TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM brings the turtle power back to movie theaters
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Directed by Jeff Rowe and Kyler Spears
Written by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and Jeff Rowe
Starring Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu and Brady Noon
Rated PG for sequences of violence and action, language and impolite material
Runtime: 99 minutes
Now playing in theaters
by Billy Russell, Staff Writer
Just because the people involved in a project are excited about it, and you can tell that they have a love for the source material, it doesn’t always translate to a good movie. In the months leading up to the release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, I knew that Seth Rogen was excited, and that he deeply loved the source material. Even the original creators of the turtle-y awesome, shelled heroes Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman had hyped up the movie, but of course they would. It’s their baby, no matter who’s producing it, and that kind of joy is palpable, just to see it come to life.
I didn’t expect much. I never try to expect much when I’m seeing a new movie. High expectations can sink a reaction to a movie. But even still, even with my regular amount of cynicism, I had extra cynicism stacked on top of it. Aside from Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie last year and maybe TMNT in 2007, it’s been a long time since the Turtles have had a hit. I was born in 1986, so Mikey, Donny, Raph and Leo have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember having coherent memories. I, of course, had the toys, I watched the show religiously, and I saw the first two movies on tape so many damn times that whenever I see the New Line logo appear, I half expect a Burger King Kid’s Club commercial, followed by a trailer for Stepkids (a movie I’m convinced doesn’t actually exist, but was only created for the VHS intro for Secret of the Ooze), and then an hour and a half of sewer-dwelling shenanigans.
So, yes, the Turtles and I go way back.
I saw their newest outing, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, yesterday of my birthday. My wife even bought me a little pin that says “It’s Turtle Time!” I was ready to do this thing.
The first thing that you will notice is that the animation is fantastic stuff. It’s a combination of CGI and digital ink drawings with intentional haphazard line drawings that seem to want to break away from the confines of the screen. It’s reminiscent of the style pioneered by the likes of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and while Mutant Mayhem doesn’t perfect the style or do anything new with it, the style fits the narrative perfectly.
The score, courtesy of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, is excellent. It’s one of the rare scores in a movie where you wonder, “Who scored this thing? I need to find out because it’s great.” And when I saw the credits was like, oh, that makes perfect sense. It hits the perfect balances in the action, and during the quieter moments to elicit a gentle pathos.
Now, as for the stars of the show, the Turtles themselves, I would be curious to hear if the directors had the young voice cast get to know each other before recording their voices, because they have a natural chemistry together. Even moreso than the first Ninja Turtles movie in 1990, there seems to be a real comradery between the boys. They feel like actual friends or brothers.
The rest of the cast comes in strong, too. Ayo Edebiri is great as the younger-than-we’re used-to version of April O’Neil. She’s not a seasoned reporter this time around, she’s as young as the Turtles. Jackie Chan provides the voice of Splinter who, in this film, is much more of a classical father figure than a master trainer. He struggles, sometimes fails, but is always trying his best to protect them. His voice-acting here helps this be one of his all-time best performances. Of course, the voice cast of the bad guys is very good, too. Ice Cube is great as the heavy, and has a lot of fun with the material given to him.
There are easter eggs galore, but done well, and not at all obnoxious. This isn’t fan service for the sake of high-fiving each other over references. There are visual gags that reminisce over the foursome’s past. We see a handful of exciting fight scenes shot from side profile, like the classic beat-em-up arcades. In Splinter’s fight scene, we see that the filmmakers have studied Jackie Chan’s filmography and adapted his fighting style to animation: He runs away from trouble, then utilizes the environment around him to its advantage. It’s all very clever stuff.
But how’s the story? All of the above is great, sure, but without a worthy story, who cares, right? All of this talent and cleverness could be in vain.
In just over an hour and a half, we are introduced to our new turtles, the Big Bad, the fears they all share, and everything gets wrapped up in a nice little package at the end. The movie speeds along at an efficient pace, stopping along frequently enough that we get to know the Turtles individually along the way, and care about what happens to them. I understand I’m in the minority on this opinion, but I thought the newest Spider-Verse movie was a big letdown from the original. Mutant Mayhem tells a much more complete story, with an hour less screen time, too. It knows how to tell a complete story and hits all those dramatic beats in a way that feels organic.
I felt giddy afterward, similarly to how I did when I saw the first Spider-Verse movie. I hope that if and when the heroes in a half shell get a sequel, that the follow-up doesn’t get bogged down with too many distractions and lost in a larger universe that becomes hyper fixated on spectacle. Yes, we come to these movies to see the Turtles kick butt (and they did in a way that felt more exciting than most feature-length movies these days), but we also come to these movies to see them riff off each other. We come for the silly creatures, of course, but the stars are, and always will be, the Turtles themselves.
Cowabunga, dudes.