Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

The Next Spider-Verse?

TMNT: Mutant Mayhem was a fun, stylized, and outlandishly funny film. It did exactly as Seth Rogan intended and shines a new light on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I grew up watching the 1987 TMNT on DVD (might be a bit abnormal for a 2000’s child, but I grew up with a lot of older cartoons) and remember absolutely loving it. Mutant Mayhem brings its own style and persona to the big screen.

A combination and great direction and an absolutely stacked cast has created yet another spectacular animated film. The comedy was probably one of the best parts of the film and it was consistently funny. The story was great all around. A little bit of a twist on the classic TMNT storyline and origin. The writing could be a little cringe at times with the overuse of modern slang, but that goes for just about any movie. The pacing was done very well and I couldn’t have gotten enough of the character dynamics.

Action movies and CBM’s lately have been lacking emotional depth and strong character motivation, with a couple of exceptions. This is because an explosion is the same in every language and dialogue heavy films don’t typically do well internationally. But TMNT: Mutant Mayhem challenges that ideology with insanely good character depth for ALL of the characters. Every character in the movie feels like their actions are understandable and make sense.

Overall, I firmly believe this is on the same level as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018). I hope there is a sequel and they make this into the next “Spider-Verse”.