Cert – PG, Run-time – 1 hour 40 minutes, Director – Jeff Rowe
Looking for acceptance in New York four young mutant turtles (Nicholas Cantu, Brady Noon, Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr.) find it in a group of tougher mutant animals, although they may have darker intentions for their relationship with humans.
Despite having multiple iterations over the years, including a number of seemingly successful TV series, there’s perhaps been a feeling around the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that a number of their core personality traits are very much products of the late 80s and early 90s. It’s likely that this view is down to a general lack of familiarity with the characters beyond ‘the basics’, and having seen a couple of their big-screen appearances. Regardless, the TMNT quartet feel firmly in place in 2023, with their usual love of pizza and the occasional ‘cowabunga’, as they’re allowed to still feel like teenagers while engaging in some modern-day, fresh-feeling – yet not dark and gritty – violence.
A highlight sequence involves a car chase led into by 4-Non Blondes’ What’s Up – after an excellent punchline involving the song, perhaps one of the best gags of the year. The graphic novel style of the animation rushes by with blurs amongst the fast-flowing movement of vehicles and mutant animals. The titular turtles (Nicholas Cantu, Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Brady Noon) thought things were going pretty smoothly as they’d made their way into bulky villain Superfly’s (Ice Cube) gang. For 15 years they’ve been trapped in the sewers, honing their ninja skills with the help of their rat father Splinter (Jackie Chan), Bruce Lee flicks and the occasional instructional VHS, hoping for the day they might be accepted by humans instead of creating fear.
However, there’s hope in aspiring high-school journalist April (Ayo Edebiri) who appears to accept the turtles for who they are, even if some of their actions seem a little strange. Yet, they’re the actions which come across most as teenagers simply joking with each other. There’s a natural sense to a lot of their dialogue, and while it remains to see how well some of it will age, there’s an enjoyable humour to much of it; and, most of all, you actually believe that they’re teenagers (it likely helps that they’re brought to life by a group of likable teenage voice performances). Teenagers who still have the ability to fight off a bad guy with the ability to destroy an entire city.
Things move along with an entertaining style and pace, helped by a sense of threat and darkness from the central villain. Indeed the gang as a whole demonstrate a threat, but for the most part they act as comic relief, particularly when voiced by the likes of Paul Rudd (playing a character who, like Rudd’s real life appearance, seems to have not left the 90s), Natasia Demetriou, Rose Byrne and John Cena. The core source of antagonism is Superfly, with Ice Cube’s performance getting across a lot of the aforementioned darkness. Such feelings help with the tiered stages of the third act battle in the streets of New York. A colourful, finely animated set of events heightened because of the personality of both the characters and the animation.
There’s plenty of well-captured action throughout – one montage in particular of each turtle showing off their skills features an excellent rotating camera shot just to top the whole thing off. The modern style comes through in such action sequences as they move quickly with plenty of entertainment factor. Capturing the equally enjoyable personalities of the central figures, brought to life through likable performances and dialogue. Pizza Hut better get ready, they’re about to get an increase in business.
A fast and enjoyable set of gags and action sequences help to make a finely-animated modern day venture for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as Mutant Mayhem allows them to actually feel like teenagers through both performance and dialogue.
Just A Little Bit Random 