Plot
Four teenage brother feel stifled by their father and seek to win over the hearts and minds of the citizens of NYC so that they can be a part of the human world and accepted as normal teenagers. They team up with human teen, April O'Neil, and seek to stop a crime boss named Super-Fly.
Review
Y'all know I love the TMNT. The original live action film is the first movie I saw at the cinema. It's probably no surprise I thought this movie was fantastic! Honestly, I'd put it in the top three movies I've watched this years. It definitely owes its existence to one of those, though. Mutant Mayhem had some very unique animation and even mixed in some live action elements. I don't think this would not have happened if not for the Spider-Verse movies and their success (at least the first one's). This fantastic animation was accompanied by an amazing soundtrack/score. The instrumental music seemed plucked from your typical coming of age story. That's not a critique because given the nature of the story, Mutant Mayhem fits the criteria (though you could hardly argue it's indie). The vocal tracks were fantastic too. There are some great sequences that are essentially musical montages.
The voice cast and characterization are amazing. Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, and Brady Noon do an outstanding job bringing the turtles to life. Unlike some previous incarnations, these turtles actually felt like teenagers. They used current slang and were cringey, in that adorable way only teens can be. They also showed a love of pop culture, which proved to be important. The MCU and Attack on Titan both exist in this world. They also really felt like a family. I can't praise them enough. Ayo Edebiri gave an interesting take on April and I liked her. Jackie Chan's take on splinter felt new yet still familiar, and I appreciated that. The rest of the voice cast hit it out of the park too! How could it not when it included Hannibal Buress, Rose Byrne, John Cena, Ice Cube, Natasia Demetriou, Giancarlo Esposito, Post Malone, Seth Rogan, Maya Rudolph, Alex Hirsch, and Paul Rudd?
One thing I really appreciated about this movie is that while it was definitely a TMNT movie, it was also something new. I can't recall a version of the story that went quite like this one. There were some story beats and risks taken, but the story went some places I wasn't expecting.
Seth Rogan, I was nervous when they announced you were doing a TMNT movie. You surprised me in all the best ways, though. Well done.
In Your Game
There are definitely gameable things to take from this one. If you want to play a turtles game, I recommend Teenage Mutant Dirtbags. I picked up a copy at Origins and will review it soon.
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