TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM (2023)

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM (2023)

Tagline: Heroes aren't born. They're mutated.

(Animation, Action, Everybody’s Ugly) [PG]

My son, Michelangelo, you have heart. Donatello, you have wisdom. Raphael, you have bravery. And Leonardo... honor!

In this one, a lonely scientist is creating mutant creatures to be his friends when his lab is invaded by a mysterious militant group. In the chaos, the “ooze” the scientist was working with ends up evading the assailants, falling into the sewer. 15 years later a team of four teenage mutant ninja turtles are still staying in the shadows for fear of mankind instilled in them by Master Splinter, a large rat that has adopted them as his own. It doesn’t take long before the lonely scientist’s experiments come back to haunt the city in a crazy fight for the future of mankind, filled with mutant mayhem! 

First off, a lot of people are going to tell you this is one for the outcasts and those who feel like they don’t belong in society. It is, but so were the last couple live action TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE flicks we got. That part isn’t new. What does feel new is the cast of characters. There are a lot more mutants than we normally get in these flicks and the story is quite a bit more heartfelt than I think most people are going to expect. The dialog is fun, witty, and has just a tad of kid humor that made this IP such a wildly successful part of the pop culture psyche. 

One thing you are bound to notice about this movie right off the bad is this weird freakin animation style they went with. I get that the directors wanted it to resemble scribbles on a notebook, but because of that, a lot of this comes across as them just throwing us the guys that lost the graffiti battles in high school. It’s definitely a mess and for those that were complaining, we got an unattractive April O’Neil, don’t worry about it, everyone in this movie is ugly. Some of them only have like half a face. There are some frames that look like someone let their 3-year-old loose with a box of crayons and bam…” let’s digitally color that” and put it in the movie. Conversely, a lot of the frames do look pretty decent with fantastic color work which I think fixed a lot of the design issues. 

It’s pretty clear that they only had about an hour of story to tell so that last 15 or 20 minutes does feel kind of like it’s starting to drag us along on a ride that was already fine if it had ended at a completely different point. Then the problem with the last 15 or 20 minutes is that it really doesn’t make any sense even according to the movie's own rules. Then again, whatever, it’s still a total blast overall with a solid message I think that anyone could take and tuck away for character growth. 

None of the film's artwork and design issues are enough for me to lower the score, I just wanted to point out that it really isn’t my thing. I mean, who really cares if Splinter has 4 freakin ears or whatever the heck is going on with him. We also get a really cool cast with the likes of Jackie Chan (IRON MASK), Paul Rudd (ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA), Ice Cube (GHOSTS OF MARS), John Cena (HIDDEN STRIKE), and more. They also hired all actual teenagers to do the voice work for the turtles which is apparently the first time that has ever happened in this IP. I should also mention Ayo Edebiri does a pretty solid job voicing April O’Neal and the character is very relatable. 

Overall this ended up being more fun than I anticipated from the lackluster previews. I have to give this one a 5 out of 7. There is some plot weirdness at the end that I really think would have bumped this up concerning one of my favorite characters and just the overall final sequences altogether. Stay for the credits. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF NICKELODEON ANIMATION STUDIOS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.