Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem: Review

TMNT finally understands the teenage part of their name

As I stated in my last post, the late summer schedule has been pretty sparse with films I’m excited to see. With no energy to muster myself to watch the newest DC project Blue Beetle, I ultimately decided to check out the seventh installment in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles media franchise Mutant Mayhem.

This isn’t seventh as in the seventh sequel, but rather another theatrical reboot of the beloved media franchise. I was never the biggest TMNT fan growing up but I definitely watched a few episodes of their animated series on Cartoon Network as a child. I think the biggest reason I was reluctant to see this was less that it was clearly a kid’s movie, but more that it was yet another project based on an unoriginal concept using past successful intellectual property to hedge the risk of a commercial flop. I understand the reason studios do this, especially since the pandemic there is much less enthusiasm for driving to the theaters. But as a cinephile, I typically prefer to look for the original script before the rebooted one. But since my original script alternative was Meg 2, here we are…

Over the next course of the decade (if movies are still around) expect to see animation of this style. The influence of arguably my all-time favorite animated movie Into the Spider-Verse (2018) is abundant throughout this project and, fortunately, never to the point of being derivative. The human characters in this film are more grotesque looking than the mutants and New York City comes off as a heaping pile of garbage (so I guess done pretty accurately). Although the grotesque human animation was jarring at first, I found myself slowly getting more accustomed to the style as the film progressed and it ended up working well with the tone of the narrative as well. And the visual depiction of New York is a perfect fit for our sewer-racing turtle teens.

Arguably the most difficult element to get just right in a film such as this one is creating a group of likable and believable teenagers, something Mutant Mayhem hits out of the park thanks to seasoned vets in the writing room for these kinds of movies Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. It may surprise you that this is the first TMNT movie to cast all four of its leads as actual teenagers, but what might not surprise you is that they all recorded their scenes together in the booth as the chemistry between the four turtles is alive and well. Each of the four actors (Nicolas Cantu, Brady Noon, Shamon Brown Jr., and Micah Abbey) displays a unique personality and touch to their respective turtles and it nails the most important part of the jumbled title (teenage!).

This helps the most when the film needs to emotionally resonate with the audience because ultimately this film is about finding your place as a rejected member of society, not something that requires being a mutant turtle to relate to. Where you fit in within your own group is just as much explored with Jackie Chan doing a fine job as the adoptive father of the turtles: a mutant rat the boys call Master Splinter. On the other side of the city, Ice Cube has the stand-out performance as the main villain of the film Superfly, a mutant (you guessed it) fly that is hellbent on exacting revenge on the species of humans that have rejected his and the boys’ kind. His goal is to release the mutant ooze our turtles were born from into the atmosphere mutating every animal, fish, and insect in the world outnumbering and destroying human civilization.

If this all sounds pretty absurd, it absolutely is which works both to the film’s advantage and disadvantage. The various mutant creatures make for some fun action scenes that any kid will love, but I think the film is at its best when it takes a step back and spends some more intimate time with the four teens and their father. It’s a difficult task to make emotionally resonant scenes with four mutant turtles and a mutant rat. However, there’s an ambient synth that plays sporadically in these more intimate scenes that just enthralled me and it wasn’t until the credits rolled that I learned it was Trent Reznor - musical genius and leader of the industrial rock group Nine Inch Nails - behind the score. When this track was playing I was listening more intently than ever, which goes to show how much a great score can elevate a film or scene.

Unfortunately, these scenes aren’t quite enough to save what is at best an average screenplay. The lessons our characters learn don’t stand out as much as the physical aspects of this film, and while Ice Cube gives a masterclass in voice acting his character Superfly is not quite at the same level. We could have really used some more time spent with the main villain and I think our characters could have benefited from spending additional time with the villain. Despite the cost of this ruining the hilarious character intro of our villain, the narrative arc of Superfly seducing our characters to his cause to the eventual dismay of the turtles toward his actual intentions and the consequences to human life they impose feels rushed and could have benefited from being a more focused part of the overarching story.

Additionally, while our four leads, their father, and Superfly are all enjoyable and fleshed-out characters, the same can’t be said of the surrounding ones, especially that of April O’Neil: the first human our characters interact with and their on-the-ground ally. I feel bad saying this but I need to be honest here, Ayo Edebiri’s performance just did not work for me. It doesn’t help that the writers provide her with some of the most obvious and cringe-inducing one-liners, but Edebiri’s abrupt performance doesn’t do any favors either. I’m sure she’s fantastic in Hulu’s The Bear as I’ve heard from friends, but it was a sore spot I couldn’t get completely past.

But it’s not just one shortfall that keeps this movie from entering the realm of thought-provoking for me. It’s many small ones that culminate into a film that has its moments but prevents the project from becoming a great example of a fun kid’s film with mature themes that any age group can enjoy. When I think back to the best children’s movies from the recent past, such as Across the Spider-Verse (2023) and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022), there’s a passionate focus to the characters of our stories over the story itself that Mutant Mayhem is simply missing. Sure, our lead actors work seamlessly with each other, but their motivations and desires are at best surface level. The film’s obsession with the physical animation and absurd nature of its premise additionally create a double-edged sword that on the one hand allows an imaginative plot to develop but creates a barrier to the emotional intimacy required to elevate a children’s movie into a great movie.

If you have a young child or grew up loving the TMNT franchise then absolutely go watch this film as there’s plenty to enjoy. But the past few years have produced excellent animated movies that when compared to Mutant Mayhem put a sobering reminder of how high the ceiling on this movie can reach.

Final Thought:

6.9