TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM is Surprisingly Artistic

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM (Blu-ray)

2023 / 107 min

FROM PARAMOUNT

Review by Stinky the Destroyer😺

I remember going to see the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie back in the ‘90s. Having never read the comic or cartoon series it inspired, all I really knew beforehand was that it involved four mutated reptiles and a rat. 

I also remember leaving the theater largely unimpressed. The movie itself was kind of clunky and hampered by bland production design. As for the titular heroes…not only did they lack distinctive personalities, the only noticeable difference between these guys in turtle suits was the color of their masks. I didn't give the franchise much thought since.

Fast forward 30-some years and my youngest daughter is a huge TMNT fan…not of that original movie, but the various TV shows and movies that have come out since. Being a skilled artist, she was especially impressed with the aesthetic of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, going as far as assuring her cynical ol' dad (suffering serious franchise fatigue) that he might at least appreciate how the film looked.

She was right. Mutant Mayhem is a visual knock-out, its unique style resembling a mash-up of traditional animation, CGI, stop-motion and artist sketches. There isn’t a single frame that isn’t bursting with color and creativity. Like his previous film, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, director Jeffrey Rowe and his crew have made something that looks refreshingly different from any other animated movie out there. That alone makes it worth seeing, even for those who don’t know Donatello from Leonardo.

"Hey, look...Free Kittens Movie Guide likes our movie."

Speaking of which, Rowe and his team of screenwriters (including Seth Rogan & Evan Goldberg) still struggle with giving the turtles distinct  personalities, but they do act and sound more like true teenagers than previous depictions, with similar insecurities and fallibilities. As essentially an origin story, much of the humor stems from their youth, inexperience and dialogue, which is often quite clever (and loaded with pop culture references that real kids would be familiar with). Perhaps because Rogan had a hand in it, there’s the occasional gross joke here and there, but at least there’s an acute awareness of the intended audience without heavy-handed attempts at pandering to them.

There’s a plot, of course, one that (surprisingly) doesn’t involve longtime nemesis Shredder, instead introducing a new crew of disgruntled mutants led by Superfly, who plans to use stolen technology to mutate every living thing on Earth. But the conflict is perfunctory and not as engaging as the coming-of-age elements or the turtles’ friendship with budding high school reporter April O’Neal. 

Ultimately, however, the overall aesthetic is what makes the film really pop. It takes a lot of creativity to successfully use a brand name product as an artistic canvas. Animation fans (of any age) shouldn’t allow cynicism or franchise fatigue to prevent them from checking it out, because Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a visual treat.

EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTES - TEENage Mutant Ninja Turtles (interviews with the voice cast and a look at some characters); The Mutant Uprising (a focus on secondary characters); New York, New York: The Visual World of Mutant Mayhem (concepty art, animation & production design).

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