- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
- Directed by Jeff Rowe
- Written by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jeff Rowe, Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit and Brendan O’Brien
- Featuring the voices of Nicolas Cantu, Ayo Edebiri and Jackie Chan
- Classification PG; 99 minutes
- Opens in theatres Aug. 2
Critic’s Pick
There is going to come a time when the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse imitators get tiresome but that’s a long way off. For now, we’re just having too much fun with the recent IP-plundering in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem that take a page from the Miles Morales sketchbook.
Mutant Mayhem is a giddily fun and relentlessly eye-pleasing rebranding for the Turtles, which, like the Spider-Verse movies, mixes up daring and inventive animation styles while embracing visual imperfections as part of its soulful artistry. Scenes often look like scribbles that spring into action, and in keeping with the movie’s coming-of-age vibe where the artist is a young and raw talent still figuring out their voice in the most thrilling ways. The 1990s-kids who made this movie were clearly raised on a steady diet of after-school cartoons and albums by A Tribe Called Quest – the latter can be heard on the soundtrack alongside De La Soul, ODB and MOP.
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This all feels like a huge relief for any Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan who hasn’t had it easy at the movies. I’m too embarrassed to admit any affection for the early-’90s fare, which recycled the “cowabunga” catchphrases from the cartoon series while desperately trying to earn cool points with MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice bops on the soundtrack. Nodding along to Ninja Rap is nevertheless a fonder memory than the roided out Michael Bay-produced CGI slugfests from the past decade.
The biggest shift in Mutant Mayhem is the focus on the sewer-dwelling characters’ teen spirit, where the awkwardness doesn’t come from trying to make a movie about turtles who call themselves ninjas with a straight face. This time the awkwardness simply comes from the very hormonal messes that adolescents can be. And for the first time, the scrawny turtles actually look like and are voiced by teenagers.
Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.) is wearing braces. Donatello (Micah Abbey) has glasses that sit awkwardly on his face. Raphael (Brady Noon), still the effortlessly cool one, wears a mask that blends into a doo rag. And Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu) plays at being the leader without necessarily commanding any discipline from an entourage that’s more Goonies than Justice League. He also gets weak in the knees when April O’Neal shows up. The attraction isn’t cringe-y like previous iterations, since there’s no age gap. This time around, April (Ayo Edebiri, from the wonderfully sardonic series The Bear) is a freckled student journalist, with dreadlocks tucked beneath a wool cap, who meets the turtles when they gawk as her e-bike gets stolen.
For the first time, the scrawny turtles actually look like and are voiced by teenagers.Courtesy of Paramount Pictures./Paramount Pictures
The turtles are not crime fighters just yet. Their ninja skills, learned from YouTube videos, are strictly used for swiping groceries undetected and sneaking into the odd outdoor screening without permission from Splinter (Jackie Chan, giving the character fretful immigrant dad energy). Splinter, after experiencing New York as one of the most hated species in both pre- and post-mutant form, taught his teens to stay at home and in the shadows, reciting the mantra that humans “love to murder that which is different from them.”
Curious about the outside world and desperate for a normal social high-school experience, the turtles choose not to believe that about all humans, especially Guy Fieri, Beyoncé or Drake, who Raphael dubs the “GOAT of all time.” They only want to be heroes to find acceptance, a fitting purpose they share with dorky April and even the villainous mutant outfit committing heists around New York.
The latter group includes franchise stalwarts Rocksteady (John Cena) and Bebop (Seth Rogen, also a writer and producer) and even more colourful characters voiced by such starry folks as Hannibal Buress, Rose Byrne and Paul Rudd. Their leader is the gnarly SuperFly, voiced by Ice Cube. His distinguished growl and recitals of fellow rapper Ice-T’s lyrics (“six in the morning, police at my door”) invites some potent projection. We’re hearing the fierce and righteous AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted-era persona in an insect who turns his own marginalization into a rebellious rallying cry. If only the script, which never lives up to the animation, could give that powerful bit of casting more pointed material to work with.
There are six credited writers on Mutant Mayhem (including Rogen and his regular producing partner Evan Goldberg). Watching the movie as it descends into the promised mayhem, you can sense how worked over the story is, with nuanced bits and wildly funny gags grafted on top of reliable tropes and trends. The character work getting lost in the shuffle can be deflating. Thankfully, the singular animation and vibes remain something to cling to and marvel at.