The only thing I feel this movie lacked was Jim Hensons Studio's help. It shows by the cheapness of the Turtles (and especially Splinters) New look. Which actually looks great, but it's not the same material used in the first two. Splinter actually looks fine, but his outer appearance lacks the spirit of the original Splinter. People at Jim Henson Studios must put effort and life into anything they create because most puppeteers create their actual puppets -such was the case with Splinter in the first two. But this was taken out of the third movie...and thus the only thing to back it up would've been another return of Shredder and a good plot.
Sadly any return of Shredder would probably be a bad plot. :( As he did die in the comic book... And since the second story pushed away from the Comic's original storyline....(TGRI was really TCRI...and was run by aliens from outer-space) There was no way a plot that furthered the story would be any good...
unless....they chose the script they chose for this movie. The whole side story in Feudal Japan is it's own movie and this works excellently for the film. The Turtles show up to save April, who has been transported to Feudal Japan by a magic scepter. And of course adventure and comedy is bound to ensue.
Another thing I digged was the character development...which is sometimes sped up sometimes on Michaelangelo, Raphael, Whit, April and Casey's relationship, and Kenshin. However April (by herself), Lord Norinaga, Mitzu, Walker, and Donetello's character development works... (Don's character changes throughout the entire trilogy....first smart mouth, then joker who is a whiz with computers (or starting to be.) then finally Turtle Nerd..."I can't possibly exist without one single microchip?")
Which brings me to one another issue..... Corey Feldman's return was awesome! The second Donatello always annoyed me. I think it was mostly because Corey Feldman made Don his own character and not just the smart guy, but rather a smart guy with a smart-ass mouth. :D Corey's Return is highlighted in the credits and with good reason. He does an excellent job of following up on the second Don's attempt to be a Computer Wiz..
The rest of the cast is great, with the exception of Splinter's new voice actor. He tries... but he is no Kevin Clash. I must comment on Robbie Rist and Brian Touchi. They are Michaelangelo and Leonardo..they surpassed the cartoon voice overs from the cartoon series in the first movie...and they continued with their roles until the end and never faltered. Tim Kelleher is excellent as Rapheal, tho' it would've been nice to have the original voicer of Raph from the first or the second...he makes the role his own and that's actually good! Paige Turco return is surprising as she doesn't look herself in this movie at all. (I thought it was a third April) and this could be seen as good or bad for the film. (She looks like she's acting more like Judith Hoag) and this could be because of Elias Koteas, who is the only actor to return from the original movie. (Actor..the others did voices) 'Course I may be wrong. But his presence helps connect this film with the previous two. We get to see how Casey has changed (or hasn't) in this film since we didn't get to in the first. His appearance as Casey is short but good. He also gets a chance to play a secondary character named Whit who may be Casey's great great great great grandfather.
All and all... a good Turtle Movie on it's own.
