After defeating the evil Shredder, the turtles are left without a foe and each of them have to find other ways to occupy their time. However, an ancient curse reeks havoc on their city and they must reunite and work together to find the strength necessary to fight the new evil.

I was a big fan of the original TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES live-action film in the early nineties, so I was interested to see how well the new film would hold up. I was pleasantly surprised at the new animated TMNT and found it a worthy companion to the original film. I was afraid it was either going to be too dark, or too cheesy for it’s own good. However, I found it to be a fun movie with a decent story and I liked seeing some familiar old faces.

Whether you’re a long time turtle fan, or just getting into it, I think you’ll find something to like about this film. It stays pretty true to the feel of the original movie and cartoon and at the same time provides just enough of an update to draw in new fans. I got pretty sick of the Shredder storyline, so it was nice to see that almost completely ignored. The original film was a little dark considering the characters and the cartoon was geared towards little kids. This new film, however, balanced the two turtle worlds very well.

One glaring problem I have with TMNT is the rehash of the Rafael-is-a-loner storyline. All turtle fans understand that Rafael and Leonardo don’t always get along, so it was frustrating for that relationship to be explored so fully…again. We saw it in the movies, the comics, the cartoons, so there was no need to even include it in this film. Unfortunately, that’s the only inner circle relationship that was explored and the movie suffered for it. Even though they got two recognizable voices for Casey Jones and April O’neil, their characters were mere afterthoughts. Even though it’s all about the turtles, I would have liked to see the human characters explored a little further.

Video: Widescreen (1.85:1) and Fullscreen (1.33:1): Digital transfers with animated movies rarely go wrong and this one is no exception. It’s a dark film, but the black levels look wonderful and the colors are very nice.

Audio: English, French and Spanish 5.1 with English, French and Spanish subtitles: The sound was also very well done with all channels used fully.

Commentary with Kevin Munroe: Kevin knows his material and likes talking about it. He does a commentary for every special feature, plus the film itself. I expected him to repeat himself constantly, but he really didn’t. I liked listening to him talk about the film and explain why he didn’t focus more on April and Casey. This was a pretty good commentary.

Alternate opening (3:02) and ending (1:16): The opening is a series of still pictures showing what the turtles have been up to since the last film. It was ok, but I’m glad they left it out. It just didn’t fit in with the rest of the film. However, the ending looked much better even though what we saw was just rough sketches.

Raphael’s rough house fight test (1:41): This was the first fight test the animators did for the movie. It’s definitely rough, but it was nice to see some of the early work they did and compare it to the finished product.

Rooftop workout (5:34): This is a long, unfinished deleted scenes of the turtles playing tag on the rooftops. It was good because it showed the turtles in action and having fun, but it was bad because it showed more of the Leo-Raph rivalry, which I didn’t like. Overall, it’s worth a look if you liked the film.

Monster’s come alive (3:00): This is a look at one scene compared to the storyboards. I don’t find this stuff interesting because we already know the storyboards are just general outlines and obviously stuff is going to change as the movie progresses. That’s basically what this featurette is trying to say.

Mikey’s birthday party: full scene (3:16): This is an extended scene of Michaelangelo at a birthday party. I liked the extended scene and thought it fit well in the context of the film. I think this one should have stayed in the final cut, but at least we get it on the DVD.

Donny’s digital data files (1:56): One of the technical guys takes us through some of the special effects and explains some of the processes used in the film. Two minutes is about all I can handle of this kind of stuff, and he managed to make the entire time interesting. Overall, it was a nice, quick featurette.

Still wanna fight: temp/scratch test (3:09): This is a deleted scene that’s pretty much done. I liked it because it gave more depth to April and Casey, which I thought they needed. However, I saw his point when he said it took too much away from the turtles.

Splinter gets cake (2:09): This is yet another deleted scene, this time shown in grayscale. Not a lot of it was actually deleted, but this added to the comic feel of the movie. This one wouldn’t have had much of an impact on the film one way or the other.

There are also some Previews

I like the ninja turtles and I enjoyed their new feature-length adventure. I think they’re cool characters and it’s nice to see they still have an audience after all these years. I recommend this to older fans and new fans alike.