Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem Review

 

NOTE!: AFTER THE REVIEW I'LL BE GIVING MY OPINION OF WHERE THE FRANCHISE SHOULD GO FROM HERE. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ THAT THEN LEAVE AFTER READING THE REVIEW.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a comic book movie based on the TMNT series by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It serves as the seventh theatrical release for the TMNT film series. It's produced by Nickelodeon Movies and Point Grey Pictures and distributed by Paramount Pictures. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is written by Jeff Rowe, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit, and Brendan O'Brien and directed by Jeff Rowe.

The story is four mutant turtle brothers have been sheltered from the world above the sewers. Wanting to feel accepted, the turtles decide the best way to do this will be through acts of heroism. However, these actions soon catch the attention of other mutants who don't agree with the turtles' ideology. Now, it's a clash of mutants in a battle to save New York City.

Initial Reaction

Now initially I was fully pumped for this movie. I thought it was awesome we were finally getting a new TMNT movie after waiting so long when there wasn't gonna be a sequel to Out of the Shadows. Then I saw footage from trailers and commercials and got very skeptical. Was still hoping for something decent, but still remained skeptical.

Cons

The absolute worst thing about the movie is the characters, and I'm gonna break them down one by one.

-Leonardo: This Leo is no leader at all. He hardly gets respect from his brothers, he doesn't really take charge that much, and his most defining character trait is he gets a crush on a human.

-Donatello: Typically in the TMNT franchise Donnie is the genius with a massive super brain, but not here! Not once does he ever feel like the brains of the team. He doesn't even make a gadget that comes in handy later. If anything he's just a geek who likes animes like Attack on Titan. Aren't you just feeling that remarkable, deeply layered character work?

-Michaelangelo: I'll admit, his character was the only one they got right, the problem? Everybody is Michaelangelo! All the Turtles basically have his personality. It's the same exact mistake they made in Rise of the TMNT. So since everyone's like this, Mikey doesn't stand out at all.

-Raphael: I hate what they did to my favorite. Again, he's a goofball like Mikey, and they really try to convince you he's the rageful one, but they failed! Whenever his "rage problem" appears, it's not anger. If anything he's just going through an adrenaline rush. How the hell did Seth Rogen and co. screw up such a basic emotion is beyond me, but they did it.

-Splinter: I don't know who this guy was, but he wasn't Splinter. In no way was this character a wise sensei who properly carries himself. He's mainly a grumpy old man who doesn't like humans, and is mostly a buffoon. And when he's not those, he desperate for a girlfriend...because whenever I think of Splinter, I definitely think of that.

-April O'Neil: First let's get this out of the way, yes, she was designed the way she is for a diversity quota and nothing else. But the biggest problem is how she's written. She in no way is the confident reporter we know. She instead is a reporter who gets so nervous in front of the camera, she pukes all over the place. They try making this problem a character arc for her, but it's brought up, never mentioned, and isn't brought up again until it's convenient for the plot.

-Superfly & Cynthia Utrom: I put these two together mainly to shorten things, and because they're equally bad villains even if it's in two different ways. Superfly in no way felt like a threat. Even when he has bits of angry and has a super weapon, he's still not intimidating. Then there's Cynthia. Not only is she a generic mad scientist, but she was barely in the movie. So much so that she might as well have not been here. Kinda makes it pointless to have a second baddie, when he or she could've been easily written out of the entire movie.

Then there's the issue of the art style. Yes, art is subjective, but I'm sorry, these designs are just ugly. We've seen cartoon designs where the proportions aren't very realistic, but a lot of times they're still nice to look at. Here like I said before, they're ugly and very distracting. Now we've come to the humor. The jokes in this movie are just terrible. They're either dead on arrival, out of place, didn't need to be there, or trying to appeal to people who think TikTok is hilarious. And that wasn't me taking a random jab at TikTok, the movie literally felt like it was trying to appeal to that crowd, especially in the dialogue. Don't believe me, the Turtles actually used 'sus' and 'rizz'. You have no idea how much I wish I was making this up. And when it's not that, it's just pop culture references. Because using pop culture references as a replacement for jokes worked so well for those Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer "parody" movies. The humor was so bad, I heard nobody laugh. Not kids, not teens, not full grown adults, nobody! If a pin dropped in that theater, you more than likely would've heard it.

Middle Ground

Now the animation for this movie is okay for the most part. They're clearly trying to emulate the Spider-Verse style, but sometimes it just doesn't work in some areas.

Pros

The only good thing about Mutant Mayhem was Ice Cube. Despite the incredibly weak script, he managed to provide a very entertaining performance. So thank you Ice Cube for making the experience somewhat tolerable.

If you guys weren't fans of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or any other time the Turtles were just a full blown comedy, then you're really not gonna like Mutant Mayhem, and it'd be best if you just skip this.

My final rating is, Bad.

What The Franchise Should Do Next

After watching this, I'm officially done with comedy Ninja Turtles. Instead of giving this movie a sequel and a tv spin-off, what they should do is take the franchise in a more serious direction.

I'm talking a full blown adaptation of the Mirage comics, or something similar to the 90's movie. After all, the Ninja Turtles did start off a dark story and not something lighthearted like the cartoon from the 80's. And if they don't want to do the Mirage stuff, then they can always take inspiration from the IDW comics, or a Last Ronin movie! Please give me that! There's plenty of fans who would like a movie about The Last Ronin story.

Now I do admit there is one problem with making the franchise more mature than we have now, and that's Nickelodeon. They really need to take the chance at this kind of direction. Which honestly they really shouldn't have a problem with. They allowed a lot not so kid friendly stuff to happen in the Michael Bay produced movies, and they also gave the okay to THIS in Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 👇

Also, during that same movie, one of the ninja turtles gets his arm so broken that it looks like a wet noodle whenever it just flaps around. So if Nickelodeon is okay with these two extremely violent things, then they should have no problem with making this franchise much more serious, darker, edgier, whatever word you want to use, the point is, just give us something that isn't gonna make us cringe afterwards.

So that's all for now. Come back on Saturday, Aug 5th for my review of Meg 2: The Trench. And if I can't post a review for that, then come back on Monday, Aug 7th for a brand new Is It True? For that I'll be tackling a fan theory regrading a beloved Pixar movie. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.