Nostalgia was a big part of the latest version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles story.

TMNT starts with Leonardo, the leader of the four mutated brothers, in Central America completing his training. Master Splinter sent him on this quest to control his brothers in their fight for good in New York City and because of his absence the rest of the Turtles are told to stray from fighting crime while Leo is away.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Turtles are keeping busy back in the states. With his love for partying, pizza and saying "dude," Michelangelo makes an actual career of being a children's entertainer in the movie. Donatello, always the brains of the operation, works as an over-the-phone information technology consultant.

Finally, the consummate rebel of the group, Raphael, is off doing vigilante work against Splinter's orders under the name "Nightwatcher." Beyond the overly complex and mostly unexplained storyline, he is the character with the most conflict both internal and external in this movie.

Raphael always challenged Leonardo's leadership skills and constantly had a chip on his shoulder over what he thought was lack of appreciation for the Turtles' crime fighting. This installment sees Raphael going to greater lengths to get his message across, and he finds he might have gone too far in gaining appreciation.

While the Leo vs. Ralph infighting has gone to new heights in this movie, there really wasn't much more innovation in this installment. That seems to work for this film, which acts as a perfect piece of nostalgia for fans of the old series.

However, the plot is, at times, too confusing. The head villains in TMNT are a bit far-fetched, even for a movie where the heroes are man-sized Turtles trained in martial arts.

Not only that, but the bad-guys have little to almost no connection to the Turtles at all. The animosity between the antagonists and the heroes is almost non-existent. Even toward the end of the movie it seems the Turtles and the dreaded Foot Clan begin to see eye to eye.

With a lot of eye-catching graphics and favorite characters such as April O'Neil and Casey Jones, as well as references to the classic TMNT villain Shredder, however, this movie holds a pretty good balance entertaining kids and young-adults alike.

Despite a few lulls, TMNT makes for a great first installment to the new Turtles franchise. If this is only the beginning, there's hope for improvement in the series to come.

Grade: B-