About an hour into the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, Mutant Mayhem, the small child sitting next to me leaned over to their dad and said “this is the funnest movie I’ve ever seen”
Now, I presumably have a lot more moviegoing in my history—I mean, has this kid even seen Barry Lyndon?—so I can’t say that this is the absolute funnest. But it is a great time at the movies, especially if you have any history with TMNT, and especially if you have a kid you can take with you.
For those new to turtology: the same chemical cocktail that blinded li’l Matty Murdock and gave him extra-sensory powers dripped into the sewers, where it mutated a wise rat (named Splinter, ’cause he’s smaller than Stick) and four adorable baby turtles. Years later, the rat has taken the name Master Splinter, and he instructs the turtles, now teenagers, in the ways of martial arts. They fight crime, and have a hilarious rogues gallery. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird began writing the comics in 1984 as hyperviolent indie superhero parodies, but they’ve been adapted into multiple televisions series, seven movies, and a whole bunch of videogames, and are considerably more kid-friendly than they used to be.
This version focuses on the “teenage” part of the title. They’re about fifteen years old. They want to go to high school and learn how to drive and date. Most of all, they want some space from their dad. Master Splinter is a gentle riff on a first-generation diaspora parent: he wants to hold his family close to him, and he does not trust the culture that his children so desperately want to assimilate into. And he’s right! But also, how can his kids possibly grow into the adults they need to be unless they’re allowed to explore and take chances? And what better way to create a bridge than for the kids to use the skills he taught them to save humans, thus earning their acceptance and a place in society?
What could possibly go wrong?
But this is the hinge of what made this version feel so different to me—this is much more a story of a bunch of excitable kids and their dad than it is a story of four young martial artists and their revered teacher.
Mutant Mayhem was directed by Jeff Rowe, who was a co-writer/co-director of The Mitchells vs. the Machines, and he co-wrote the Mutant Mayhem screenplay with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (they’ve done a lot) and Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit (who co-wrote Detective Pikachu, and worked on the latest incredible live-action take on The Tick). The four actors playing the turtles—Micah Abbey (Donatello), Shamon Brown Jr. (Michelangelo), Nicolas Cantu (Leonardo), and Brady Noon (Raphael)—are all actual teens, and they’re fantastic. Brown Jr. takes Mikey in a slightly less rad ‘80s surfer dude direction, which is excellent, and Cantu pulls off the small miracle of making me like Leonardo for the first time ever. The film’s update on April O’Neil is perfect, as is Ayo Edebiri’s performance. All the mutants are unique, Ice Cube brings some real menace to main antagonist Superfly, and Jackie Chan is, obviously, an incredible Splinter. (And yes, the movie also riffs on Chan’s iconic fusion of slapstick and martial arts and it’s GREAT.)
The animation is beautiful—scratchy and lively and choppy in a way that perfectly matches the film’s tone. The occasional interjections of live-action footage work beautifully as a counterpoint to the rest of the film’s art style. In the last couple of years we’ve gotten some amazing new animated films, from Rowe’s own Mitchells vs the Machines, to Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, the miracle that is Spider-verse (but fucking treat your animators better), and there’s a new Miyazaki on the horizon, but this Turtles movie holds its own.
Best of all is that the “Mutant Mayhem” promise of the title actually does come to pass—we get to meet a number of other mutants who took different life paths than the Turtles. This expands the world of TMNT in a way that made me excited for a potential sequel—and it’s been a few years since I’ve actively wanted a sequel.
I also need to give an enthusiastic nod to the soundtrack. I didn’t think I’d live to see the day when Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross scored what is, ostensibly, a kids’ movie. I also never expected to hear “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” in a theater full of amped up children. And yet, here we are. The soundtrack feels epic, and the East Coast hip hop is used perfectly, from “Can I Kick It?” to my personal fave “No Diggity”—although therein lies a paradox, because the soundtrack does cater a bit more to the elder Millennial parents in the audience than the aforementioned amped-up children. But it’s all worth it for a musical Easter egg that will probably fly over the kids’ heads, but made me cackle in the theater.
The only real critique I have is that the story has become a little familiar. The Turtles’ story ignores their origins in Daredevil and instead hops straight over to Spider-Man. Aspects of this story reminded me a lot of Homecoming, with the very teenage Peter Parker trying to balance his superheroics with wanting to take Liz to the homecoming dance. Part of Superfly’s plot is similar to Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man. And of course, the rebellious teens trying to hide their heroics from a super-close, super-loving family as they make their way in a gorgeously animated New York can’t help but recall Miles Morales’ journey in Into the Spider-Verse. I enjoyed the movie a lot, and I think it’s a great intro for a new generation of Turtles fans, but I ended up wishing for more specificity to take its story to another level.
But! With a sequel coming, and a whole horde of mutants to play with, I’m guessing the world will grow into itself just as the Turtles grow into their roles as heroes.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.
Leah Schnelbach still wants to be Raphael when they grow up, because he is THE BEST. Way better than Donatello. Come spew rage and sarcasm at them on that site with the stupid name.
