Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

By John Corrado

★★★ (out of 4)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is the latest big screen outing for the adolescent mutant turtles trained in ninjutsu who eat pizza and live in the sewers of New York City, and it serves as a rock solid reboot of sorts for the franchise.

Directed by Jeff Rowe (The Mitchells vs. The Machines), and co-written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (among a few others), Mutant Mayhem is a lot of fun, with its Rogen-brand humour and vibrant SpiderVerse-style animation that presents everything with the graphic 2D-3D look of a comic book brought to life.

But the film’s real secret weapon is that it’s also surprisingly sweet at times in a way that I didn’t expect from a Ninja Turtles movie, with a coming-of-age story that is grounded in our young heroes wanting to be accepted as normal teens.

You see, after gaining special powers from the radioactive ooze that was spilled on them as hatchlings, turtle boys Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), Donatello (Micah Abbey), Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu) and Raphael (Brady Noon) have lived a sheltered life with their rat dad Master Splinter (Jackie Chan) below the streets of New York. They have been taught to fear people, but they are eternally curious about the human world, sneaking out to get junk food and watch movies in the park.

Their dream is to attend high school like normal kids, but they have been rejected by society due to them being talking, humanoid turtles. A glimmer of hope arrives when they meet April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri), a human high schooler with aspirations to become a journalist, who is investigating a powerful crime syndicate run by Superfly (Ice Cube) and an army of other mutants. They hatch a plan to save the city, because if they can become heroes, then the world will hopefully stop seeing them as monsters, and maybe even come to like them.

Without losing the edge that the Ninja Turtles have always had, Rowe’s film also finds a way to make these four turtle brothers genuinely endearing. The film finds that sweet spot between delivering the action and humour that fans want, while also offering likeable characterizations that allow them to be a bit vulnerable, with their mix of fear and overconfidence making them sound like actual teen boys. This includes the decision to cast teenaged voice actors (and record some of their dialogue together), which lends more of an authenticity to the film.

It’s in these character interactions that Mutant Mayhem ends up feeling most like a Seth Rogen movie (Rogen and Goldberg also produced it through their Point Grey banner), including quick banter and a slew of pop culture references. There are some amusing running gags threaded through, and despite being aimed at families, the film even gets away with some gross out humour and salty language. The scrappy, hand-drawn visual style of the film lends to its overall grungy aesthetic, including some gnarly character designs, and the backdrop of a decaying, crime-riddled New York City.

Even though it’s set in modern day (complete with the turtles using smartphones and social media), Mutant Mayhem has a generally enjoyable ’90s vibe to it, including a soundtrack of old school hip-hop needle drops. The film also features a musical score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that is honestly pretty incredible, mixing pounding techno beats and some softer synth moments (including one music cue that is fittingly right out of a John Hughes movie).

The highly stylized animation makes this is a true visual treat, with several big-scale action sequences that pop off the screen. But it’s the surprising amount of heart behind it that really ties the film together, with a message about embracing found family and the desire to be accepted that is heartwarming and oddly charming (and will resonate with anyone who has ever felt like a misfit or social outcast). It’s also just a fun and enjoyable Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. What a nice surprise.