Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Throughout the years, there have been several attempts to revitalize the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles brand, the most recent of which was a forgettable "live action" version that spawned an equally forgettable sequel. For whatever reason, I've always been apathetic toward this franchise. It doesn't really hold any special place in my heart from my childhood, but it's unique enough to where I "get it" for those that are heavily invested and cherish its rich history. 

When I saw initial trailers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (God, that's a mouthful) and that it was essentially getting the "Spider-verse" treatment, I was intrigued, but still not aggressively excited the same way I was for something like Across the Spider-verse, for example. 

Much to my delight, I think TMNT: Mutant Mayhem is the first TMNT property that I've actually really enjoyed and walked away with more than just a passive "meh"; it's pretty fantastic. The "Spider-verse" treatment is a real upsell as the animation style continuously stands out, maybe not as much as the aforementioned film it tries to emulate, but impressive nonetheless. Colors pop loudly and there's a distinct Saturday-morning-cartoon feel, while being elevated with a delightful amount of detail in every frame. 

Mutant Mayhem is also really funny, surprisingly so. Donnie, Leo, Mikey, and Raph are all voiced by teenagers, which helps a lot, and their back-and-forth zingers have a high hit-rate of garnering laughter, with some being gut-bustingly funny. This is a script that knows its strengths and how to insert one-liners of the teenage variety with ease. The overall story and plot is nothing to really write home about - though it does the job - but between the animation, laughs, and youthful voice acting, Mutant Mayhem really comes alive. Throw in additional voice acting work from Jackie Chan, Ayo Edebiri, John Cena, Ice Cube, Rose Byrne, and even Paul Rudd and you've got some stacked talent to support the youngsters. 

As is the case for most animated films, the shorter the better (unless you have a beefy plot), and Mutant Mayhem doesn't overstay its welcome at 99 minutes, feeling light and breezy the entire time. In a genre that I've generally not had much interaction with in recent years on Rath's Reviews (animation, that is), it sure has been one hell of a year for it thus far.

Rath's Review Score | 8.5/10