"TMNT" (2006)
Rated: PG
Starring: A bunch of Voice actors and Mako, Sarah Michelle Geller, Chris Evans, Patrick Stuart
SUMMARY: After the events of the first three films, the oldest Turtle, Leonardo, returns to New York City to lead his brothers against a three-thousand-year old threat.
I'm embarrassed to say I missed this in the theaters. There were three of four that came out at the beginning of this year that I was REALLY looking forward to, and guess what! I missed them ALL!!! Terrible. Just terrible. "I'm like my Uncle Bob, the plumber. I must be shunned." (…and the brilliant "Buffy" quote just went over everyone's head.)
Another embarrassing confession, I never watched Saturday morning cartoons. I was born an old man. I slept in on Saturdays, and, as a result, was left completely out of the loop by all my "friends" that were sugar-cereal-eating normal kids. So, I never watched the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle TV show. I loved the arcade game. Played the Nintendo games. Saw the first three movies. But I didn't officially grow up with the green things. Therefore, I apologize to any hardcore fans that notice a distinct lack of fanboy knowledge on my part.
When it was announced that the fourth official TMNT movie was going to be entirely animated, there were definite mixed feelings among everybody. The animatronic heads of the first three movies are icons, and people were worried that a fully animated movie would make it too silly, too kiddy, too cartoony. Now, most of those fears were allayed by the first trailer that showed the four amphibious brothers leaping from roof to roof to roof shrouded in darkness performing inhuman flips and stunts that could NEVER have been done by guys in big suits. Clearly, they were going to be real ninjas this time around.
I finally rented the DVD, and I had fun. This is a fun movie. Fun fun fun. Very fun. I laughed out loud at a certain kitchen appliance related joke and at several other points through out the film. But humor aside, this was a good movie. The animation is nearly flawless. There's some iffiness in the prologue in the compositing of the characters into their environment, but that's about it. The cinematography was very well done, and the fight scenes were right out of "Kill Bill Vol. 1," yellow jumpsuit included for our favorite female sidekick (by the way, that's a good thing for those of you who don't know the reference).
The style of animation is, admittedly, more cartoony, but that was the point. The characters started out in a comic book, so why, if you're going to animated anyway, make it realistic. Make it more fun (one of my biggest problems with "Happy Feet" was the unimaginative animation, but that's another story). Now, there is a place for absurdly realistic animation a la "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within," a movie who's main character was so realistic that she did magazine spreads and know one that she was computer generated, but this movie is not that place. And, fortunately, the director understood that. It was fun.
Unlike most animated movies today, the producers chose to not cast the four main characters with big names. When most people think of a blockbuster, animated feature continuing a legacy that so many grew up loving, they probably assume that having a star-studded cast would help a lot. And the stars are here, definitely. But the four main characters are just really, really, really voice actors.
James Arnold Taylor, who plays the leader Leonardo, is almost exclusively a voice actor. He's probably most "famous," meaning his largest role has probably been, as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the animated series "Star Wars: Clone Wars." He also does lots of video games. He played Jack Sparrow in "Kingdom Hearts II" and Willy Wonka in the "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" game.
Mikey Kelley, appropriately cast as Michelangelo, has essentially no other credits to his name that even come close to this one. A lot of his roles read "Marine" or "Gang Member #2" or, best ever, "Additional Voices," all voice over roles.
Nolan North, voicing the hot-tempered Raphael, has done a few TV guest appearances, but he's mostly a voice actor specializing in video games.
The most famous of the four is definitely Mitchell Whitfield, who is relatively new to the voice acting side of things and who most people would recognize as Rachel's ex-fiancé, Barry, on the absurdly successful TV show "Friends."
The biggest stars in the movie, Oscar-nominee Mako (in his final performance before his death just prior to his participation in this movie was announced, Sarah Michelle Geller, and Patrick Stewart, all take supporting roles. Some may have as few as fifteen lines total in the entire film, but their presence is definitely felt. It was strange hearing Patrick Stewart's voice come out of a 6'3" gladiator type, but, man, was it cool. Only problem in voicing I really felt was Sarah Michelle Geller. I love her in "Buffy," but there was just something off about her playing April. Not really sure what though.
The biggest problem with the movie as a whole, however, was the music. Klaus Badelt, who scored the original "Pirates of the Caribbean," did a great job with the score, but then when the credits roll, a really annoying rap song comes on followed by a rock song, neither of which were covers of the old theme song from the TV show. You do a movie like this you need to call back to its former incarnations. That's why for the first "Spider-Man" Aerosmith did an amazing cover of the old TV show theme, or why for all three of the "Mission: Impossible" movies there's an amped up version of that theme song at least during the credits. The music supervisor for this movie was not doing his job.
Content, this movie was made for kids and kids at heart. Sure, there's plenty of martial arts action, but that's a given in a movie with "Ninja" in the title…at least I hope it's a given… No gore to speak of. One of the reasons for it's PG rating is "Mild Language," but it must have been really mild, because I don't remember any at all. Sexuality/nudity, there's one kiss. OOOOooooo, hide the kids! Run for your lives! That said, it is implied that April and the baseball bat wielding Casey live together, but only a mature kid would pick up on that anyway.
In conclusion (note my college education paying off with that phrase), this movie was fun. Plain and simple. FUN!
OVERALL: 7
LANGUAGE: 0.5
VIOLENCE: 2
GORE: 0
SEXUALITY: 0.5
NUDITY: 0
