TL;DR – A delightful romp of a film, stunning in its animation, and engaging in its story.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem Review –

While you try to avoid it, you can’t help but walk into a film with preconceptions, especially when it adapts to a work with a long history. When you hear Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg’s take on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, that immediately brings an idea of what the film might look like. I might have walked into here with preconceptions, but I walked out with a new respect for the animated work of the artists here.

So to set the scene, Baxter Stockman (Giancarlo Esposito) was working in a lab trying to create his own family using mutation. But before he could complete his work, TCRI tracked down his lab, and Cynthia Utrom (Maya Rudolph) ordered an attack. Stockman was killed in the commotion, but not before one of his creations could save their siblings, and one of the vials of ooze slips into the sewers and finds some baby Turtles. Fifteen years later, Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Raphael (Brady Noon) and Donatello (Micah Abbey) live with their adoptive father, Splinter (Jackie Chan), running errands in secret. They long to be more part of the Human world, but when a new villain called Superfly (Ice Cube) starts stealing supplies, new opportunities and dangers are around the corner.    

The one thing this film nails is its adaptation. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem walks the fine line between respecting its source material and being a very modern adaptation. The turtles feel like real modern teenagers, but also like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I remember from the past. I say this knowing that the film makes some significant changes to the overarching lore, but it always worked in the context of the film. What helps is that I always felt like the Turtles were a family, with Shredder being the understandable overprotective father. There is a longing for independence and exploration that often feels forced in films like this, but here, it felt completely justified. You understand where both Splinter and the Turtles are coming from, and the film understands how to make the most of that dynamic. It helps that they all feel like rounded, unique characters, rather than carbon copies, and everyone gets a character gets an arc.

The animation style is a delight, creating a digital art style that evokes hand-crafted mediums like charcoal, pastels, and Claymation. This style is fed through a grunge vibe and creates a unique world that perfectly fits a film primarily set in New York sewers. I liked how much you see the action flow in the animation’s motion, like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Dust ripping off the pavement, splashes in the water, and movement in the wind. It is needed for such a kinetic film like this when you have so many different moving parts. Even when the screen is filled with characters, you can still understand where everything is because the art style holds up.

Narratively, I feel the film works quite well, with a heavier emphasis on character development as the essential factor that they are exploring. We do start with an origin story. However, the film already knows that you have a basic understanding of what happened and spends the time setting up the themes of family that they will be examining. April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri) works well as the inciting incident and the focal point between the different worlds. She also has the funniest moment in the film that you feel terrible laughing about.

If the movie has a weak point, it is the overarching villains. There was a very generic vibe to TCRI that even some striking designs couldn’t affect. I understand why they didn’t go for the most recognisable bad guy in the first film, but there still needed to be some balance here. I liked all the mutant characters and how they integrated them into the story, even the Australian alligator Leatherhead (Rose Byrne). Superfly’s plan does make sense because, as the film says, ‘humans are devil scum’, and they are not wrong. The narrative does not entirely survive the big third-act action scene, but at least the character growth does.  

In the end, do we recommend Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem? Absolutely. I loved the time I spent with this film. I felt joy, sadness, humour, and triumphantness. The art style perfectly matched the film, the characters were a delight, and the story was one you could get behind. If you liked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem we would recommend to you Nimona.           

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Directed by – Jeff Rowe
Screenplay by – Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jeff Rowe, Dan Hernandez & Benji Samit
Story by – Brendan O’Brien, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg & Jeff Rowe
Based on – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Peter Laird & Kevin Eastman
Music by – Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
Cinematography by – Kent Seki
Edited by – Greg Levitan
Production/Distribution Companies – Nickelodeon Movies, Point Grey Pictures & Paramount Pictures
Starring – Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, Brady Noon, Jackie Chan, Ayo Edebiri, Ice Cube, Maya Rudolph, John Cena, Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Natasia Demetriou, Giancarlo Esposito, Paul Rudd, Austin Post & Hannibal Buress   
Rating – Australia: PG; Canada: PG; Germany: 6; New Zealand: na; United Kingdom: PG; United States: PG