If there’s one thing I wasn’t into as a kid, it was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was born just a little too late for the initial run in the 80s and early 90s, and a little too early for the rebooted run in the early 2000s. I’m sure the Turtle fans were there, but at least in my grade level, I didn’t see many turtle things. I was aware of the franchise’s existence, but that was about it. It wasn’t until 2013 or 2014 when I started to get into it, and that only happened because boredom and voice actors. (I’ll get into more detail with this story when I review that specific show later on.) By this point, I’ve seen most of the live action movies, and when I decided to limit myself to only reviewing animated movies and TV shows, I was disappointed that I wasn’t going to have the opportunity to share my thoughts on all those problems. There is one animated Turtle movie, though, and not only does it share some of the same problems as the live action movies, but it has its own issues we can explore. This is the 2007 movie, TMNT.
It starts off 3000 years in the past. There aren’t any mutant turtles, but there is a portal that opens every 3000 years when the stars align just so. Some guy managed to open the portal, became immortal, unleashed some monsters, and turned his friends into stone. What do the monsters do? Who knows, because we then we cut to somewhere in Central America, present day. A crime boss is “protecting” a village. He drives off into the jungle once he receives his payment, where we come across a turtle. Just one. Leonardo, aka “the ghost of the jungle.” He kills the crime boss and returns the villagers’ things to them. A kid tells April, who just happens to be passing through the neighborhood, about the incident. She tracks Leo down and tells him about what the other three are up to back home. She tries to convince him to go back to New York, but he refuses, saying he needs to be a better leader. Because nothing screams leader like living alone in the jungle for over a year.
Back in New York, Donatello is working as a tech support guy, Michelangelo works as a party entertainer, and Raphael is moonlighting as a vigilante known as the Nightwatcher. Why they aren’t fighting crime anymore, or at least keeping an eye on the Foot, is unknown. It sounds like Leo left after Shredder died (Oh yeah, Shredder is apparently dead in this movie), so maybe they thought the Foot would just disperse? Because of course that’s what gangs do when their leader dies. Someone else doesn’t take over, no, everyone is like, “Well, this was fun. See you around, dudes,” and they go on their way. It’s not implied that Splinter told them to stop fighting crime, or that they got their tails handed to them after a fight, so who knows why they stopped.
April brings back one of the stone generals to her client, Mr. Winters, who is trying to complete the collection. After she leaves, Karai and the Foot Clan appear. Winters hires them to look out for some “friends” that will be showing up in the city soon. He then uses a thing to bring all the stone generals back to life, so that they can join the search.
Leo goes home, because April got to him? It’s never really stated why he decided to return. Maybe he realized that giant talking turtles shouldn’t go out and get normal jobs (although they have to pay for their pizza somehow), and decided that he needed to put an end to that. When he gets home, Splinter says that they aren’t allowed to fight until they can act as one. So of course they pick a fight with one of the monsters the very first night. They fail to stop it, and the stone generals come in and take it away. Splinter finds out and forbids them from going up to the surface. Raph responds by going up to the surface, and Splinter doesn’t stop him. (Splinter does know the definition of the word “forbid,” right?)
Meanwhile, more of the monsters are caught by the stone general. What they were all doing in New York City for the last 3000 years and how they weren’t spotted in all that time is a mystery. Actually, the fact that they were unleashed presumably somewhere in Latin America 3000 years ago and they ALL made their way to the NYC area is amazing. Raph and Casey see one of the monsters being taken down by the stone generals. The generals spot them and give chase. The two just barely manage not to get captured, but Raph is hit with a tranquilizer dart and passes out. Casey gets him to his apartment and calls the other three to come collect him. April tells them about the legend that we saw at the beginning of the movie. (Could they not decide when to put in this information? Or did they realize that they needed to repeat it because the audience has most likely forgotten it at this point?)
Anyway, Raph and Leo keep fighting, because that’s the only thing these movies know how to do, and Raph leaves. After Don does science stuff and tracks down where the portal will be, Leo tracks down Raph and finally learns that Raph is the Nightwatcher. (Seriously, who has only three fingers besides a giant turtle?) The two have at it, with Raph coming out on top. He celebrates by running away from his brother.
The stone generals grow suspicious of Winters’ motivation. They capture Leo (who was distracted by Raph winning the fight), knowing he’s not one of the thirteen monsters. I guess they assume that the guy who has been living for over 3000 years and has studied everything about what happened to him won’t know what all thirteen monsters look like. Raph goes back to the lair, tells Splinter what happened, and everyone hightails it over to Winters’ tower. They fight some Foot, rescue Leo, and learn that Winters only wanted to right the wrong he did so long ago. The stone generals do not approve.
Leo and Raph resolve their ongoing fight because… Raph gave Leo new swords? Raph acknowledges Leo as leader? What were they even fighting about to begin with? Anyway, they fight the stone generals while Karai, April, and Casey manage to find the last monster and get it into the portal. The stone generals get knocked into the portal and die, Winters thanks the turtles for their help, then dies, and the four brothers go back to fighting crime together. The end.
Leonardo, voiced by James Arnold Taylor, is the leader of the group, and the oldest of the turtles. How much older is he? A day? Maybe two? Were they mutated at different times? Is it because he acts older than everyone else? I’ve never understood this element in the franchise. After he returned home from his extended study abroad trip, he tried to pick things up right where he left them, only things weren’t the same. The other three had gotten used to not taking his orders. He says that everything he does is to be a better leader, but he seems to have some serious communication problems with the others, especially Raph.
Raphael, voiced by Nolan North, has this tough guy thing going on. But underneath it, he’s actually really whiny. He’s like a two year old. “Why is he the leader? I wanna be the leader!” Seriously, if you really listen to him, all he’s saying is he wants to be the leader. Deep down, he does love his brothers, even Leonardo, and would do anything to protect them. He refuses to stop fighting crime, and takes advantage of Leo’s absence to do it his way. However, like every other Turtles movie out there, Raph needs to learn that his way of doing things isn’t necessarily the best way. He does work things out with Leo at the end, but like every other Turtles movie, it felt very forced and could have been handled much better.
Donatello, voiced by Mitchell Whitfield, is the smart one and works at a tech support guy. I have so many questions about this. How did he get a job like that without going in for an interview? What company hired him without a proper interview? Did he start his own business? Does he get paid? If so, how? What he does when someone gets mad because they can’t possibly be the problem and start demanding a manager? Splinter probably knows next to nothing about computers. Does he still have this job? It’s never stated in the movie that he quit. Maybe that’s how they can afford to buy pizza and other human foods. He tried to keep things together when Leo was absent, but he didn’t do so well. Donnie is usually my favorite turtle, and I guess that’s true in this case as well, but he left so little impact in the grand scheme of things that you don’t know much about him other than he’s the smart one. Just like in the live action movies.
Michelangelo, voiced by Mikey Kelley, is the optimistic one of the group. And also the youngest. (See Leonardo’s paragraph for my comment about their ages.) He’s the only one of the four that really acts like a teenager. He managed to get a job as a party entertainer. And a driver’s license. Somehow. I’m guessing Donnie made him a fake one. That’s the only explanation that makes any sense. That, or he’s driving around without one, but a line in the film seems to suggest he does actually have a license. Either way, he better hope he doesn’t get a ticket for something like a busted taillight. The party entertainer job does make sense, considering that he’s basically a giant kid at heart. He’s constantly making jokes (most of which aren’t funny), he loves TV and videogames, and he keeps his skateboard close at hand. However, much like Don, movies don’t like to flesh out his personality beyond the “party dude,” so this is about all there is to Mikey.
Splinter, voiced by Mako, is the wise rat master of the turtles. He looks a lot like Chester Cheetah in this movie. I didn’t know a rat could look like a cheetah, but apparently they can. Splinter’s teaching methods are questionable at times. A lot of times, actually. It was his idea to make Leo a better leader by sending him to live in the jungle by himself for over a year. Historically, depending on which version you saw/read, Splinter was either the pet rat of Hamato Yoshi, or he is Hamato Yoshi and was turned into a rat. I have absolutely no idea which backstory this movie uses, so I have no idea how he learned Ninjitsu. But it wasn’t from reading a book most likely. (As someone who spent about two years learning a martial art, that actually hurt me when they did that. Even with pictures, reading will not get you far. Especially when you have to spar/fight someone.) In the live action movies, they tried to give Splinter one or two funny lines, but not in this movie. Which is sad, because I like Splinter as a character. The cartoon shows do a good job of balancing his wisdom with his witty sense of humor. I wish he could have a bigger role in a movie and not spend half a movie meditating or doing whatever it is he does when the turtles go up to the surface.
Casey Jones, voiced by Chris Evans, is one of the turtles’ human friends, and April’s boyfriend. He’s best friends with Raphael, and will often go out with Raph to do some vigilante stuff. He only wears a hockey mask to hide his identity, and he lugs around a bag of weapons/sport equipment on his back. How he’s able to effectively fight anyone with all that extra weight on his back is unknown. And I never saw him throw it down somewhere before he started any fights, so he is fighting with it. April wants to settle down, but Casey doesn't know if he can do that. I mean, they’re friends with giant talking turtles and constantly help in the never ending fight for justice. Casey has a point, how could anyone settle down when that’s what you do in your free time?
April O’Neil, voiced by Sarah Michelle Gellar, is a friend of the turtles and Casey’s girlfriend. She has a job as an ancient artifacts collector person. That’s my best guess as to her official job title. She has skills in hand to hand combat fighting as well. She finds old stuff and acquires/sells it to rich people. Her role is very limited in this movie. Mostly, she tells Leo what’s happening in New York while he’s away, she brings the Stone Generals to Winters, and that’s it. I really don’t understand why she’s even in this movie past the first ten minutes. That’s all I’ve got, so moving on.
Winters, voiced by Patrick Stewart, is a 3000 year old guy who used to be a warrior king, but is now the head of a multimillion dollar company. He commands his four stone generals, Gato, Mono, Serpiente, and Aguila (voiced by Fred Tatasciore, Paula Mattioli, and Kevin Michael Richardson respectively- Mono does not speak at all) to find all thirteen monsters that they accidentally released 3000 years ago. He’s portrayed as the villain, until about five minutes from the end, when he says that he simply wants to set things right. That leaves the stone generals as the villains, since they like being immortal, and they’ve been trapped in a sort of suspended animation for 3000 years. Aguila is the leader of the stone generals, but he doesn’t challenge Winters’ leadership until about five minutes from the end. Even though they suspected what Winters was up to, they didn’t do anything about it until they had already caught twelve of the thirteen monsters. Way to go guys. They’re not defeated by the turtles; rather the last monster knocks them all into the portal and kills them. What I really want to know is, how did they all get separated after the portal opened the first time? Why didn’t Winters bring the four statues with him on his travels? Why didn’t he bring them to life earlier? I’m assuming he always had the thing that brought them to life, since we never see where it comes from.
Karai, voiced by Ziyi Zhang, is the current head of the Foot clan. She doesn’t like the turtles. The feeling is mutual. At some point in the past, she joined the Foot and worked her way up to the top. Sometime later, they encountered the turtles and are now caught up in a never ending feud with them. What’s her story before then? How does she know Shredder? Who knows. We don’t know much more than this. She has a sense of honor and loyalty, and she’s a good warrior and fighter, but that’s about all there is to her. At the end of the movie, she implies that Shredder is still alive and will return. How does she know this? I know that they attempted to set up a sequel, and I guess we would’ve gotten a lot of answers in that movie, but since it was never made, we will never know the truth about this version of Karai.
Oh, where do I even begin with this movie? There are so many things I can pick apart. First of all, Leo vs Raph. It’s been done. And done. And done. Why does every movie feel like it has to be these two characters that fight? There’s four turtles! If you want the family drama, fine, but why these two? Why not Don vs Raph? I mean, that’s the classic brain vs. brawn fight. You could even have them learn a lesson at the end, like Don learns he can’t rely on his machines, and Raph learns that he needs to use his brain every once in a while. In fact, I managed to find a 5 minute animated clip of these two fighting, and that 5 minute clip is more entertaining than this entire movie! You get a sense of each turtle’s personality, you see Splinter in all his wisdom, Shredder sums up the whole clip basically, and it ended in pretty much the only way it could end. Sadly, this was a one time clip at SDCC 2016r, and not a preview of the 2018 show. This clip was dumb, but entertainingly dumb. I laughed some of the jokes, the animation was well done, the action was really good, and the voice cast was decent. And most importantly, it tells a better story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQNZcBTOgt8&t=4s
Was there anything good about this movie? They don’t rehash the origin story. They summarize it very quickly at the beginning of the movie over a span of maybe a minute. I get it,we all know the basic origin story of these guys. But could you please give us background on what happened? When did they defeat Shredder? Why did they stop fighting crime when Leo left? The action scenes are decent, although the lighting could be better. I can hardly tell what’s going on in some scenes, it’s so dark. (More on that later.) I feel like during the action scenes, they don’t keep track of which turtle is where very well. Or maybe they did, and I just couldn’t tell who was who. Either way, not a good thing.
There was no Shredder in this movie. I actually liked that Shredder wasn’t in this movie. He’s in all the live action movies, and I never really liked his reasoning for fighting the turtles. Shredder had a very loose connection to the turtles through Hamato Yoshi in the 1990 movie and practically no connection in the 2014 movie. In fact, the Shredder connection in the 2014 movie seemed really forced, like they only included it because they were afraid of the fan reaction. That’s just wrong. (Granted, there were a lot of things wrong with the 2014 movie, which I won’t go into detail here.) This movie took a risk by killing off Shredder before it even began, and I think it paid off. Now, they did set up a sequel where Shredder was set to return, but it has been 11 years since this movie was first released, and there’s still no sign of a sequel, so I don’t think that’s going to happen.
The animation is interesting. The stuff that takes place at night looks better than the stuff that takes place during the day. However, it’s a little hard to see what’s going on at night. It’s so dark. And I get it, this is supposed to be a dark movie. But during some of the action scenes, you can’t tell which turtle is which at times.
I will admit, though, that they used the darkness to make some really cool shots. The action scenes are fun to watch. My favorite is the first one at the construction site, when the four turtles are reunited. I don’t get why April and Karai (and Serpiente to some extent) are designed the way they are. People rip on Barbie dolls for not being shaped like real women, but these girls have waist sizes that I think are smaller than Barbie’s. I didn’t really like that element, but that’s just a nitpick. Though I do feel compelled to point out that the animation studio, Imagi Animation, doesn’t have many completed projects and they closed down three years after this movie was completed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagi_Animation_Studios
There is some incredible voice talent in this movie. Not only do they have some movie stars like Chris Evans or Patrick Stewart, they also have some of the greats in the voice acting community. Kevin Michael Richardson, James Arnold Taylor, Nolan North, and Fred Tatasciore all have main roles, and John DiMaggio has a minor role. This movie even has Mako in it, in one of his last roles-if not his final role-before his death. I know my friends were shocked when I told them who was in this movie. However, it does feel like they did blow a good chunk of the budget on the voice cast. I heard somewhere (can’t remember where) that they wanted to cast relative unknowns as the turtles, but they still got the likes of Patrick Stewart. He couldn’t have been cheap. And I know this is pre-Avengers, but Chris Evans had already been in movies like the Fantastic Four, so I don’t know how expensive he was. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0453556/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast
If you can’t tell, there are some plot points that seriously bother me. For example, at one point, Don says that when the portal is opened, the more monsters will come out, and the world will be destroyed within a matter of days/weeks. But the monsters from 3000 years ago haven’t destroyed the world, so what gives? In the flashback, the narrator says that the monsters continue to plague humanity, yet no one’s ever seen one before. Are these monsters dangerous to humans or not? Make up your mind, movie! And where was the Foot after Shredder died? Why weren’t they doing what criminals do best? Was there a year long battle for leadership/ranks that prevented them from doing anything else while the turtles were on hiatus? Also, how old are the turtles supposed to be? They imply multiple times that Leo is the oldest and Mikey is the youngest. But, aren’t they all basically the same age? He might be older by a day or two, but not much more than that. I think the ages go Leo, Raph, Don, and Mikey. Maturity levels have nothing to do with age. If it did, Raph would be the youngest, or at least younger than Don. Actually, come to think of it, Mikey’s the only one who really acts like a teenage boy. I think they’re supposed to be 17 or 18 in this movie, but I’m not positive.
When I was watching the CinemaSins review of this movie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGsvFfEJwmc), he pointed out that if the turtles hadn’t intervened and fought the first monster, the news report the next day would still be the same. And that got me thinking: are the turtles really necessary to the plot? No, they’re not. If you remove the turtles from the story, Winters still gets his stone generals to track down and capture the thirteen monsters, the stone generals still either get a fake thirteenth monster, or claim they can’t find it, Karai and the Foot still track it down, maybe even with April and Casey’s help, the stone generals die, and Winters finds peace before turning into dust. Nothing important changes at all. It is a really bad sign when a movie doesn’t need any of the main characters to be involved in the plot. They don’t even defeat the villains! The last monster knocks the stone generals into the portal, not the turtles. They’re useless in this movie!
One thing I like about the shows over the movies is that the shows allow for more character development over time. This movie has so many static characters with little to no development. Donnie, Mikey, April, Splinter, even Casey to some extent, none of them are given complex personalities, nor are they given any opportunity to develop anything resembling a personality beyond their one sentence descriptions. And the characters who do grow, it’s a little forced, or it comes from nowhere. I mean, Raph realizes that Leo was right all along because…? And he accepts this because he beat Leo in a fight? I guess Leo learns to trust his brothers more? This movie is only 87 minutes long, and they spent a lot of that (or what feels like a lot of time) going over the fact that everything started 3000 years ago. Not a lot of time for proper character development. Now, I know that not every character needs to go through this big arc. I get it, there’s a limited amount of time and a plot to get through. But for the love of God, can you please make your supporting characters more than just cardboard cutouts? And your main characters as well? The audience needs to be able to connect with the characters, and redoing the same brother spat over and over again isn’t going to achieve anything. There are four turtles, each with his own personality, his own likes and dislikes, and his own way of connecting with the world around him. Why can’t any of the movies make these guys interesting? This is why I prefer TV shows. That, and it’s easier for me to sit through a 30-45 minute episode without drifting off.
The biggest problem with this movie is that it’s boring. I turned it off several times so I could go watch other reviews on YouTube, like this one for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUz17honr64. The jokes that make me laugh are few and far between. This movie is full of jokes, one or two get a chuckle out of me, but most just get an eye roll. It took me a six days to get through this entire movie! Six! It’s never taken me more than two days before to watch a movie. Now, part of it was because the platform I was using is extremely glitchy, but it shouldn’t take me that long to watch one movie! Even with the glitches, any other movie would’ve only taken me two or three days to watch all the way through. It takes a special kind of talent to make a movie about mutant turtles fighting monsters from another dimension boring.
I’m SJ, and these are my real thoughts on TMNT.
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