The TMNT franchise, which has its origins in a cult 1984 comic strip and which went on the become a global phenomenon with a spin-off television cartoon series, three live action films and shed loads of merchandising, gets a revival and facelift with this all computer-generated big screen adventure.

For those few the phenomenon passed by, the TMNTs are four New York City-based crime fighting brothers who also happen to be walking, talking, giant green turtles who under the tutelage of a super-intelligent rat named Splinter are martial arts masters.

Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael are also pizza-munching, computer game playing, skateboarding dudes, man.

Their new tongue-firmly-placed-in-cheek adventure sees the four tough terrapins taking on a super-rich industrialist named Maximillian Winters (Patrick Stewart), who's about the diabolic business of reviving an ancient Latin American curse that involves 13 very ugly monsters, four immortal stone generals and a portal to another world.

The Tutles's old foe the Foot Clan, a rival ninja outfit lead by elfin Karai (Zhang Ziyi), also figure in the mayhem, as do crimefighting human friends Casey (Chris Evans) and April (Sarah Michelle Gellar).

With all these factions fighting one another up on the rooftops of NYC and beneath the streets in the sewers there's little time for the plot to unfold, let alone for the viewer to catch a breath.

But this is entertainment for kids (and big kids from the first videogame generation), and storytelling and pacing are abandoned in favour of spectacle.

On that note, the CGI is as good as anything Pixar has produced to date, while the animated martial-arts choreography co-produced by American and Hong Kong boffins is appropriately jaw-dropping.