TMNT

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Action & Adventure

One of the quirkier trends of my high school life was the rise in popularity of four large, walking, talking, ninja amphibians. Collectively known as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they were a pop culture phenomenon in the late 80s and early 90s. With a hit cartoon series, lots of popular toys and other merchandise, the Turtles were a licensor’s dream come true. I’ll admit that I myself was a fan of the old Turtles cartoon, although I can’t say I was as devoted to it as I was with say, “Slam Dunk” or “Star Trek”. Still, they were so huge, three hit movies came on the heels of “Turtle-mania”. Perhaps the most striking image of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze” was the image of white rapper Vanilla Ice screaming “Go ninja, go ninja, go!” A memory that still terrifies me to this day.

As with most popular fads, the Turtles luster soon began to fade, and the toons, as well as the rest of their merchandise, slowly disappeared from store shelves. That’s probably one of the reasons I was surprised by the announcement of a completely-CGI motion picture simply titled “TMNT”. Don’t get me wrong, I consider myself a Turtle fan from back in the day, but I hardly saw the point behind producing another motion picture. Still, I heard generally positive reviews of this film, so I decided that I wanted to watch it.

Picking up chronologically from the first three Turtles films, “TMNT” sees the four ninja turtle brothers separated. Raphael has been brooding incessantly, taking the law into his own hands at night as the masked “Nightwatcher”. Donatello has been running his own personal call center. Michelangelo acts as a mascot, entertaining at kiddie parties. While Leonardo, the leader of the group, has been ordered by their master (the rat named Splinter) to train in South America.

Even as the brothers have been split apart, a new crisis looms that forces them to reunite. A mythical immortal warrior (voiced by Patrick Stewart) has been gathering thirteen monsters with the aim to free his four generals who had been turned to stone 3000 years before. April O’Neil (Sarah Michelle Gellar), the Turtles’ human friend has been dating fellow Turtle-pal Casey Jones (Chris Evans) while collecting antiques. During one of these trips, April tells the in-training Leonardo that his brothers need him to return to New York. When Leo does return, he finds that things have changed in the sewers and that Raphael isn’t so willing to follow his leadership anymore. All this while they battle the revived Foot Clan, now under the leadership of Karai (Ziyi Zhang).

I was a bit skeptical heading into the cinema for this round of Turtle celluloid fun. After all, it had been over a decade since I last saw the foursome on a big screen. (I can’t even remember what happened in “Turtles III” anymore.) Still, I was hopeful since I read an article in the March issue of “Wizard” that director Kevin Munroe sought the blessings of series creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird when making this film. With a fan on board, I was very hopeful that this film would at least be decent.

And I was right. With a CGI world at his disposal, director Munroe lets the Turtles fight, twist, jump, and kick their way all over the movie screen. Not limited by high-risk stunts or guys in rubber Turtle outfits, the action flows smoothly and effortlessly. Though some of the human characters look a bit too much like anime characters, I feel that actually helped the film rather than harm it. Great voice acting was provided by Stewart, Gellar, Evans, and in what would turn out to be his last film, the great Japanese actor Mako as Master Splinter. I was also surprised at how perfectly the four turtle voice actors captured the essence of the old series and comics.

As far as story goes, this was as believable as one could get in the “Turtle-verse”. I was very thankful that Munroe even attempted a fight between brothers Leonardo and Raphael, something that I had been waiting for since the toons first came out in 1987. Ultimately a tale of brotherhood that was lost, and the struggle to establish one’s personality in light of an older sibling, “TMNT” was quite the enjoyable flick. It was a very pleasant surprise on a semi-quiet Black Saturday in Makati’s Power Plant.