What Mutant Mayhem gets right about TMNT

In the midst of the strongest summer movie season in years, and with Barbie and Oppenheimer still casting a long shadow in cinemas, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem had a lot working against it at the box office in its opening week. Yet this animated reboot managed to cut through the noise like a carefully sharpened katana, earning praise from critics and fans alike. In his review for The A.V. Club, Manuel Betancourt called the film “a refreshing reappraisal of a property that could very well have felt stale in 2023.”

You’ve probably heard at least one person say that Barbie exceeded all expectations of what a Barbie movie could be—maybe you’ve said as much yourself. Well, the same is true of Mutant Mayhem. Would a by-the-numbers CG-animated TMNT movie still have found an audience? Probably. But boy are we grateful that the film we got is far more ambitious and creative than it needed to be. At every step in the process, from writing to casting to animation, there’s legitimate love and respect for the source material, and that has made it more than just cynical nostalgia bait. As long as Hollywood insists on relying on old IP to draw in audiences, this is a good example of how to do it the right way.

Remixed for a new era

Since they first appeared in an indie comic series by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in 1984, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been anything but consistent as characters. Through many iterations, mediums, and tones, they’ve been constantly reimagined to appeal to a wide range of target audiences and timely sensibilities. The adults who picked up the original comics—which were violent, edgy, and loaded with satirical humor—weren’t necessarily tuning into the Saturday morning cartoons or buying tickets to the cheesy live-action films in the ’90s.

Over the decades, the Turtles have been many things to many people, so one of the many challenges any new TMNT project has to overcome is appealing to several generations of fans all at once. What the writing team behind Mutant Mayhem (including Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jeff Rowe, Dan Hernandez, and Benji Samit) cleverly figured out is that the world of the Turtles is so absurd and silly that it can conceivably contain elements of all of the versions that have come before. Without being too cutesy or meta, it winkingly references the original comics, cartoons, films, toys, and games and brings them all under the same goofy umbrella. Is Vanilla Ice’s “Ninja Rap” from Secret Of The Ooze here? Why, yes it is, and it fits right in.

Putting the Teenage back in TMNT

With all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films and TV series that have come before, it’s surprising that none of them ever had actual teenagers perform the voices of the Turtles (according to Seth Rogen). Mutant Mayhem, on the other hand, doesn’t just lean into the immaturity and naiveté of its half-shelled heroes—it makes that its central theme.

It was important to the creative team to cast teenage actors in the lead roles, so we get the delightful exuberance of young Micah Abbey as Donatello, Shamon Brown Jr. as Michelangelo, Nicolas Cantu as Leonardo, and Brady Noon as Raphael, with all the age-appropriate slang and references. The four of them recorded all their group scenes together. Director Jeff Rowe and co-director Kyler Spears let them riff, improvise, and be themselves, then incorporated that into the final film. It gives the characters an authenticity you couldn’t get any other way. Let’s face it, the Turtles have always been a little cringey (has any teen in recorded history ever really shouted “Cowabunga!” without irony?), but for the first time that awkwardness feels like it comes from a realistic place.

The idea carries through to the narrative, too. This reboot is a coming-of-age story first and foremost, taking us back to the characters’ mutant origins and the reasons behind their heroic aspirations. They’re the ultimate outcasts, sheltered down in the sewers by their adoptive father Master Splinter (Jackie Chan) for their own good, or so he believes. Their shared arc is laid out as a quest for acceptance from the human world, and becoming heroes seems to be the shortest path to getting there. It’s just natural adolescent angst, amplified yet still relatable.

Pairing the aesthetic with the theme

That youthful energy carries over into the look of the film. It’s been compared to Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, but Mutant Mayhem is a bit more specific in the style it wants to invoke. Rowe has said that he wanted the animation to look like it could have been drawn in a teenager’s notebook. The visuals are intentionally rough and amateurish, filled with scribbles and scratches that call to mind the franchise’s comic book origins. There are no generic CG images here; the world is perfectly imperfect.

Even when the filmmakers drop in live-action film footage, like the scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off that plays during the outdoor movie night in Brooklyn, or the kung fu clips that sum up Master Splinter’s training techniques, it doesn’t pull you out of the story, because by that time you’re so used to the unconventional and unexpected that you just roll with it. The film even finds time to celebrate TMNT fan art, showcasing what appear to be handmade drawings by actual young fans. A true appreciation of art and animation comes through in every frame, from start to finish.

Filling in the picture with memorable characters

Finding a fresh take on a longstanding franchise and building an innovative world are valuable and important, but without compelling characters, it’s hard to get an audience fully on board. The design of the Turtles combines the look from the comic books, the cartoon series, the action figures (that’s where the belts with the initials come from), and even the live-action versions. Of course, Leo, Raph, Mikey, and Donnie are all great, but they need other characters to bounce off of and fight. Thankfully, there’s no shortage of them here.

Rogen (who appears as the voice of Bebop) and his writing partner Evan Goldberg were likely instrumental in getting people like their friends Paul Rudd (Mondo Gecko) and Rose Byrne (Leatherhead) involved. Ice Cube is the perfect blend of chill and menacing as the villainous Superfly. Rounding out the mutant crew is a murderer’s row of talent, including Natasia Demetriou (Wingnut), Hannibal Buress (Genghis Frog), John Cena (Rocksteady), and Post Malone (Ray Fillet). Jackie Chan is equally funny and empathetic as Master Splinter, more father than sensei this time around. And then there’s Ayo Edibiri (who keeps popping up in various projects this summer and is always a welcome addition) as a reimagined April O’Neil, who’s now the same age as the Turtles and suffers from a serious case of camera shyness.

The filmmakers are well aware that all of these characters will be familiar to fans, so they take care in keeping their essence while still updating and upgrading them for a modern audience. In keeping with the art style of a teenage amateur, the goons and background characters are not always well drawn. They sometimes have Picasso-like faces, or simplistic features. It all fits together, though, as part of the greater aesthetic.

Most importantly, everyone involved in the film seems to be having a blast, from the actors to the writers to the directors and right on down the line. And that’s perhaps the biggest thing we can take away from the success of Mutant Mayhem—a franchise like this should only be entrusted to someone who will have fun making it. After seeing the film, and knowing that there’s a sequel and a new series in the works, we can say with confidence that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are in good hands.