A dark figure emerges from the jungle covered in a ripped robe. Not much is visible: hyper-muscular legs, bulbous green facial features and a pair of swords.

Don’t forget the blue mask.

At this point in the film, men able to buy beer in the lobby before the movie become completely geeked at the sight of fighting amphibians.

The scene is powerful enough to send any boy (and most girls) raised in the late-80s and early-90s into a fit of nostalgic glee.

That’s partially what the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, “TMNT,” is: a fit of nostalgic glee. But the film also might be the strongest of the Turtles’ feature films.

The first Turtles movie had a certain amount of gritty pseudo-realism. There were jokes, but there were also street gangs comprised of greasy teens and a slightly risky massage scene at some dirty farm in upstate New York. Casey Jones was a genuine vigilante and the Shredder was actually badass.

The second Turtles’ film was a little bit more cartoonish — they brought Vanilla Ice into the final battle, for Christ’s sake. It was silly from start to finish, what with the ooze , the human teenage sidekick and the toddler mutant brawling critters.

The third Turtles’ film is best ignored. Absurdly cartoonish, but not in the same way as the original series, it was more of a desperate attempt to squeeze a few more dollars from the franchise before our generation became disinterested.

This film, however, brings the Turtles back to their glory days.

The fact of the matter is that no matter what you do, there’s only so many maneuvers you can pull off while encased in a heavy, awkward foam rubber suit. Ninjas move a bit slower, the wires make the acrobatics look awkward, and the fight scenes are limited. What’s more, there are only so many facial expressions remote controlled gears and wires can generate.

With computer-generated images (CGI), there’s really no limit to what you can do. The Turtles in “TMNT” have individualized physical attributes and facial features, the fight scenes are crisp and unbelievable, and the bad guys look even more sinister.

This doesn’t mean that the franchise has lost its silly cartoon elements — if anything, it accentuates a few of them: the human villains are too cartoony, Casey Jones looks like Woody from “Toy Story,” Splinter is too clean and fluffy to be a rat and the animated series’ Turtle Van makes an appearance. There’s even a new “Ninja Rap” over the credits.

But what you gain in silly cartoon elements, you lose in awkward rubber suits. Some of the fight scenes are more than any fan of the Turtles — animated or live action — could have expected.

This film is probably the purest expression of the Turtles, as completely absurd as that statement sounds. This is what you wish you paid for when you went to see the first movie in the theaters: it’s silly and cartoony, and the dialogue is corny, but this is the first film that could really do justice to the idea of “Ninja Turtles.”

Cowabunga.