Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a fresh take on the renegade reptiles

April checks her journalism against the Turtles. // Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

Considering we last had a (mostly forgotten) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot in 2014, which spawned a (slightly less forgotten) sequel two years later, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a little soon for another big-screen go at the franchise. However, it gives us great pleasure to report that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem was worth making.

It’s a rare reboot that manages to entertain kids, teens, and adults alike.

From the jump, Mutant Mayhem plays with the established TMNT origin story (green glowing ooze in the NYC sewer turns four baby turtles and a rat into human-sized superheroes and their wise mentor) in fun and creative ways. Co-writers and producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, alongside co-directors Jeff Rowe & Kyler Spears, mix up the formula while respecting what came before. 

Here the turtles actually feel like teenagers of today, rather than holdovers from a bygone era.

Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Donatello (Micah Abbey), Michaelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), and Raphael (Brady Noon) are struggling with late teenagerdom. While they’re connected to the outside world—they have internet, laptops, and cell phones—they’ve spent their entire lives isolated in the sewers. This is mostly due to their mentor Splinter’s (Jackie Chan) warning that humans may try to “capture and milk” his foster kids. It’s the reason he taught them martial arts in the first place.

Desperate to use their talents on the streets and the chance that saving the day leads to an adoring public, the foursome plots to take down the criminal mastermind Superfly (Ice Cube), with the help of their new human friend April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri). Unbeknownst to them, Superfly has his own merry band of mutant miscreants including Bebop (Rogen), Rocksteady (John Cena), and the adorably annoying Mondo Gecko (Paul Rudd) ready to face them. 

The story isn’t the only element getting a fresh coat of paint. The animation has a new perspective as well. Similar to Spider-man Into the Spider-Verse’s ingenious use of comic book dot-matrix style, Mutant Mayhem mixes blocky 3D and cell-shaded graphics to create unique and striking visuals.

It’s garish, occasionally ugly, chaotic, beautiful, and exactly what the film needs.

Stray lines of color and squiggles play up the comic nature and command attention. Paired with an astonishing score by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, the 90-ish minute runtime breezes by.

Additionally, Mutant Mayhem effortlessly and succinctly conveys its central themes of family and acceptance. Both of those have long been undercurrents to the TMNT franchise, but here they’re cast in a different light. Mutant Mayhem offers a look at found family, and the ways that any group willing to care for and raise each other as best they can is a family unto itself. This is paired with a consideration of acceptance that fuels both the heroes and the villains alike. For both the turtles and Superfly’s crew, “othering” has forced them to the margins, either creating a desire to be seen as good, or a need to dominate everything that turned them away.

The mere fact that some may decry the eventual hopeful end message as “easy” or “misguided” (it’s heady stuff for a kid’s movie) speaks to just how timely and important its inclusion is.

In 2023 no one was expecting much from a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. Yet this is also the year that has proved that movies which on the outside look like giant commercials for toys, have more going on under the surface. Much like this year’s Barbie, Mutant Mayhem proves you can’t judge a book by the cover.

As long as there are creative and passionate filmmakers looking to break the system from within, cinema will always be a place full of surprises.—even when it comes to heroes in a half-shell.