Heroes on the half shell.

TMNT: Mutant Mayhem is a film that I’ve been planning to watch for a while now, and then completely forgot about it. That is until I brought up Bottoms in conversation and a friend told me it was probably streaming on Paramount Plus. So I checked Paramount Plus, and there it was. This review not sponsored by Paramount Plus. My hesitance to watch the film had nothing to do with April O’Neil being black and mostly to do with Seth Rogen being on the cast.

I’m contractually only allowed to watch one Seth Rogen movie per calendar year and in 2023 that was the Mario film. Who is my contract with? One Mr. Nunya. Mutant Mayhem is an origin story for the turtles directed by Jeff Rowe who directed the film that received 2021’s How About Notflix animated “there’s no way in hell I’m watching this” award for The Mitchells vs the Machines. Nothing personal, I’m just not a kids movie watcher unless it also exists for nostalgic adults.

Did the film need five screenplay writers? Probably not, but it had Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jeff Rowe, Dan Hernandez, and Benji Samit. I’m going to go on a limb here and suggest the writing credits are probably just the usual Hollywood tax fraud and money laundering that tends to go on these animated films. Seth Rogen throws his friends on with writing credits so they can get a cut of the royalties, it’s from the Adam Sandler school of embezzlement.

But who cares, the big question is is the movie any good? And yeah, it is. The film stars some people you probably ain’t heard of before as characters you know and love. We all know the backstory, some ooze gets into the sewers and turns a group of turtles into mutants, along with their wise rat father. Donatello (Micah Abbey), Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), Leo Nardo (Nicolas Cantu) and Raphael (Brady Noon) are raised by Master Splinter (Jackie Chan) who teaches them that humans suck and are horrible monsters who would try to kill them if they knew that turtle mutants lived among them, or milk them for their sweet turtle juice.

There’s an all-star voice cast with Maya Rudolph, John Cena (Rocksteady), David Faustino (Normal Nate), Giancarlo Esposito (Baxter Stockman), Paul Rudd (Mondo Gecko), Post Malone (Ray Fillet), Hannibal Buress (Genghis Frog), and they even got Mr. Breast himself as Times Square Guy. Seth Rogen is here too as Bebop. And of course we can’t forget Ayo Edebiri as April O’Neil, who had the misfortune of being targeted by the internet’s cabal of greasy dudes in their forties who record videos of themselves in front of shelves of toys. Edebiri is quickly becoming one of my favorite young actresses.

For what it’s worth I’m sure this was a passion project for all involved. Seth Rogen was a stoner who grew up in the 80s, there’s basically no way the guy wasn’t a big fan of the TMNT cartoon, and probably the comics as well as the 90s movies. And it shows in the writing and the animation, the latter of which is really top notch work. This isn’t like Santa Inc, where nobody cared and it was evident in the acting and the final product. A lot of love and blood and sweat and probably spinal fluid went into the production of this animation.

Between TMNT, the Spider Man movies, and that Puss In Boots film from last year, we’re really in a great time for high octane action animation films. The turtles learn about another mutant called Superfly (Ice Cube) who is stealing parts to build a big machine that is probably going to destroy the world or turn it into mutants or something mutant related. So naturally they have to stop him and his gang of mutants, while also figuring out a way to introduce themselves to the world and get their real goal; being recognized and appreciated.

And that’s the theme of the movie, because even all Superfly wanted was to be recognized and appreciated instead of being treated like a monster. The same goes for his gang of mutants. Even April O’Neil is dealing with feelings of being outcasted and not appreciated, as she is the lonely dweeb at her high school who is also looking to be the next top journalist. One day. Probably.

Hokey and cliche? Absolutely. But charming and endearing, and the actors play off each other quite well. You can tell that they actually had the voice actors in the same room together because of how well the turtles bounce off each other’s lines.

Even a broken Seth Rogen is right twice a day.

Rating: A