'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem' Review: TMNT's Stylized Reboot is One Shell of a Blast
PG: Sequences of violence and action, language, and impolite material
Runtime: 1 Hour and 39 Minutes
Production Companies: Nickelodeon Movies, Point Grey Pictures
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Director: Jeff Rowe
Writers: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jeff Rowe, Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit
Cast: Brady Noon, Micah Abbey, Nicolas Cantu, Shamon Brown Jr., Hannibal Buress, Rose Byrne, John Cena, Jackie Chan, Ice Cube, Natasia Demetriou, Ayo Edebiri, Giancarlo Esposito, Post Malone, Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Maya Rudolph
Release Date: August 2, 2023
In theaters Only
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the [series/movie/etc.] being covered here wouldn't exist.
I can't get enough of the artistic renaissance—an animaissance if you will—we live in now. After Spider-Verse shook up the animation industry, the trend of stylized animated movies with 2D and 3D art techniques combined to make a gorgeous eye-popping cinematic experience spawned. With movies like The Mitchells vs. The Machines, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and Nimona following Miles Morales's swing, that liberating artistic ooze continues to spread for the better as franchises in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint (or shell) get the signature flair. Case in point, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles—whose [theatrical film] reputation has been in the sewers—who, thanks to Mitchells co-director Jeff Rowe taking center director stage with the help of Canadian shmoes Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, NYC’s best reptilian crime fighters enter the 2020s with a shell-shockingly fantastic movie!
Raised and sheltered under the NYC sewers by their overprotective rat-dad Splinter (Jackie Chan), 15-year-old mutant Turtle brothers Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Donatello (Micah Abbey), Raphael (Brady Noon), and Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.) desire to be part of that human world. One night they encounter high-schooler/aspiring journalist April O'Neil (Ayo Edebiri) and assist her in getting her stolen bike back from thugs. After befriending her, the boys decide to become crime-fighting vigilantes in hopes that New Yorkers accept them, and they get to attend high school while April films their heroic efforts. They pursue a crime syndicate, only to find out its leader is a fellow mutant named Superfly (Ice Cube), who plans to eradicate all humans and let mutants rule the Earth.
Director Jeff Rowe brought his Mitchells background to Canadian-based animation studio Mikros (Captain Underpants, Paw Patrol: The Movie, Sponge on the Run), whose artists once again impress with their range, crafting a gorgeous stylized world with the same detailed quality as Sony Animation or DreamWorks. While Mitchells adopted a hand-drawn watercolored painterly method, Mutant Mayhem douses itself in a grunge teenage boy's art supplies. If a group of animators who once doodled Cool S's with colored pencils, markers, and crayons as kids designed a movie, it would be this one. It's soaked in noir-paletted colors, texturized with motion 2D scribbles in every corner (replicating light rays, action lines, character facial details, and more). The 3D landscape, particularly the art direction, evokes the styles of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's first TMNT comic in its lighting. It also has its modernized flair with the turtles' youthful designs, putting that “Teenage” title to use.
Mutant Mayhem's character designers made a humorous opposite day, targeting the people who talked trash about the Bay-produced monstrosities and deliberately made the turtles adorable and their fellow anthropomorphic mutants visually appealing. Meanwhile, the humans surrounding them—excluding April—bear crude, misshaped designs, looking deformed like a Laika character, specifically from ParaNorman. That also applies to the NYC environment as each location has a hand-drawn essence learning towards angular imperfections. The more gritty it looks, the higher it elevates its ‘70s-style noir aesthetic.
Rowe showcases his action-oriented groove with the film's incredible action set pieces, on the Spider-Man: Homecoming concept of “what if a John Hughes coming-of-age flick was also an action film” but with ninjas. The boys’ first fight sequence against a bunch of thugs blends comedy and exciting combat seamlessly, and each beat of that sequence plays to their age, where they’re all equally terrified being in their first fight while kicking ass on the fly. You feel their shared adrenaline rush with the kinetic direction, and that action carries to every set piece, even down to its fantastic climax, which made my NY'er heart roar and fist pump in the air.
Outside its art style, Mutant Mayhem boldly takes the turtles in a new direction, mostly with their coming-of-age story emphasizing their youthfulness and relationship with being mutants. Writers Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jeff Rowe, Dan Hernandez, and Benji Samit characterized the Turtle Bros. as every modern 15-year-old: lonely, living a sheltered life like Ariel. Like Triton, their xenophobic dad Splinter restricts them from doing much, but their loneliness is upended when they meet Superfly and his crime family of fellow mutants—Genghis Frog (Hannibal Buress), Leatherhead (Rose Byrne), Rocksteady (John Cena), Bebop (Seth Rogen), Wingnut (Natasia Demetriou), Ray Fillet (Post Malone), and Mondo Gecko (Paul Rudd). As weird as it is to have Ice Cube cast in anything these days (take a gander at Google if you're not informed), his natural charisma and Compton-based background exude through Superfly, making for a threatening and funny antagonist.
When the story focuses on the boys’ relationship with their identities and wanting acceptance in contrast with the aggressive Superfly, it takes significant, poignant swings that add nuance to the TMNT franchise. For the first time, the people behind the scenes loved the TMNT franchise, were good storytellers, and understood its appeal.
THANK GOD Leo, Mikey, Donnie, and Raph act like teenage boys. They’re energetic, rebellious, chronically online, make endless pop culture references, talk in NYC slang (updated slang that will become outdated in two months), and make stupid decisions. Pizza isn’t their defining trait anymore. Now it’s TikTok, and every corner of the app applies to each Turtle’s personality. Mikey loves comedy, Donnie is a K-pop-loving weeb, Raph is still a fighter but loves wrestling, and Leo is an awkward hopeless romantic. Even when I was annoyed by their silliness at times, it was due to the accuracy of how annoying 15-year-olds are. Actual teens Brady Noon, Micah Abbey, Nicolas Cantu, and Shamon Brown Jr. are excellent as their respective characters, as you can feel their dynamic shared behind the booth in many comedic and emotional scenes. That flavor is enriched by other voice cast members, especially Ayo Edebiri, who brings her signature scrappy, awkward charm to this April O'Neil and is so funny.
There’s something funny about action star Jackie Chan cast as Splinter, but this iteration has him as a regular dad instead of a sensei. Chan taps into his comedic and emotional side as Splinter delves through a well-tuned arc that checks his prejudice towards humans. Though not as rendered to the best of its abilities due to its fast-paced teen superhero origin plotting, they pack a wallop with those emotional points between Splinter and the boys.
While the teens feel authentic to their age, the humor and dialogue rely too heavily on pop culture namedrops, removing potentially stronger and better character-driven jokes that other iterations excelled at. The references come relentlessly during the second act, and it becomes unbearably annoying at times, like borderline Sonic the Hedgehog egregious.
For an animated movie made in 2023, it's terrifying how “2023” it is, for it throws recent lingo that feels dated on arrival. I can excuse “sus,” but I draw the line at “rizz,” which became imbued in today's culture as early as March. Somehow this animated movie that took years to make incorporated that into the dialogue. All I can say is I hope whoever had to animate that at the varying stages of production got the pay they deserved and didn't have to go through a crunch. I hope that was improv from the boys in the booth because I can’t imagine writers like Seth Rogen penning that.
Mutant Mayhem's music supervision has a strong hip-hop edge, for its soundtrack includes Blackstreet, Wu-Tang Clan, A Tribe Called Quest, Gucci Mane, and I will also include Natasha Bedingfield because “Unwritten” is a hood classic. Much like the references, the needle drops are relied on for comedic effects, and some don't land. An early 2000s internet meme song is included in a chase sequence and doesn’t even fit. It feels like it's pandering more to a YouTube millennial audience than Gen-Z. It’s like referencing a Vine to a TikTok crowd who doesn’t even remember it. It’s just dated on arrival.
Consider me shell-shocked as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is one of the year’s better-animated features. Featuring breathtaking stylized animation, stellar voice acting from its teenage cast, and a charming coming-of-age origin story that takes the Turtles in a bold new direction, this reboot raises the bar for the TMNT franchise.
