Kelley as Michelangelo , Sarah Michelle Gellar as April O'Neil , Chris Evans as Casey Jones , Mako Iwamatsu as Splinter , Greg Baldwin as Splinter , Ziyi Zhang as Karai , Laurence Fishburne as The Narrator , John DiMaggio as Colonel Santino , Fred Tatasciore as General Gato , Paula Mattioli as General Serpiente , Kevin Michael Richardson as General Aguila and Sir Patrick Stewart as Max Winters.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. With all of this films actors turning in some really good performances which is something that is not really all that surprising as alot of this films actors a bunch of really good actors in their own right and yet even tho alot more of this films actors aren't that well known at the very least to mainstream audiences this is something that does work well enough to this films advantage as it allows the audiences to just see the character and not hear the performer with the best example of this being Nolan North as Raphael as you really wouldn't know that it is was him doing the voice unless you were really into video games and even then as his voice in this film is so unrecognizable it barely registers that it's him with the films best actor being James Arnold Taylor as Leonardo as he is just so good in this film while he's not as good as Cam Clarke he still does bring something to this version of the character that makes his take on Leo feel really different and unique from what came before him with the acting that's in this film really being helped by the fact that this films script is just so good that all this films actors have to do is just say the lines as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally which is something that really does help to raise the overall quality of the acting that's in this very film.

Doing the animation for this film is Imagi Animation Studios and the legends and the greats that are currently over at Reel FX Creative Studios. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally tought / felt that the actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good as even for the time that this film was made in and the fact that it's made by a studio that wasn't that big or that well known the films animation did turn out to be alot more better then what it really had any right to be as by all rights this films animation should have been really bad and while yes granted the films animation isn't as good as anything from both Disney and PIXAR it is also really good to look at as the film does have it's unique visual style to it and while granted the it could be argued that the film does look like a video game cutscene the film does still have some really quality animation with all of the rain effects in the fight between Leo and Raph looking really good as does the scene where Leo arrives back in New York by standing on the tire of a plane with the only major gripes with the films animation being the fact that it does look cheap as there are next to no people walking around the streets which granted the film does have in built reasoning behind that as the film does mainly take place at night but even the films character designs do look a little bit off with this being odd as this films writer and director Kevin Munroe did also do the character designs for this films as well and yet while the films characters do look unique from how they have previously looked they still look like they could have done with one or two passes before settling on the designs.

April in this film was to be frank someone who was handled really well and was actually done better then she was in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III where she was basically there to give the turtles someone to rescue. Where as here is the one that willingly goes to track down Leo when she hears rumors of him whilst she's in Central America and heck we even see practicing to use a sword later on in the film something which she does put to good use in the films third act. With the turtles themselves kind of being hard to describe in this film as while there not really acting like brothers in this film that is kind of the point of the film but at the same time there also not making that many jokes and are more inline with the original comic book then the nineties films or any of the TV shows but in fairness to the film both Donnie and Mikey do still act like how you think they would act with them being the more entertaining turtles in this film with the biggest differences being in both Leonardo and Raphael as Leo in this film is someone who is very much always about sticking together as a team and always wanting to do things by the book which fair enough is how he was in the original films as well but the film did take it bit to far by having him go into hiding prior to the start of this film which does feel against his character to do so and with Raph he's always been a character that has worn his emotions on his sleeve with him always carrying the troubles of his brothers on his back and yet here again he acts kind of out of character by having him act as this vigilante character The Nightwatcher which also feels against his character but also doesn't make sense as as far as we know there was nothing stopping the turtles from carrying on fighting crime without Leo so Raph could have just carried on fighting crime as his self and not really need a disguise to do so.

Speaking of The Nightwatcher the scene with Leo finds out that he is Raph and the two start fighting each other is perhaps the best scene in the whole entire film. As you can tell right away that the two of them have had years of issues built up between them and are using that fight to get those issues out of there systems with both Leo ad Raph actually having some good points as Leo points out that Raph's anger has blinded him and that because of that he will always be better then Raph but Raph also points out that Leo expected his brothers to fall back into line and do whatever he said when he hasn't been around them for a long time with this being something that we do see playout in the film itself as the first scene with Leo back leading his brothers none of them listen to him as all they want to is go and fight the giant monster across the street where as if Leo actively worked with his brothers and put his own ego to one side he would have been able to get the familial bond between them back up to where it once was but because neither character bothered to learn from there mistakes both Leo and Raph end up getting injured at various points in the film and heck it's even Leo and Raph that are the films main characters with both Donnie and Mikey taking more of a back seat which is something that I guess works but at the same time tho you come to a TMNT movie expecting to see all of the turtles be the films main characters and not just two of the four of them and while Leo and Raph do make good points when there fighting each other with there fight working because of the fact that we the audience really do know there characters really well it would have been more effective if the film took the time to let it breathe instead of having Raph turn back to Leo's side actually let it breathe and let the character go to try and do things on his own only to find out that he can't really do things on his own due to the fact that his brothers are always there to help him when he needs it. 

This is one of the few Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films not to have The Shredder as the films main villain with the film instead using a newly created in he form of Max Winters as it's main villain. With Max not really being the strongest villain which again in the context of the film does make sense as he's reveled to not really be a bad guy with it being reveled that his brothers and sister are the films main villains with them wanting the very thing that Max has has for centuries then being immortality with them even willing to take over the world to get what they want which is something that does make them out to be very formidable foes for the turtles but what lets them down is the fact that none of them get a chance to showcase what there personality is like and so they all just come across as being really bland characters where as with Max you have the mystery of who he really is and what his main goal is with his family tho you don't really get that with there betrayal coming out of nowhere as everything that we've seen with those character didn't indicate that they would so something like that and while all of the villain Max included have some really good looks to them that's not enough to make them interesting and even tho they all do have a really clear end goal in mind be it returning the monsters that he unleashed on this world or gaining immortality it's clear that the makers of this film really had no idea how to create good or even interesting villains as they could have used any of the characters from either the comic or the shows or movies and nothing in this film would need to be changed as a result of that change.

Now then this film has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly one hour and twenty three minuets and fifteen seconds. Which to be fair is a pretty decent running time for this film to have with the film having the right amount of plot there to cover that amount of running time and while the film does use it's running time in one respect as the film does take the time that it really did need to fully develop it's plot the film does also explain the same thing more once as they explain why Max is the way that he is and how he became immortal twice in the same film which is pointless with the film having a lot of pointless scene that are only there to pad out the films running time as we don't need to see Raph fighting the Jersey Devil nor do we need Donnie explaining something that was already explained at the start of the film as all this dose is take up screen time that would have been better used in developing the films characters as apart from Leo and Raph none of the other characters get any kind of character development whatsoever which is fine for the characters like April , Casey , Donnie , Mikey and Splinter as you could argue that they get there development in the previous live action films which would make sense as this film is meant to be set in the same continuity as those films but for characters like Karai and Max Winters who hadn't appeared in turtles films before now they really do suffer as we know just as much about them coming out of the film as we did coming out of the film when they are the characters that should have gotten something in the way of character development but I really will admit that this film really does have some really good pacing to it tho.

So now then as this is an action film that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. However tho this film really doesn't full advantage of the fact that it's an animated film as the film does have the turtles do anything all that fun and creative in any of it's action scenes something which they really could have especially during the films third act when they would have been having some fun when fighting of members of The Foot Clan and yet the film doesn't have them do anything like that with the only way that the film takes advantage of the fact that's an animated film being the fact that it has the turtles fighting monsters which is something that could lead to some really fun action scenes with the best action scene in the whole entire film being of course the films third act as we get to see the turtles , April , Casey and Splinter take on hundreds of members of The Foot Clan and Karai all at the same time this is before going on to face Max and his stone brothers and sisters with that action being a good example of just how good that this films action could have been as it shows the makers of this film do know how to create a good action scene as alot of this films action scenes do do a pretty good job of showing us why the turtles are not only really good fighters in there own right but also how strong there are both as fighters and as characters as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Overall whilst this film did technically have two actors playing Splinter as Mako did sadly pass away before he could fully finish recording his lines the film as a whole is a really good example of just how good that a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film really could be something which Mutant Mayhem would later prove to be true in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very film in this very review and a such that really does mean that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 7.5 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in his very review well then boys an girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get images really from this very film being the really great Google Images this is really because of the fact that really all of the images that I really indeed got and really used from Google Images are all really high quality really with all of the images that really are all and of course really currently up and on the really great and the really solid Google Images really are all being really fairly high in quality and as well as them all really being fairly high in definition.