TMNT
Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, Kevin Munroe

Just TMNT now, not Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Too bad. I haven’t seen any of the other movies in more than fifteen years, but I had no trouble following the plot. If you know the title, you’ve got the prerequisite backstory knowledge. I though maybe they’d follow the current superhero movie trend of remaking, reimagining, rebooting the story, but no, it’s just another story. That’s good. The origin story is usually the least interesting story about superheroes. As for the story itself, it’s all right. Leonardo and Raphael get some character development: Leo starts out reluctant to lead the team but learns to trust himself, Raph starts out angry and resentful and wanting to be a lone wolf but learns that teamwork is better. I think they must have gone through these same character arcs dozens of times in previous incarnations. Well, I suppose there’s not much else you can do with the characters without losing their pure, simplistic cores. This is just another movie, not a secret message to people who’ve spent their lives absorbing turtle continuity. This is good: not a boring reboot, not an esoteric secret message.

Michelangelo and Donatello don’t get much to do. April O’Neil gets to jumpstart the plot, and Casey Jones gets to be her boyfriend and give her something to worry about when he goes out superheroing. And April is a ninja now too, so she isn’t just the worrying girlfriend, she gets in on some of the fights. April and Casey are cohabiting. I suppose that’ll upset some parents of young children.

The best thing about the new movie is the animation. This was a great idea. I couldn’t find any samples from action scenes, but check out samples anyway:

Now here’s the new look:

Guys in rubber suits suck. The animated turtles look a lot more realistic, despite being more cartoony. The animation is impressive. There’s a scene in the middle of the movie with Leonardo and Raphael fighting on a rooftop in the rain, and it’s amazing to see the closeups of raindrops splashing on the turtles’ skin. In a few years it’ll look primitive, but for now it’s the closest to photorealistic I’ve seen. And objects look like they really have mass.