Directed By Jeff Rowe and Kyle Spears

Starring – Ayo Edebiri, Jackie Chan, Rose Byrne

The Plot – 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 (Edebiri), 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.

Rated PG for sequences of violence and action, adult language and impolite material

(32) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem | Official Trailer (2023 Movie) – Seth Rogen – YouTube

POSITIVES

After Michael Bay pillaged my childhood with two of the franchise’s weakest installments, the team of Rowe and Spears restore my faith, taking things back to the animated renderings that represent the turtles origin story as a comic strip. Doing such affords this film many vital qualities, but none more prominent than the intentionally rough and stop motion movements of a 2D and 3D hybrid animation that lifts authenticity from its pages. With the recent success of the animated “Spider-Verse” franchise, more films are inspired to reap that comic book uniqueness, and while “Mutant Mayhem” certainly homages this element, its qualities are far more dark, grittier, and in my opinion more photographically realistic than its predecessor, bringing a colorfully rich presentation in static reels and world-building consistency that frames every shot of New York City gorgeously with the kind of cyberpunk surrealism in lighting that inscribes life to this aging franchise. The animation is not only expressive with intimate details, primarily during fighting sequences, but also articulate for how it effectively renders the familiarity of so many legendary characters of the lore, with especially our turtle protagonists receiving a much-welcome upgrade from whatever that was in the Bayverse. On those characters, the production has assembled a dream team ensemble in bringing each of them to life, and while not everybody receives ample time needed to shine, the ones who make the most of their minutes, like Paul Rudd as Mondo Gecko, or Jackie Chan as Master Splinter, push the material miles with their impeccable deliveries and three-dimensional charisma that can be felt loudest with voice deposits. Chan in particular inscribes a vulnerable side to Splinter that really hasn’t been seen in previous installments, leaving him not only ripe for various punchlines that pay-off at his expense, but also outlining a lovable side to the master-turned-father that radiates the film’s warm hearted center. The turtles themselves are portrayed by relative unknown child actors, which I feel pays off immensely in seeing them exclusively as the animated entities they portray, but beyond that cementing emphasis to the ‘Teenage’ in ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’, which often is the easiest overlooked aspect in any of these movies. Beyond the talents of the ensemble and breathtaking imagery of the animation, the film is equally blessed a compelling script that feels like comfort food for fans of every generation. This brings forth many effective elements of comedic punchlines in the material, with producer Seth Rogen’s influence being felt all over the various environmental observations and occasionally crude humor of the turtles, which feels directly plucked from one of his movies. Aside from this, however, the film surprisingly has a lot of depth to its emotional range and corresponding themes, bringing to light the isolation factor of the turtles lives underground that leaves them ripe for loneliness at a time when each of them are in their prime youths. Exploring this element drives much of the conflict, with their own adolescent irresponsibilities fueling the fire of the antagonists that eventually overwhelm them, but also supplants the film with an endearing message that every age will properly attain in the folds of some pretty unpredictable turns. In addition, the film is blessed with a mid credits scene that will excite enthusiasts for the next installment of the series, all while imbedding resolution to this current installment. Lastly, the musical score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is unlike anything that the duo have ever constructed, with electronic instrumental compositions that would easily be right at home with Reznor’s time in Nine Inch Nails. The tracks themselves really give the action sequences an element of grit and overwhelming panic to the proceedings, and when coupled with the film’s hip-hop infused culture in everything from the soundtrack choices to the personalities of certain characters, really ratchets a one of a kind uniqueness that this franchise hasn’t felt in a long time, with what I value as easily its most ambitiously complete production to date with artistic visionaries behind every corner.

NEGATIVES

However, “Mutant Mayhem” is far from perfect, as a few nagging instances frequently took away from an otherwise delightful engagement, with the first wearing unfortunate influence throughout the entirety of its 94 minute run time. I’m obviously talking about the crafted dialogue, which not only feels timely relevant in ways which will inevitably date it, but also unnaturally manufactured from people off-screen who are feeding these lines, instead of the characters themselves attaining naturalism in the ways they’re conjured. There are tons of examples littered throughout the film that frequently made me cringe and even groan with distaste, but primarily I point to contemporary references in everything from movie stars to pop music lyrics, which reek of the kind of desparation that product-shilling productions shamelessly peddle. I can understand that these are teenagers, and that movies and music are an element of their upbringing, but it’s not always coming from just the turtles, which seemingly echo its intentions, and considering the dialogue is so forcefully shoving this into the mouths of its characters, “Mutant Mayhem” attains the kind of quality where an older, outdated person attempts to be hip by zeroing in on the lingo of the contemporary culture. Beyond the dialogue, I also felt the antagonist and his corresponding villains were brutally underutilized here, with an imbalance between halves that hints at a rewritten screenplay. For the first half of the movie, they’re nowhere to be seen, instead replaced by an overload of flashback backstories and exposition dumps about our protagonists that becomes old by the half hour mark, and in the second half it’s mutant overload, as if by some realization that they had forty minutes left, and haven’t really progressed the conflict any further. It’s bad enough that this super team of villains involves some pretty huge names of the franchise being forced to share what little time they’re already given, but it’s even worse when the primary villain himself is a made-up newcomer to the proceedings, whom I didn’t have any kind of attachment towards, what so ever. Because the film spends so little time with this antagonist, I never felt the fate of the world, or the future of the turtles, were in much jeopardy, and while I did enjoy the explosion of devastation that was the climax action sequence, this is essentially just Ice Cube playing Ice Cube, who leans too heavily on the comedic emphasis that saturate his character’s integrity.

OVERALL
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” is a shell-shocking colorfully exuberant and creatively refreshing addition to a nostalgic franchise whose better days we thought were long behind us. With a daring deviation to the story’s long-standing formula and its corresponding characters, the film exudes itself as a butt-kicking romper with just enough comedic consistency, technical bravado, and family merit to succeed an underwhelming villain and hip-heavy lingo, making this easily the best Turtles film since the 1990 live action original.

My Grade: 7/10 or B