Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Despite being a child of the 90s, the Turtles somehow mostly passed me by, but not completely. I think I watched the animated TV show, although I don’t remember it well. And I did put a bunch of hours into both Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Arcade Game on the NES. But the lore and characters never stuck with me, I never watched the movies from the 90s (although I’d occasionally catch pieces while channel surfing), and I certainly never saw any of the more recent films. I have no real nostalgia for them, and thus no automatic predisposition towards this movie.

What grabbed me going in was the animation. It seems to be experiencing a revitalization in Hollywood since the huge success of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse five years ago. American studios and financiers have new found confidence to green light movies which take big swings with their animation style, and their continued success has kept the money spigot open. And we are all better off for it.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a fresh start to the Turtles’ story, although familiar. You know the gist: four baby turtles and a rat are exposed to ”the ooze”, turning them all into humanoid mutants. In this iteration, Splinter (Jackie Chan) fears that all humans want to kill him and the Turtles, and so orders them to keep to the sewers and stay away from the city. But the boys just want to be accepted by that magical world. While running some errands for Splinter, they see a thief steal a moped from April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri) and chase him down to retrieve it, revealing themselves to her in the process. She’s taken aback at first, but is more curious than anything else, and offers to write about them for the school paper. They see this as their chance to prove to the humans they’re not monsters, and so resolve to become heroes. Which leads them to a collision course with a villain who’s assembling some sort of a device. He’s voiced by Ice Cube, and known only as Superfly…

While none of the characters know who Superfly is, we do. The movie opens fifteen years ago, with a mysterious company called TCRI raiding the lab of Baxter Stockman (Giancarlo Esposito). He developed the ooze, and intends to use it on four baby turtles and an oversized fly in order to create a family for himself. But they all get away in the raid, leading to their current situation.

This is a Turtles movie, so of course the tone is pretty light and jokey. It’s a kids’ movie, so few land super hard, but they quite often get a chuckle. There are a few excellent allusions to the 90s movies, not to mention a bunch of relevant pop culture references. But it’s at its best when it’s leaning heavily into their very disparate personalities: Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu) as the timid, insecure leader; Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.) as the wanna be cool, comedic, improvisational guy; Donatello (Micah Abbey) as the dork; Raphael (Brady Noon) as the violent one. And once April enters the plot, they get someone else their own age to play off, and some fun sequences ensue.

The story is pretty good, too. It’s nothing super crazy or innovative, but it’s quite well done. It fleshes out their characteristics into a reasonably diverse set of wants and desires from the human world, and they all see acceptance as the only way to get there. Acceptance is also April’s goal, albeit from her peers, so she’s been investigating Superfly. Her research is where the Turtles start (leading to a fantastic montage - I’ll talk more about it shortly), which eventually leads them to the menagerie of TMNT characters you’d hope to see, with one notable exception. At which point we get a (somewhat brief) subversion of the tropes you’re used to, which is quite nice, and leads to a couple fun little games, before launching us hurtling towards the climax.

All the while, TCRI is hanging in the background, watching as this plays out, waiting to make their move. Cynthia Utrom (Maya Rudolph) commanded the team which raided Stockman’s lab, and now that she has her eyes on the Turtles, she’s not going to miss again. This adds a secondary threat throughout, but avoids the trope of “the man behind the curtain”. The Turtles aren’t fighting Superfly to get to TCRI; they’re separate entities. We learn little about TCRI, but they do impact the plot, clearly laying the groundwork for the movie’s already announced sequel without detracting from this story or relying on a cliff-hanger. It also enables them to withhold the iconic character of Shredder and the Foot Clan, much in the same way Batman Begins withheld Joker to great effect.

But let’s be honest, as good as it is, the story is not why we’re here, or why I was so enraptured. It was the animation.

It’s hard to describe, at least for someone like me, who appreciates varied animation but doesn’t have a deep knowledge of the terminology. It looks deliberately grimy and imperfect. Almost every surface boasts clear brushstrokes and uneven fill. Outlines and highlights are frequently bold, single squiggles sitting on top of the drawing. The character models all look kinda bulky and bulbous, almost like it’s aiming for a claymation feel in 2D drawings. Which is emphasized by how choppy and herky-jerky the characters move most of the time: not as much as claymation, but reminiscent of it. The art somewhat reminds me of the vibe of underground comics in the 80s but way brighter, or the independent webcomics of the 2000s. It’s just so unabashedly its own thing, and it is absolutely perfect. Never for even a single second does it get old, nor does it distract. It feels incredibly tactile and satisfying.

Within that, the cinematography is astounding. The shot composition, the insistence on parallax, the use of chaos and shadows and shading. We’re not just looking at a series of drawings; there’s a camera here. Not literally, of course. But quite a few shots feel like physical camera moves, with it pivoting or panning or whatnot. I’d bet if I went back and checked, every single shot was placed somewhere a physical camera would fit. Which just makes the whole thing feel more grounded and real. It’s one of those things that even if you don’t notice, your brain probably does: that there are no impossible angles.

The crowning achievement is certainly the montage of them fighting their way through the underworld crime bosses. It’s a few minute sequence which contains a two sections where the action is continuous across locations and characters. It starts with the various crime bosses standing up to point and say “Get them!”. We start on one, and as they stand up, we cut to another who continues the movement exactly. It takes a moment for you to notice, but then you’re looking for it. The Turtles start fighting through their henchmen, and now you’re ready when they pull the same trick. One Turtle is seen obliterating one boss’s thugs, and mid strike the scenery and Turtle is changed to another one in another place doing the same exact thing. They keep it up for a bit, then return to a regular montage style, before bringing it back again. It looks incredible.

The other aspect to mention was not something I expected. The score was out of this world amazing. Granted, if I’d known going in that Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross were the film’s composers, I’d probably have been less surprised (although no less floored). It was so, so good from start to finish. It’s like nothing I’ve heard before. Just something about it felt so fresh and nuanced and unique. Kind of driving electronic, but with a somewhat industrial edge, and still very playful. It perfectly fit the tone of each second of the film, injecting every scene with life and depth, and heightening the tension and triumph and despair when needed. If you’d told me fifteen years ago that the guy from Nine Inch Nails would become part of a duo who are amongst the best film composers working today, I’d never have believed you. Now, I eagerly await each new release.

To be clear, this isn’t a perfect film. There aren’t really any strong emotional beats, but not for lack of trying. Nor is there much narrative depth. It does fall into a handful of tired superhero tropes. And despite its efforts, its comedy is pretty uneven. But it’s a lot of fun, it’s gorgeous, and it’s incredibly well made. It deserves a bunch of awards recognition, although in a year which also included Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, it’s going to have a hard time winning many. Its score is far superior, however, so that should generate some wins.

Which is so weird to think about. Not that animation hasn’t loomed large before: animated movies have been nominated for Best Picture. But rarely have we seen such disparate, unpolished but clearly incredibly deliberate styles achieve anything like success amongst wider audiences. To have multiple gracing the box office so close to each other is a treat. Maybe we can finally put the nail in the coffin of the idea there’s one right way for animated movies to look, and that they’re only for kids. Maybe…