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Rated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 7/10

Very different, and that’s ok. “Do I like this film?” That’s the question I asked myself, in the lead-up to rewatching it today. My takeaway from my first viewing was it was very annoying from a Ninja Turtles perspective but a great children’s film, which held up mostly in this viewing as well. I do think I definitely like it, anyway. The turtles have been doing a lot of growing, in recent years - and I’m not talking about the giant hulking versions from the 2010 “live-action” films! The series has been changing, expanding, ‘mutating’ into something different from what it was for years. April is Black now. Maybe she was Black in the first place? She was definitely white for a long time afterward, but now she’s Black again (or for the first time). This has been the cause of a lot of impotent frustration among longtime fans of the turtle boys. Ironically, the impotent rage over this topic probably did a lot to box the TMNT people in on continuing to depict April as Black! No, seriously! What, are they going to make news with a white April after a bunch of idiot man-babies lost their shit over April being Black? No, April’s going to be Black in a new animated movie and in a Magic: The Gathering card now too. If you ask me? It’s fine. There’s a lot of space in what you can do with a character, as evidenced by the various interpretations of April from over the years! This April has very little in common with the April O’Neil I saw when I made myself watch the first episode of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, annnd I’m gonna be polite and say I’m ok with that too. What I found myself feeling a little bit less ok with is these turtle boys, who… I don’t think *have* a race for nerds to decide they “have” to be or else their childhood is “ruined?” But still feel very different here. Sure - Leo is still the leader of the group (transformed from the norm by the nuclear goop), Raphael hits people a lot, Donatello probably knows how to reset a Wi-Fi router, and Mikey probably told a joke at some point during the runtime of the film - but… it’s different. You could probably call this Leonardo’s film, actually. Maybe Leo & April’s film, or Leo & April’s film with a slice or two saved for Splinter, whatever. Leo gets an arc, April gets sort of an arc, Splinter gets an arc, and all three together are easily the best parts of the film. Since I’m probably not going to talk much about them for the rest of this review, let’s go over the other three turtles. Donatello feels like he kinda gets Raph’s rift with Leo? Raph says “shut up, Leo” at one point but it’s mostly Donnie that Leo struggles to connect with, and BOY do you see him trying to connect with the kid. He sounds like a kid, also. Like, way too much compared to the others? I dunno, I know they hired like real teens or whatever to voice the turtles, I just don’t like how Donatello went. He’s supposed to be the tech one, I really didn’t get much of that. It feels more like when a parent thinks their child is a tech genius because they know how to reset a Wi-Fi router. … Dammit, I already used that one! Knows how to… run a Super Nintendo emulator? No, that doesn’t work… I got nothing. Raphael, for being such a fixture in other Ninja Turtles media, is surprisingly forgettable here. They make jokes about him having rage issues, even though he’s just kinda excited when he gets to be violent? I suppose one could say he’s more cut from the cloth of the 1987 Raphael, who’s cool but rude? He’s definitely rude when he brings up the “Puke Girl” thing to April after she makes it clear it’s a sore spot, but he’s not nearly as charming and they do not lean into it past maybe that scene. I say Donnie got Raph’s rift with Leo, but it’s kinda basically what all the other turtles got. Leo’s sorta alienated from them because he loves his dad at all while they seemingly couldn’t give the first shit about him. I dunno. Then there’s Michelangelo. Mikey, for short. Michael Angelo, for improv club. As a longtime fan of the Ninja Turtles, I gotta say, it feels *surreal* how much it feels like Mikey’s fading into the background. He was the fun one! In a group of four fun-as-hell turtles, he’s THE fun one! But here he’s… what. What is he. His voice is a lot deeper than the others - again, I know they got teens to play the characters, it’s just jarring. He doesn’t really do much in the film besides have a bromance with Mondo Gecko. Is he good at improv? Allegedly. Is he funny? Apparently not really, besides I can’t remember him ever *being* funny. Does he hate Leo? Not any more than the others do - in fact, it feels kinda like he gives Leo a hard time just ’cause the others do. No, if you want a Ninja Turtle who resembles the original character at all (NOT talking about appearance, but character) in this film you get Leonardo and that’s it. Thankfully, as I said before, the film basically ties itself around him. Leo’s the one who cares when they go against Splinter’s wishes, Leo’s the one whose angst we focus most on when the turtles yearn to be part of the human world, and Leo gets April this time. Yes, after decades of Ninja Turtles media, I think every turtle boy has had a ‘turn’ having a thing with April. I may be stretching just a little, but stick with me: - In the 1990 film, Raph sort of has a thing with April (even if she gets with Casey at the end) and he seems to be her ‘favorite’ in sort of a “Snow White & Grumpy” vein. - In the 2012 series, Donatello apparently has a crush on April! I haven’t watched it much so I don’t know how that goes. I’m sure it’s fine. - In the 2014 film, Michelangelo is a creepy sex pervert at April? Who was also his owner from back when they were pet store turtles? God that film was a fucking mess. And now Leo has the world’s biggest, most adorable crush on April in this film! The circle is complete… Or, no, it’d be a square ’cause there’s four turtles. It feels less impressive when you complete a boring old square, though. :( But April! She’s an aspiring journalist! Had a rough start, but came into her own over the course of the film! I liked her, it’s a good showing for her, even if she was a teen and therefore couldn’t really be the kind of April I like. That’s right, MID-REVIEW REVEAL: I prefer April O’Neil as an adult. I get why she hasn’t been for the past few iterations of the characters, and that doesn’t mean I automatically like when she’s a very-sidelined adult in the most-recent live-action films, I just like it better when she’s a grownup. She still does good in the film. Her big moment in the film where she comes into her own is her going out on a limb for the turtles more than for herself, but it’s to sort of tie into the payoff of her line where “trying to be a hero just to get people to like you” is the wrong reason to try to be a hero. I really love that scene, anyway, where Leo rallies his brothers not on the promise that everyone will love them in the end but that *they still need to do the right thing regardless.* There’s this thing throughout the film where the other three turtles display zero responsibility and have to be talked into doing anything for anyone but themselves by Leo at every turn, so to have a scene dedicated to quashing this transactional “I’ll do the right thing if it makes it worth my while” bullshit does my heart good. Them acting all surprised when everyone loves them in the end felt a little arbitrary when they were literally receiving help from humans moments ago, also, but I digress. What I may love most about the film is Jackie Chan’s Splinter. I love the performance, I love the arc, I love the depiction of PTSD when Splinter has his first encounter with humans since “the incident.” In particular, the scene where Superfly (yes this is the first time he’s coming up in the review, it’s also the last, sorry) unknowingly echoes Splinter’s sentiments in a moment that forces him to confront his prejudices seriously moved me. Even if they almost ruin it by spelling it out very heavy-handedly afterward. His path to letting go of his fear, which had been the biggest thing standing in the way of his love for his boys and truly connecting with them, is one of the most touching things I’ve seen in a film in recent memory. He’s also a Splinter who had no Hamato Yoshi. Having an old human master would kiiinda stand in the way of his distrust and fear of humans, so I get why he got cut. It’s a huge missing piece for the character, however (there’s at least one Splinter who *IS* Hamato Yoshi!) so when the film strays further from there it just leads to Splinter feeling very different. But I like him a lot, just like I like this movie a lot. I don’t think the film’s art style really “captures the aesthetic of the old comics” like people hype it up to be (it feels more like just trying to trick people into thinking they’re watching a Spider-Verse movie,) but it doesn’t ruin it. I don’t think the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as I know them are in this movie at all, but this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie is good. Is it my favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie? No, definitely not, it’s 5th at best. But it’s still a better Ninja Turtles film than the 2010 “live-action” films, even though those films are more straightforward adaptations! I’m very happy, however, at the thought of kids growing up with these Ninja Turtles. Even if they grow up to make more Ninja Turtles I can’t recognize. As long as they’re learning the right lessons, I guess that’s what matters most.

#TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles #NinjaTurtles #TMNT #MutantMayhem #movie

Published 2025-10-17 17:58 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere