The first thing I am going to say is the I agree with Kevin Eastman when he said that this could possibly be the best Turtles movie yet. Out of the entire 2 hour film, the first 88 minutes are almost perfect. Out of the last 32 minutes, there are only a few things I would change. It must also be noted that the script is dated 1/30/2012 and it has been announced publicly that the script is in rewrites.
Casey Jones is the prominent character (other than the Turtles of course) which I love. Casey meets the Turtles first, like the new IDW comics. In all other iterations of the Turtles, April meets them first. We are told that the Turtles origin story is the same one that we are all used to; the Turtles were mutated by a canister of ooze. We will later discover that this is not true. The Shredder character is named Schrader. I’m not sure why since all other characters keep their names. Mikey mentions the fact that Schrader sounds like Shredder. I will keep calling him Shredder from this point forward. We are told that Shredder causes their mutation. This is just like in all other iterations except the Mirage comics and the first live action films. We later find out that this is also not true.Casey calls the Turtles Ninja Mutant Turtle Teenagers when he first meets them, which I found pretty funny. Casey assigns them their colored bandanas, not Splinter who has done it in the past. They all wear black at first, not red, which is also pretty cool. We get an attempted kidnapping of Master Splinter like in the other iterations of the Turtles, but it is unsuccessful this time. Casey, April, and the Turtles have to get to New York City. They get there in U-Haul, which is similar to when they go to Northampton in the Mirage comics Vol. 1 issue 10. Donatello and Mikey are also presented as the comedic duo, as usual.
Bebop and Rocksteady work for Shredder and they are originally from the Fred Wolf series. They are tougher than in the original series, but still bumbling idiots who always fail. Shredder seems to be an android, which I hoped meant that he was an Utrom, but that too is a lie. Shredder is a mutant. We never really get an explanation as to how or when he was mutated and from what.
The main plot revolves around Dimension X which is from the Fred Wolf series. We meet another turtle which I hoped was Slash and not a Turtle race; I was wrong. This turtle tells them that the ooze was a “story we needed you to believe”. I just about tossed my phone (which I was reading the script on) out the window at this point. The Technodrome and Krang and the main villains in the movie and are also from Fred Wolf series. We find out that Krang killed the Turtles’ parents and that Splinter was assigned to train and take care of them until they could fulfill the prophecy; saving the two worlds from Krang and the Technodrome.
In the end, we do not get an explanation of Splinter’s origin if the Turtles are from a planet of Turtles and not mutated. Where does a giant rat come from? The Turtles kill Krang to save the world and the Turtles are no longer a secret as they are featured on the evening news. The Turtles are forced to split up to protect the world at four corners of Dimension X.
The script could easily be rewritten to remove all the parts that I hated. Everything else about the movie is great. It does have that high octane feel that most Michael Bay films have, which is not bad, but a lot more fast paced action than in previous Turtles movies. I give it a 2/10 the way it is written now, and a 9/10 if I could remove a few dealbreakers.