I Just Saw

Co-written by Seth Rogan, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a surprisingly fun and effective cartoon feature, drawn in the kinetic, impressionistic style of the SpiderVerse movies and scored with a thumping mix of modern and classic pop standards. It seems that with this combination studios have re-energised comic-book films to a super-heroic degree, breaking (or at least thrashing against) the chains of the Marvel and DC templates. Structural issues remain, mostly the enervating final fight sequences that resemble the last bosses in a video game and have to be absurdly large scale, but overall these films represent a bold new future (as well as defibrillator paddles) for their particular genre.

The Turtles have had a mixed career, at least in terms of quality. Financially, they’re a pizza-breathed leviathan comparable to Kiss in how much product they’ve been slapped on. (Are there Turtle coffins, like with Kiss? I hope so.) The first few live-action films were box office successes, and the first of those at least is a pretty good movie for what it is. The second inspired an infamous moment in British censorship when a scene of a Turtle using a string of sausages as nunchucks was removed for its depiction of “combat weapons”.

Censorship has dogged the characters, which were originally intended as a parody of comic book heroes before they were adopted as children’s icons. The central concept is intrinsically dark, weird, and violent, and one of the best things about Mutant Mayhem is that it leans into this aspect while still delivering a fun time for children. Moreover, the Turtle boys are surprisingly well-delineated for characters normally distinguished just by their different-coloured domino masks; they’re loveable goofball crime fighters.

After an exciting prologue introduces us to the inciting incident that creates the Turtles, courtesy of evil scientist Cynthia Utrom (Maya Rudolph), we see our Renaissance-named heroes Donatello (Micah Abbey), Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), and Raphael (Brady Noon) stalk the NY streets at night to retrieve groceries for themselves and their adopted master, the rat Splinter (Jackie Chan). Splinter wants his boys to stay in the sewer, away from prejudiced and violent humans. But then they meet April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri), an aspiring journalist still in high school, who helps them rumble a mutant baddie called Superfly (Ice Cube), hellbent on deadly revenge against humans.

It’s a problem that voice actors have been replaced in large part by celebrities for cinema, but the cast here does a good job. Ice Cube is particularly effective as Superfly, a genuinely menacing and even sympathetic villain, driven by rage at a bigoted world. One especially strong moment sees him recall when he first took a life, and it’s oddly compelling for a kid’s film, as well as clever in how it substitutes blood for ketchup in-universe, allowing for the point to be made while remaining child-friendly.

The film is rated PG, as it should be. This is a gargantuan improvement over the three CGI Turtles films that previously came out in the 21st century. It bothers to have a story and a style, doesn’t just skate by on nihilistic action with little form or purpose. Mutant Mayhem never stops moving, perfectly synthesising the visuals and music to create an energetic action comedy with a heartfelt message about accepting those who look different. It’s warm, it’s smart, it’s a breath of fresh ooze.

Sidenote: This version posits a romance between Donatello and April. Has that been a thing in previous TMNT properties? And is it crude to wonder how sex would work between them? I once saw a YouTube video of a turtles’ penis mid-arousal, and all I’ll say is: I hope the poor girl’s done her kegels.

Rating: 3/4