'Ben 10: Secret of the Omnitrix' is still fun 16 years later

Gwen, Ben, and Grandpa Tennyson during the final frame of "Ben 10: Secret of the Omnitrix" (Cartoon Network).

The 2007 TV movie "Ben 10: Secret of the Omnitrix" is 71 minutes of action-packed cartoon fun.

"Secret of the Omnitrix" is the first of several movies stemming from the original "Ben 10" series, which is about 10-year-old Ben Tennyson (Tara Strong) becoming a superhero after he finds the Omnitrix, a watch that allows him to turn into different alien species while he's on a summer road trip with his cousin Gwen (Meagan Smith) and Grandpa Max (Paul Eiding).

The movie follows Ben's journey to find the Omnitrix's creator after he accidentally sets off the watch's potentially universe-ending self-destruct mode.

I've always had a soft spot for "Ben 10" and I've watched the series with my brother countless times. Likewise, "Secret of the Omnitrix" is one of the more memorable and nostalgic parts of the series for me. Most people seem to agree since the movie has a 7.3/10 rating on IMDb and an 81% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The movie in some ways feels like an extended episode within the series, just with higher stakes, which is good considering the quality of the "Ben 10" series as a whole.

If popular voice actors like Tara Strong, Steve Blum, and Dee Bradley Baker aren't enough of a draw, the world building and well-placed action sequences certainly do the job. On top of that, someone clearly cares about the attention to audio quality since scenes with metal scraping sounds are as discomfortingly realistic as nails on a chalkboard.

There are some moments in the movie that might have needed tweaking though.

For instance, there are several occasions when Ben's more experienced companion Tetrax (Dave Fennoy) seems more clueless than I'd expect, and those scenes seem like they're designed either for comedic value or as a way of making Ben seem smarter than he normally appears. Like the scene when Ben suggests where to find Azmuth's (Robert David Hall) signature.

These scenes aren't expressly bad, but they could be pulled off better. The same could be said for the scene when Gwen and Gluto (Dee Bradley Baker) make their return later in the movie. The explanation for their return made sense, but it felt like a rushed plot convenience.

Regardless, the movie had a lot of highlights, including the introduction of the alien transformation Way Big and fleshing out more of the Omnitrix's backstory. I'm still enjoying the movie 16 years after it first aired in August 2007.

"Ben 10" was a unique series that wasn't afraid to try things, and "Secret of the Omnitrix" is a worthy part of its legacy.