2023 is an incredible time to be alive if you’re a fan of animation. Whether it be this year’s astonishing Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse or last year’s masterful Guillermo del Toro’s Pinnocchio, animated movies are getting more interesting and more complex than ever. Despite this, when another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot was announced, I couldn’t help but approach it with skepticism. Hasn’t Hollywood tried this already? What will make this version different from past ones? Well, for starters, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM is directed and co-written by the creator of 2021’s hilarious The Mitchells vs. The Machines: Jeff Rowe. Plus the movie is principally written and produced by Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg, a duo who constantly proves themselves to be ahead of the curve in the world of comedy with films like Superbad and Pineapple Express among many others (Rogan also stars in the film). Add an unreasonably stacked cast to the mix (Post Malone? John Cena? Paul Rudd?) and now we have ourselves something interesting.
MUTANT MAYHEM surpasses all expectations and is easily the best film adaptation of this franchise. In the first couple minutes of the movie, the audience is thrown into the raid of the house of a rogue scientist. This scientist has been making a substance that turns animals into sentient mutants as he then attempts to make them into the family he never had. However, everything goes haywire when his building is raided and the mutagen that transforms the animals falls into the sewer. This opening scene introduces a dirty, grimey, and crime-ridden New York City that feels more like Taxi Driver than Spider-Man, a surprisingly gutsy approach for a PG-rated kids’ movie. Because of this, the universe feels lived-in and realistic even when the visuals are over-the-top and ridiculous, making the world-building feel effortless. At first glance, the movie almost looks like a Batman-esque gritty take on the TMNT story.
Then, the story flash-forwards about fifteen years and we are introduced to the mutant turtles Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael (newcomers Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, and Brady Noon respectively). After this time jump, the movie suddenly turns into one of the funniest and most energetic comedies of the year, all due to the charismatic voice performances of the four leads. Perhaps one of the greatest reasons that MUTANT MAYHEM stands out among the pack of TMNT creations is the writers absolutely nailing the “teenage” part of being the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Despite being literal sentient turtles, the protagonists feel like a more accurate depiction of 2023 teenagers than almost every high school movie released in the past year. The humor is relevant and contains some of the most absurdly specific pop culture references I’ve seen in a recent film — some I had to look up and realized they were references to TikTok trends or viral videos.
While this generated plenty of laughs from the crowd including me, it comes with a potential issue: how will this film look in the future? If the humor is ultra-specific to 2023, will the children of 2033 care about this movie at all? For now though, it is impossible to hold it against the filmmakers since they have generated a hilarious film for children and adults that rarely misses. The more impressive part about the integration of oddball humor is how it helps emotionally build the turtles so the stakes come naturally in the second half of the film. Eventually, we are introduced to a mysterious supervillain named Superfly (Ice Cube) who has been stealing valuable equipment all across the city with the intention of building some kind of large machine — the exact motive is unknown but all the turtles know is that it seems catastrophic. It ends up being a highly personal battle between two sides that have the same motive but that differ in how far they will go to achieve their desires.
MUTANT MAYHEM, despite its hilarity, maintains the dark and gritty visuals throughout, an aesthetic that adds to the despair the turtles have about not being able to reveal themselves to humans, who are frightened and angered by them. The main setting, after all, is in the sewers of New York City, a location that probably wouldn’t work if it was glamorized by the animators. The other reason MUTANT MAYHEM is visually stunning throughout despite the grimey color is because it adopts the Spider-Verse tactic of hand-drawing much of the background visuals — creating a universe that feels more human than computer generated. Some people have accused this film of copying the Spider-Verse animation style, but I couldn’t disagree more; movies like MUTANT MAYHEM are cementing the importance of human-created, hand-drawn animation in 2023. In a time where many creators are worried about AI technology draining creativity from the industry, these wildly original films are proving how important human emotion and creativity are when developing art.
While MUTANT MAYHEM never quite reaches the emotional heights of movies like the Spider-Verse films or last year’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, it still represents a rip-roaring success for animated films. If only the marketing for the film was as strong as something like Barbie, because MUTANT MAYHEM is another movie that should have a far wider audience and margin of profit than it appears to be getting. The film has more casual diversity than Barbie and has an equally modern take on humor while also messing with the structure of a typical comedy. Rogan’s writing seems to be aging like fine wine as his career goes on, constantly reinventing itself while maintaining his childlike sense of humor (except this time it’s actually aimed towards children). Even though this film came out recently, I can already foresee it being one of the more underrated major studio releases of 2023, and one that people of all ages should check out and enjoy.
A-
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