Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Story: Shredder is the head of a shadowy crime gang called the Foot Clan. He intends to cause great harm to the residents of New York City by releasing a deadly toxin. It is only the turtles who, along with some help from a journalist, can save the day.

Review: April O'Neil (Fox, in fine form and shape) is a journalist with a TV channel who is frustrated with the fluff (or 'froth', as her somewhat lecherous cameraman played by Arnett, calls it) stories she covers. She wants to get her teeth into a real story and that falls into her lap one day when she witnesses a robbery at the docks apparently perpetrated by the Foot Clan. More importantly, she also witnesses a human-like creature appear out of nowhere and beat the living hell out of the criminals. Soon enough, O'Neil encounters all of them and realizes she has a huge story on her hands - a career changer that will give her just the kind of credibility she craves. But obviously her editor (Goldberg) isn't buying it and sacks her. She pursues the story anyways.



The turtles meanwhile - Donatello (Howard), Michelangelo (Fisher), Raphael (Ritchson) and Leonardo (Knoxville) - are martial arts masters trained by a giant rodent called Splinter (Shalhoub) and appropriately, reside in the sewers. O'Neil discovers (in what seems like a freakish coincidence) that these same were once her pets. Her dad was a scientist who did lab experiments on them, but an accident leads to their mutation. Tycoon Eric Sacks (Fichtner) backed the project. Now though, Sacks and Shredder (Masamune) plan to release a toxin in NY - a city that the turtles have sworn to protect.

Michael Bay has a producer co-credit in this reboot, which might explain the loud, frenetic action, bombast and ample camera time devoted to close shots of Fox's posterior. The turtle bonhomie has been suitably updated in keeping with the times - 'bro' is now 'brah' and they don't say 'yo' anymore. Thin plot aside, *TMNT* is peppered with just enough humour and maintains a strident pace throughout.