TMNT: MUTANT MAYHEM 🥷🐢🍕REVIEW:

After years of being sheltered from the human world, the Turtle brothers set out to win the hearts of New Yorkers and be accepted as normal teenagers. Their new friend, April O'Neil, helps them take on a mysterious crime syndicate, but they soon get in over their heads when an army of mutants is unleashed upon them.

Director Jeff Rowe and writer Seth Rogen step in to take over the creative reigns of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles property in a movie done in the same animation art style of the Spider-Verse films. This time around, there is a far greater emphasis on making the four Ninja Turtle brothers banter and act like actual teenagers of today. In that, the strongest aspect of this movie is the father/sons dynamic between Splinter and the four turtles. Jackie Chan as the voice of Splinter was flawless casting and the film gives us more of a look into his backstory than the older entries did. Any teenager can relate to having an overbearing yet well meaning parent who has the typical expectations of “be home on time” or “where were you?” Great stuff there and by far my favorite aspect of this film. The Ninja Turtles themselves are also pretty well voiced, with Brady Noon as Raphael, Micah Abbey as Donatello, Nicolas Cantu as Leonardo, and Shamon Brown Jr. as Michelangelo. All four of them do an excellent job at selling the fact that they’re immature teenagers who are trying to gain acceptance from humanity.

The most impressive part is unsurprisingly the animation, which is stunning, vivid, creative, and feels just unique enough to separate it from similar movies like Spider-Verse or Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Some may complain that certain sequences should’ve been more well detailed, but I personally really appreciated that they utilized visual techniques such as drawings from sketchbooks for example to convey an artfully juvenile vibe. Having said all of that, I was honestly quite letdown by the script and kind of humor that the movie went for. The issue for me is that Seth Rogan tries so hard to make the turtles feel like real teenagers In today’s world, that a good amount of the spoken dialogue feels like it was written by your basic modern Gen Z TikTok addict. There are far too many explicit modern pop culture references, almost to the point that a celebrity or movie gets referenced in just about every other scene. This aspect may very well appeal to many viewers, particularly those who are adherents to contemporary culture, but for me, the influx of those lazy references overshadowed the moments of genuine humor or funny jokes that didn’t have anything to pertain to current pop culture or popular celebrities.

I was also able to notice how there was a lot of bad language and a running joke about “milking” that goes on for too long and came off as pretty awkward, especially for the bizarre times we live in. Ice Cube voices the villain Superfly, a mutant fly who seeks to gain acceptance from humans by you guessed it… turning everyone into mutants. Ice Cube is clearly having a lot of fun voicing Superfly, but sadly, his villainous motives are too thin and not explored enough. There’s a running theme about acceptance and the turtles being different from everyone else, however, it’s also only explored in a surface level manner.

Now, before I get tomatoes thrown at me, I’d like to preface that the next few points I’m going to make are strictly constructive and subjective to my personal views. Ayo Edebiri does a fine job voicing April O’Neil, all props to her, as none of what I’m about to say is her fault. When a director makes the choice to switch the race and physical appearance of a character who has always predominantly looked a certain way, that is going to invite backlash from fans. I’m not saying there aren’t a section of toxic internet trolls whose criticisms venture into racist/bigoted territory, but looking at it from the perspective of keeping specific attributes consistent for certain characters, the way in which April was drawn did not stay consistent with what came before. It also doesn’t help that the director himself has publicly bashed any fans who hold that criticism and this sort of “you better like it or you’re xyz” attitude only creates more division among fanbases.

On a separate note, I was rather letdown by the lack of combat scenes involving the turtles using martial arts. The third act final showdown does the thing where the villain becomes a gigantic powerful version of himself, which didn’t really allow for the turtles to have any exciting close quarters brawls. When all is said and done, I think that kids and millennials will enjoy this the most, but for me, maybe I’m just biased, I much prefer the classic 90’s films and animated series/movies to this. Overall, while it's beautifully animated, visually innovative, and has solid voice work, especially from Jackie Chan's Splinter, TMNT: MUTANT MAYHEM feels too much like a Gen Z TikTok version of the Ninja Turtles when it comes to Seth Rogan's screenplay/sense of humor, and that didn't work for me. It’s passable for kids/families, but hardcore fans of the TMNT lore are bound to be strongly divided.