I'm alive! As is this blog that I dropped the ball on last year, but hope to at least continue on this year with hopefully some improvement. And for our nineteenth blog, we're once again returning both to the realm of animation and to a more current release as this was one that was on my backlog for a while and, surprisingly, I finally got around to it. I'm of the mind that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as an IP is probably among the most timeless IPs out there. That it can be something that can be changed enough to evolve with the times. That something so tinged in the eighties can still be turned into something more modern in the 2020s is no small feat, and that's what Jeff Rowe sought to do with 2023's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Was it a display of turtle power or a case of Ninja, Ninja Crap? Let's pump over a thousand words talking about it.
The plot doesn't differ too much from most Turtles movies, only with a heavier focus on comedy writing fitting of most animated films. Fifteen years after being covered by the TCRI ooze, the turtles are now teens who want to be accepted by the outside world. However, their overprotective rat father Splinter (played by Jackie Chan) tries to steer them away from the human world due to his own attempt at interacting with the world not going super well. After the Turtles help and befriend a teenage April O'Neil, the five work together to stop the deadly villain Superfly in hopes of gaining acceptance from everyone. However, Superfly is a mutant fly created by Baxter Stockman by the same ooze that created the Turtles. Superfly, along with his mutant brethren, including Bebop, Rocksteady, Mondo Gecko and more, set to create a device that will mutate all animals to get revenge on the humans due to a similar experience with the humans not accepting them. And it all leads to an action packed battle to stop Superfly from destroying New York.
My first props to this movie is the art style because my god it looks amazing. I really love that because of the success of Spider-Verse, we've been seeing more unique attempts at animated films away from the safer norms. And with Mutant Mayhem, it shines, giving everything a very gritty, almost sketchbook brought to life feel of the world. Which would probably clash far worse in any other situation, but the movie's energy and visual flare make everything have this clay-like, papier-mache look that I really appreciate. I also like the designs of the characters themselves. Given a more grittier look than usual, while still remaining super cartoony. I love how the turtles look in particular, how they feel in tone to most of the versions of the characters while having their own flare to them. Little things like Michelangelo having braces is a touch you wouldn't think of that works in, again, signifying that these are teenagers.
So, let's talk about April. I really wish I didn't have to talk about April in any way other than I like her design, but given the shit that came out of the last few months, it's kind of an elephant in the room. When the trailer first hit and April's design was shown, I immediately knew that chuds weren't going to shut the fuck up about this. Either because the character is black, or not attractive to them, or both. Despite the earliest version of April being black and it being later media like the 80s cartoon that definitively whitewashed her to which most other media has had her as white. So the more recent takes on April, both this and Rise of the TMNT, gained scorn from the most obvious subsets of people. Add in that people are accusing the design of being a self-insert and I just roll my eyes.
April's design is fine. She looks like an average teenager. She acts like an average teenager. Because the point in general is that she's an average teenager. If she were white it wouldn't matter either because I'm more interested in the character and how she works in this movie's world. And she works great, having a strong rapport with the turtles (even if the Leonardo crush stuff kind of feels cringe), and she's pivotal in helping them in the end. I also really don't care how she looks because I'm not going into this movie wanting to beat off to a what is still an underage character. That wasn't the intent of the movie and I'm glad they didn't even attempt it. So yeah, I had to make two paragraphs on this. I think the design is fine, the character is fine, the outrage is lame, moving on.
Speaking of these characters being teenagers, that's something I really appreciated. It feels like the first real TMNT product to have the turtles feel like teenage characters and not just a cursory thought of what teens are into. Be it Donatello's anime fandom, their constant pop culture talk, even down to them talking over one another so excitedly. Hell, right down to the use of sus and rizz. Doesn't hurt that the movie uses teen actors for the voices of the turtles which adds to that authenticity. The voice cast in general is solid. Particularly Ice Cube as Superfly, who makes for a great new villain in the TMNT franchise. Being both the classic Fly Baxter concept but with his own uniqueness. I like the other mutants as well, though I really wish most of them had more to do. Especially Leatherhead. Of all the other mutants, she's the most "oh yeah, they added that character too" to the cast.
I also like Jackie Chan as Splinter and the general take on this version. Not being the pet of a ninja master, or the ninja master turned rat, but an actual rat who mutates, gains humanlike sentience and trains the turtles mainly through pop culture. It works in making Splinter feel sympathetic even if his smothering of the turtles is still something that he has to learn to overcome. Also the soundtrack. Loved the soundtrack. I can't believe the He-Man version of "What's Going On" was used in an action scene but am I ever glad to have heard it there.
So what don't I like? Well, I do think the story was ultimately middling. There's a lot of fun moments and the motivations of the turtles, April, Splinter, and even Superfly all work towards keeping the movie flowing. I even like what little we get of Cynthia Utrom and TGRI, who vanish mostly after the big scene and matter more to the credits scene that gives us something in the sequel that we're all waiting for. I just think there's too much of a mega happy ending with the turtles being so easily accepted. Which, I get that's the point, and for the turtles to have their happy ending, that has to be the outcome. But everything just kind of feels rushed, even down to the face turn of the other mutants. I think we should have had more time with the turtles interacting with them for them to kind of have that big realization that Superfly is wrong. I do think there's enough for a sequel to build on the turtles losing that trust, but it'll be interesting to see how the stakes in the sequel and subsequent series add up to what we currently have.
So yeah, I really enjoyed Mutant Mayhem. The original 1990 movie is still my favorite Turtles movie, but I think this comes a close second for me as it offers everything I'd want in a turtles movie with the right amount of comedy and action. I'm genuinely interested in how the sequel improves things and what they could even do with the story aside from a certain character making their way into the franchise. If I needed a movie to come back to this review blog concept, I couldn't have chosen a better film than this. ****
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