The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Sammy
(Lowenthal) is a fifty-year-old turtle who has seen the world change from a
sparkling paradise to a place overrun by humans and riddled with all their
junk. He recounts the tale of his life from the moment he hatched until the day
he married his sweetheart, Shelley (Arterton), after a trip around the world
threatened to tear them apart. We see how fate would bring him together with
his best friend Ray (Sheehan), in addition to his various encounters with
humans: both good and bad. 

Annoyingly
cute is one way to describe this film; sickly sweet is another. There was
obviously a concerted effort to make this film as adorable as possible,
starting from the choice of turtles as the protagonists to the emphasis on the
best-friends-forever and love-at-first-sight aspects of the story.

Particularly
infuriating is that these two subplots basically consist of the various
characters just verbalizing the obvious; heavy handed doesn’t even begin to
cover it. The choice of scoring, where the film uses pop songs that literally
translate the happenings on screen, just adds to the sugar rush.

The
tone could have been tempered during the scenes that focused on the changing
environment and the negative effect that humans have had on it. Yet in
comparison with the heavy handedness of the friendship and romance subplots,
the environmental scenes are rather vague.

One thing they take great pains to
emphasize though, is that not all humans mistreat the environment and animals; in
fact the few human characters that do get spotlights are the ethical ones. The
film sends a great message without getting overly preachy which is commendable.

Another
positive aspect to the film is that, for the most part, it looks pretty good.
The few humans were short-changed horribly in the animation department, but the
animals fared far better; not Pixar good or even Dreamworks good but decent
nonetheless. Not to mention that the undersea shots, which have a bit of a
Little Mermaid or Finding Nemo vibe to them, are pure
joy. 

This
film is for kids under the age of eight and it’ll probably be a hit with that
age range. Any older, and they’ll be jaded enough to see it for the ball of
cheese that it is.