There’s no coming back from collaborating with Vanilla Ice, as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ disappointing film and TV efforts over the past three decades bear out. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (in theaters August 2) is yet another attempt at revitalizing their relevance, and its expressive animation almost does the trick, lending distinctive style to the crime-fighting foursome’s latest big-screen outing. Such aesthetic panache, however, can’t totally rehabilitate a franchise that was never cool to begin with and hasn’t aged well since, nor can a script co-written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg that vainly strives to update the heroes in a half shell for the 21st-century crowd.
Mutant Mayhem’s sole notable calling card is its unique aesthetic, with Mikros Animation’s visuals boasting a hyper-real quality that highlights the (artificial) brushstrokes of its character and environmental models. Director Jeff Rowe’s film is a wholly CGI affair that looks like it’s been hand-crafted, its surfaces (sewer walls, city skyscrapers, explosive clouds of smoke) embellished with bold and scribbled lines. That approach bears a passing resemblance to the imagery of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Alas, the comparison isn’t exactly flattering; whereas Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson’s superhero blockbuster was a gonzo amalgam of disparate styles, this reboot picks a single lane and stays in it, save for a brief fantasy sequence that has the appearance of a child’s drawings.
Whereas Mutant Mayhem tries something formally new, it’s otherwise far less adventurous than Rowe’s prior The Mitchells vs. the Machines. A brief prologue relays how, 15 years ago, Dr. Baxter Stockman (Giancarlo Esposito) sought to alleviate his loneliness by creating a new family with a green mutant serum—subsequently referred to as “ooze"—capable of turning bugs and animals into humanoids. Unfortunately, his evil rival Cynthia (Maya Rudolph) coveted the potion and, in a special-ops raid of Stockman’s lab, the scientist’s beloved fly escaped death and a vial of the ooze rolled through a grate and into the sewers, where it coated four baby turtles as well as the adult rat, Splinter (Jackie Chan), who found them.
In the present, Splinter is the cautious surrogate father to Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Donatello (Micah Abbey), Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.) and Raphael (Brady Noon), teen turtles named after Italian Renaissance greats—although Mutant Mayhem doesn’t allude to such art-history roots (the protagonists’ monikers are shortened to Leo, Donnie, Mikey and Raph). Rather, its focus is on making modern-day references that its adolescent audience will know, from Beyonce, Batman, and Avengers to Attack on Titan, Tokyo Drift, and Wendy Williams.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were always juvenile and Rowe’s film panders to its target demographic, replete with one Turtle twerking and their newfound human acquaintance April O’Neill (The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri)—a fledgling high-school reporter—uncontrollably vomiting on-camera due to extreme nerves. Given the proceedings’ general immaturity, the fact that there’s no potty humor should be taken as a minor victory.
Adults won’t find much to latch onto here unless they’re the sort who delight at characters using contemporary slang like “sus” and “rizz;” the only way in which Mutant Mayhem caters to over-12 moviegoers is with its soundtrack, which uses ’90s cuts (Blackstreet’s “No Diggity,” Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “I Like It Raw,” A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?”) to keep them from falling asleep. Still, a kiddish tone isn’t the death knell for the film, and its graphic-novel flair is intermittently enlivening.
Rowe’s action is dynamic, and he does just enough to carve out his protagonists’ personality: Leonardo the dorky goody-two-shoes leader; Michelangelo the loud and aggressive bruiser; Donatello the geeky staff-wielding brother; and Raphael the headstrong complement to his siblings. None are particularly captivating, but they’re faithful to their origins.
Rogen and Goldberg’s screenplay (co-written with Rowe, Dan Hernandez, and Benji Samit) is verbally hyperactive and narratively straightforward. Desperate to be a part of the human world that Splinter distrusts, the Turtles befriend April, indulge their heroic impulses, and cross paths with a criminal bigwig whose gang has been making headlines stealing high-tech equipment.
The villain in question turns out to be Superfly (Ice Cube), Stockman’s former guinea pig pet, who shares the Turtles’ desire for acceptance. It’s his methods that turn out to be the problem, because Superfly intends to build a machine that will transform every living creature on the planet into a mutant. Much chaotic combat ensues, including a car chase through New York City’s bustling streets and a final showdown in crowded midtown between the foursome and a horrifically enhanced Superfly.
Considering Rogen’s participation as both a writer and actor (he voices mutant warthog Bebop; John Cena is his burly sidekick Rocksteady), it’s surprising that Mutant Mayhem plays it so safe, not merely in terms of plot but with regards to its comedy. T
here isn’t a single inspired line to be found in the film; instead, it expends most of its energy on routine nods to the Turtles’ love of pizza, a single utterance of their catchphrase “Cowabunga,” and repeated jokes about the quartet’s fear of being milked by humans. Meanwhile, the storytelling is sloppy, so that Cynthia is barely defined and unceremoniously discarded, and Superfly’s motley cohorts—whether it’s skateboarding gecko Mondo (Paul Rudd), singing manta ray Ray (Post Malone) or bat Wingnut (Natasia Demetriou)—are sketchy afterthoughts.
Despite a surplus of commotion, Mutant Mayhem feels remarkably small, thanks to an adventure that takes place in a confined geographic space and a conflict that begins and ends in swift, simplistic fashion. Its funniest gag arrives during an early flashback to the Turtles’ martial-arts education, which comes via viewings of Kerry Li's Guide to Self Defense, YouTube clips, and old Hong Kong movies—one of which features none other than Jackie Chan himself.
Cleverness, however, is in short supply throughout the rest of this functional endeavor, as Rowe and his collaborators tick off items on their IP checklist and diligently avoid deviating from formula. Such cautiousness prevents it from sinking to the depths of previous TMNT franchise entries. Yet in a post-Across the Spider-Verse animation landscape, standing out requires significantly more coloring outside the lines.
Liked this review? Sign up to get our weekly See Skip newsletter every Tuesday and find out what new shows and movies are worth watching, and which aren’t.
