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Posted in: Movies, Paramount Pictures | Tagged: nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, Review, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem Review: This Movie Rules
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem makes all the right decisions with bringing the turtles to a new generation that feels authentic, with the added bonus of being a genuinely stunning movie in terms of animation and art design.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem makes all the right decisions to bring the turtles to a new generation that feels authentic, with the added bonus of being a genuinely stunning movie in terms of animation and art design.
Director: Jeff Rowe and Kyler Spears
Summary: In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, after years of being sheltered from the human world, the Turtle brothers set out to win the hearts of New Yorkers and be accepted as normal teenagers through heroic acts. Their new friend April O'Neil helps them take on a mysterious crime syndicate, but they soon get in over their heads when an army of mutants is unleashed upon them.
When it comes to bringing an established franchise to a new generation, studios will often go the easy route. Either they won't take a chance with the animation, and it will look like every other animated movie we have seen before, or they will take the trapping of a popular thing and place it around a very basic story. In terms of animation, this year alone, we have seen The Super Mario Bros. Movie give us a basic story with basic animation to great success while Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken also gave us a basic story and basic animation and flopped hard.
On the other hand, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse had the difficult task of being a sequel Into the Spider-Verse to overcome, and it has had great success in all aspects. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is another reboot of the popular comic and TV characters that could have played it safe and maybe done okay for itself, but instead, they took a chance, and if there is any justice in the world, those risks will reap some serious rewards.
The animation for Mutant Mayhem is the first thing people will notice because this is a movie unlike anything you've seen before. Into the Spider-Verse allowed you to show people that you can take chances on a very different animation style, and people will not only be okay with it; they will embrace it. Mutant Mayhem has an even more distinct style that will unlock core memories for many people once you know what they are going for. The film is supposed to remind people of the doodles and drawings you would do as a child or teenager, thus embracing and leaning into the "teenage" part of this angle even more than they already were with the voice acting. It means that Mutant Mayhem is coming onto the scene with its own unique style, and it works seamlessly. The animation is stunning, and this might be up there with Across the Spider-Verse in terms of movies where you could freeze the film any time and put that frame on your wall. Or, in the case of this film, slide it safely into your sketchbook with all of your other passionate doodles that don't quite look right but show just how much you might love the medium.
The feeling that this film is leaning into the "teenage" part of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is never more present than with the turtles themselves. Four young actors voice them, Brady Noon is Raphael, Nicolas Cantu is Leonardo, Shamon Brown Jr. is Michaelangelo, and Micah Abbey is Donatello. The people behind the film decided to let the four actors record the film together and trusted them with a lot of the dialogue. In a featurette released two weeks ago, the cast talks about how they improvised much of this film and how freeing it felt to have the adults around them tell them to be teenagers. It means that there are moments when the film is a little chaotic and more than a little cringe, but here's what people need to remember, you are never more cringey than when you are a teenager. So often, teenagers in films don't sound or feel like real teenagers. But because the people involved with Mutant Mayhem let their voice actors be teenagers, it leads to genuinely funny moments that don't feel forced or like they are talking down to the next generation at all. Because they aren't, this is just the next generation speaking to the next generation.
The story is the final place where Mutant Mayhem absolutely nails it. Aside from the fact that they chose such a weird direction to go when they could have easily gone the safer route with Shredder, this new team behind the turtles isn't afraid to take chances. It also does what all of the best-animated movies do. It takes something incredibly basic that nearly everyone can relate to; in this case, fitting in and being accepted by the world around you, but takes it to the extreme to make sure that everyone understands what it is trying to say. Identity and trying to figure out your place in the world is something that everyone has or will go through at some point in their life. Sometimes, it is when you're a teenager, sometimes not, but having the confidence to be weird while also telling a genuinely sweet story about acceptance from others and accepting yourself? That is the praise levied at some of the best-animated films ever, and Mutant Mayhem kicks in the door with a pizza and a smile like it's no big deal.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is not only one of the best-animated films of the year, it might be one of the best films of the entire summer, and that is coming up against some seriously hard competition. This year has not been kind to films that stop short of being fantastic, but Mutant Mayhem has made all of the right choices, and we can hope the trajectory of excellent movies being rewarded at the box office will continue. Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon clearly think they have a winner, as the sequel and a television show have already been announced. While it's not uncommon for studios to put the cart in front of the horse, in this case, their confidence is well-founded because they do have a winner. This is what happens when you trust the people making your established IP to do a good job; you don't just get a film that is going to potentially print money, but a genuine work of art that deserves every single word of praise it is getting.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
9.5/10
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is not only one of the best-animated films of the year, it might be one of the best films of the entire summer, and that is coming up against some seriously hard competition
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