Movie Review: TMNT

TMNT (2007) 

Directed by Kevin Munroe

Written by Kevin Munroe 

Starring Chris Evans, Patrick Stewart, Sarah Michelle Geller, Kevin Smith, Mako, Ziyi Zhang

Release Date March 23rd, 2007 

Published March 22nd, 2007

Yet another retread of the Teenage Mutant Turtles attacks our cultural consciousness and as with so many copies of an original, it is dulled and less compelling, a copy of a copy really. Directed by a videogame veteran with videogame sensibilities, TMNT looks more like an ad for the TMNT game on the XBox 360 than like a feature length film.

The brothers, Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo and Donatello, who make up the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crime fighting team, want only to be on the streets fighting crime and scarfing pizza. However, their sensei Master Shredder has forced them to give up crime fighting out of fear for their safety, not merely from the bad guys but from the good guys who could not easily accept talking turtles.

Each of the turtles has found their own way to deal with seclusion. Michaelangelo and Donatello perform at kids parties, dressed as turtles(?). Leonardo has thrown himself into training with Master Shredder. Raphael, on the other hand, has taken to vigilante-ism. Taking to the streets under the guise of the Nightwatcher, Raphael is inviting a number of dangerous encounters.

When his activities are exposed it leads to a rift between Leonardo and Raphael that nearly comes to blows. However, Raphael's activities do expose the crimes of a shady businessman who has teamed with a group of ninja assassins to steal 13 warrior statues that once gathered can be made real and used to take over or destroy the world.

Directed by video game veteran Kevin Munroe, TMNT delivers a view of the Ninja Turtles that seems to want to be a little darker than previous incarnations. Their is the sense that Munroe and screenwriter Peter Laird want to delve a little deeper into these characters and their motivations. Sadly, they abandon this idea early on in favor of some truly moronic and insulting humor and kid friendly action scenes.

Restricted by the typical rules of kiddie flick etiquette, Munroe and Laird give up any notion of creating really compelling characters and an engaging coming of age story in favor of simpleminded lessons and tropes about family and doing the right thing. Oh and a bit of bathroom humor, also a staple of this vacuous type of story.

There is some promise to TMNT early on and it comes in a showdown between Leonardo and Raphael in his guise of the Nightwatcher. Not knowing who the Nightwatcher really is, Leonardo engages him and the two fight until Raphael's real identity is revealed. The tension extends back home and the conflict is genuine and compelling.

Unfortunately, this interesting bit is quickly forgotten about and the typical tropes about loyalty, family and doing the right thing take center stage in all of their unambiguous, black and white forms. I'm not saying TMNT was ever going to offer great conflict or drama, but this story was interesting before it was jettisoned in favor of more simply manipulated emotions.

As for the animation, keep in mind that director Kevin Munroe comes from a video game background. TMNT looks so much like a videogame that you may be tempted to search around your seat for a controller. The animation of videogames have made great leaps in recent years but movies require a good deal more than mere kinetic, quick cut images.

Conditioned by the beautiful work of the team at Pixar, CG animation is now an art form and if a cartoon feature cannot match the beauty of Ratatouille, Cars or Monsters Inc, we aren't as interested or engaged. Pixar and the teams at Dreamworks Animation (Shrek) and the terrific Sony crew (Ice Age), have raised the bar in CG animation and a film as flat and colorless as TMNT pales in comparison.

Without a great story to pick up for the lack of great visuals, TMNT flounders and becomes tedious by the time the end comes in a mere 84 minutes.

TMNT is a flat, uninspired recreation of an inspired group of characters. The potential was there, but the imagination and daring were lacking leaving TMNT to be yet another product of kid-centric marketing. The makers of TMNT may have been better served dropping the turtles directly into television commercials for Pizza and pop, rather than wasting millions on a theatrical feature.

It's clear from watching TMNT that the only value of these characters can be found in their salability rather than their depth of character. Why not cut out the middleman and just make commercials and toys.