I didn't know this was CGI. Mako, despite actually being of Oriental descent sounded like someone doing a REALLY BAD Oriental accent impression. The back story on this is a bit pants. 3000 yrs ago some bad army took over the world, someone became immortal. Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah. As for the Turtles characters themselves. I don't remember Micheangelo being so stupid, or Raphael being so angry and aggressive. His Nighwatcher alter ego seemed a bit pointless. I did like the fact that the foot clan were in the film and there were a few continuity references to Shredder (and even a little picture of him at the start of the film).
The monsters in their "Armour" looked like something out of Warhammer 3000. I did enjoy seeing April but Sarah Michelle Geller wasn't the right voice for her (why couldn't they have hired the original cartoon voice of April?). Patrick Stewart made an excellent villain voice too, the only thing that bugged me was his character's face was Mr Incredible from The Incredibles.
Was Casey (April's boyfriend?), Casey Jones from the cartoon? If so they totally got his mask and face wrong.
The whole "capturing 13 monsters and putting them in cases" seemed a bit too much like the plot from the original Blade movie. April was never the martial artist, I guess because Buffy the Vampire Slayer was playing her voice she insisted the character could defend herself. The whole point of April was she kept getting into trouble like a Doctor Who assistant so the Turtles could save her from what ever danger she had gotten into. The film does look very pretty, the character renderings are on the whole pretty good (Splinter doesn't quite look old enough, sorry) and the Turtles are OK. This probably cost a lot to make and took a lot of people a lot of time. But it just isn't good enough, live action will always beat CGI.
Where this film suffers is not having a very well known main villain, like Shredder or Krang. The "Spiderman" homage where Leo chases Raph is pretty cool, and it was also nice to see Turtle versus Turtle in a 1 on one fight. The whole argument between Raph & Leo is very Star Wars (think Luke Versus Vader in Return Of the Jedi). Raph has almost become the thing he hates the most, it's all very "Dark Side of The Force" stuff. If you look hard, all sorts of other films are referenced in this. From Soylent Green (transporting things in garbage trucks), to The Punisher, Daredevil, Blade, Dark Man & even Highlander & Kill Bill (April's yellow outfit, almost identical to The Bride's.
The Stone baddies at the end were a bit too much like Gargoyles or Transformers. All in all, it's a decent enough movie but could have been much better. The ending is a bit too much like something out of Ghostbusters I did enjoy this. The Turtles will always be cool. Oh, and Winter's death scene - Shades of Lawnmower Man.
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