Rating: PG | Runtime: 99 minutes
Release Date: August 2nd, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Nickelodeon Animation Studios / Paramount Pictures
Director(s): Jeff Rowe / Kyler Spears (co-director)
Writer(s): Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg & Jeff Rowe and Dan Hernandez & Benji Samit / Brendan O’Brien and Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg & Jeff Rowe (story) / Peter Laird & Kevin Eastman (characters)

Do we not have last names?

Two things: Love a reboot of a known property that doesn’t default to origin story (even if Mutant Mayhem is the origin story of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ coexistence with humans, it keeps their first fifteen years post-ooze a fun flashback montage) and love that director Jeff Rowe, producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and that trio’s other co-writers let the heroes-in-a-half-shell be teens (what a great, young voice-acting cast to make it believable too).

The story itself is a nice entry point into this new TMNT world (very reminiscent of the grunge animation popularized by the Spider-Verse films). It introduces the idea of ooze, throws a bunch of mutants that haven’t been in previous films on-screen, and gives the leads a trial by fire confidence boost to prepare themselves for the fights ahead (watch the credits for a Shredder tease). The action is slapstick-y and kinetic with great choreography and the tone never falters in large part due to making April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri) a teen too.

Jackie Chan as Splinter and Ice Cube as the big bad Superfly are both inspired choices and the needle drops are memorable (give Four Non Blondes their royalty check), but I will say that the joke construction gets very grating. Rogen and company went heavy on the name dropping and pop culture references that seem to scream “hey, we’re hip!” in the kind of way aging dudes who aren’t hip anymore would. I kept waiting for one of the turtles to actually turn to the camera and wink, that’s how cringey it became. Hopefully they can shore that up with the inevitable sequel.

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L-R April O’Neil, Donnie, Raph, Mikey and Leo in TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM; courtesy of Paramount Pictures/Paramount+.