One thing I'm pretty certain of after watching this is that TMNT will get very mixed WOM when it opens wide, simply because of the misleading advertising.

The trailers are all light and fluffy, suggesting a big CGI re-run of the old animated TV series from the late 80s. Indeed I was almost expecting Rocksteady and Be-Bop the worlds most incompetent Goons/Henchmen to turn up in the first 5 minutes of this movie because of it.

The truth however is rather different, this baby is Turtles Begins in levels of gloomy.

Well as gloomy as a PG rating will allow but still don't expect the slapstick quip level to be very high.

A couple of notes off the top of my head.

The villain plot is perhaps the weakest part of this movie, the conflict is more internal between Raphael and Leonardo for the de facto heart of the Turtles which means the main villain plot revolving around monsters and alternate dimensions feels like an unwanted 3rd arm at certain points. The main villains them selfs aren't amazingly interesting either, looking like steroid infused Lego Bionicle's and grunting dialogue at various points They serve their purpose as the objects for the turtles to fight but not much else.

Michaelangelo and Donatello are slightly neglected in terms of character arc, its a Leo and Raff show for the most part, but Micky and Donatello are entertaining when the occasion calls.

Splinter looks more like a cute old dog then a rat. I enjoyed him however, he did the whole master thing without getting to annoying

The CGI is pretty damned good, ignoring the character models which I wasn't fond of the attention to detail in the backgrounds of each scene really impressed me.

The Leo, Raff battle of wills was excellent, highly enjoyable and very mature for a whats suppose to be a Kids movie. Their showdown fight in the pouring rain gets a big thumbs up from me.

April and Casey made for very decent side characters. Casey one of the lighter additions to the movie.

When it does decide to be funny it hits the mark more often then not.

Overall not what i expected, and better then I could have hoped. Bring back Shredder for a sequel and I'll be a happy bunny.

B+

An incredibly entertaining, well-crafted superhero action film. A. I can't wait for the sequel!

http://www.worldofkj.com/articleIndex.php?tid=30076

A-

That says it all for me. Great review and excellent film.

Loved the Raph and Leo duel. The result was a surprise and the film is full of these surprises.

And yes it reminded me of Batman Begins - its dark and sets the scene for a new era for the franchise. And much like Begins - it sets the scene for its most famous villian to return in the sequel.

Grade: A

If my expectations weren't lowered after reviews started pouring out, I would've been extremely disappointed. Now I'm just a bit disappointed. I'm confused as to why I didn't love this. It seems like most people outside of critics are enjoying it, my theater most definitely did. I just wasn't that interested in what was happening. I thought the first five or ten minute was boring, then it started to pick up, then it dropped, then picked back up, dropped again and then picked up once more and ended on a good note. The scene where the portal started to open up looked great though and the animation was great. It really isn't a bad movie but I just didn't like it much. Oh well. I do hope for a sequel, though. I think it would be better.

5/10 ( C )

Really really enjoyed it, not nearly as kid orientated as I was expecting. Sets up for a really good sequel. B+

Really loved it. My biggest gripes would be the villains and running time. The villains are barely in the movie. We're introduced to that plotline, see it vaguely throughout, and then there's a eight-minute blowout at the end. I hope this was just intended to be the first in a series of movies, because if not, then they definitely screwed that up. And the running time is pretty short. They could have developed the villains a lot more with even ten more minutes. I don't usually complain about running time, but it just ended way too soon.

The animation is incredible. This is the kind of animation that a Legend of Zelda movie should use, if it was computer-animated and not live-action. The voice acting is good. I was surprised to hear Sarah Michelle Gellar's voice as April. I had no idea she was in the movie until I heard her.

I'd give it a B+, only for the complaints I had. Realistically, it deserves an A- at least, but I'm sticking with the B+.

It was fun, the action is great, while the plot about the monsters was a bit boring i still liked the story about them 4 getting together again and working things out.The voice acting was good with the exception of Mako as master Splinter, may be R.I.P but i thought the voice did not match the character, at times i thought splinter was drunk or had alzheimers by the way he talked.Hopefully the next film will bring back the shredder as it was foreshadowed, and since the film is already a financial success i have no doubt a sequel will come out.Good restart the the franchise.

***/****

B

I like that they referenced the past. It's nice to see franchises restarting (Bond, Batman), but it's refreshing to see a franchise continue on. But the movie is still easily accessible to new fans.

B+ a lot of fun, story line is weak but I didnt expect greatness. Good animation and action scenes

Bring on the Shredder in TMNT 2.

C+, disappointing. Especially since the third movie was on HBO recently and reminded me how fun they are to watch.

The 3rd movie reminds me why I stopped watching!

That Turtles in Time thing, right? Ick! Worst of the three.

Enjoyable enough, but conflicted. The animation, the score, and the character arcs for Leo and Raf were very solid. On the other hand, the script, the soundtrack, and the non-existent development of Don and Mike were all poor. Seriously, did ANY of the jokes work? And while I don't mind the plethora of villians, they just weren't very threatening and ultimately handled far too easily for my liking. I did really enjoy most of the film after the awkward opening prologue bits right up to the rooftop fights though. I'm onboard for a sequel though, if only because it feels like they could definitely improve on it in a lot of ways.

better than any of the live action ones thats for sure

B

Two words: Identity crisis. It tried to be a darkish gloomy action flick and a fool-hardy kid's action flick at the same time. The former prevailed most of the time, but the terrible attempts at comedic one-liners really detract a lot from that. The duel between Raph and Leo come to mind immediately; the action/choreography, camera work, animation, and score were on FIRE at this point, but the director insisted that Leo belt out nonsensical attempts to jibe Raph that not only had no effect on him whatsoever due to the poor construction of incredibly witless comments, but jibed the audience more than they did Raph.

Get an overhaul on the screenplay, and pick a side of the spectrum. I would have loved to see the darkish gloomy action flick, but don't try and play both sides of the field here.

Aside from that, my only other complaints is how short it was. The characters arcs of Leo and Raph were great, but I think they felt rushed. Perhaps the main villain, Winters, would have felt more important with more screentime as well. The movie was so fast paced; it felt much shorter than it actually is, which is an already paltry sub-90 minute running time.

Pros:
GORGEOUS, LUSH, BEAUTIFUL ANIMATION
Great action
Wonderful score. I'm looking for a torrent right now.

Cons:
The comedic aspect fell apart very fast; it felt forced and almost tacked on.
Running time was too short; some things probably should have been elaborated on more.

B+

B


A Turtles fan myself I was fairly satisfied with this outing. It did not deliver on all aspects and I must say that I still have a somewhat bigger affinity for the first of the three live action flicks than for this one, but it certainly gave new breath to the material and the choice of CGI animation for this paid off too. The animation was incredible, simply beautiful. The action was very well done, especially the fight between Raphael and Leonardo. That was incredible. It did fall flat on the humor aspect, but I didn't even want it to be all that funny.

Now what didn't worked were the villains. Sorry, but there simply wasn't a real main villain here and those four statues and the monsters were simply too uninteresting. I want to see Shredder in a Turtles film!!! Here's hoping for a solid sequel. I also didn't like what they did with the character of April. Her fighting her way through the Foot Clan ninjas?! C'mon!

The whole Leo/Raph dynamics were, as everyone else said, handled very well. A main problem of this feature was also the running time. Whe I started thinking that it finally gets the action going, it's over sooner than you'd blink. The film is more about the Turtles themselves than them facing a common enemy. I'd have prefered a better mixture of both that would have requiered a longer running time. As I said, here's strong hoping for a sequel.

disappointing. i think i expected a lot from this movie but it was still very enjoyable. Very beautiful animation.

B

You know... for its target audience, it's not so bad. Raphel was handled especially well and Leonardo too. There's not too much Donatello or Michaelangelo, but that's okay... the movie doesn't get much entertainment from "cowabunga" dude like sayings. And has a little bit of a superhero plot with Raph's alter ego.

The animation is also great too and the fight scenes were decent.

The biggest problem with it all was... why this story? Why not Shredder or Krang? The movie felt was suffering from an absense of larger threat. It felt like a sequel, but because of the amount of years and the medium switch, a retelling of the Turtles origin story, or one a story that incorporated Shredder would be more interesting.

Heck, even a film about the revenge of the Foot Clan (which was an underused subplot in this) would be better. Instead we just got the great drama between Raph and Leo driving the story and some misc. garbage about monsters... monsters that you don't get to see much, and some lessons about immortality. And it's not that it's bad, it's just frivilous.

So yeah... I did like it for what it was. Thought it was a great movie for the 12 year old set without talking down to them too much, but it also has an older appeal.

I agree with Loyal that Casey seemed pretty neutered in this. I'm not a big fan of what they did to April in the second half of the film.

This ... wasn't very good. It doesn't really feel like a proper movie, particularly one that went to cinemas. It's all over very quickly, and although there are stakes the gravity never feels there. The colouring of the movie - all grey and metallic - is also rather ugly. Despite a few nice shots, this was a miss.

The voice cast is good, but also a tad wasteful. I only recognised Patrick Stewart while watching. I knew Splinter and the Asian lady were "names" but couldn't place Mako or Zhang Ziyi. I was surprised to see Chris Evans' name go up at the end, but I guess it now makes sense how Casey had such a prominent role.

My son also didn't like it. He said the ending was the worst part, and also didn't like the colouring. We both went in blind and were also disappointed there was no Shredder. I had no idea this was following on from those 90s Ninja Turtles movies.