They’re the world’s most fearsome fighting team. Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines, Raphael is cool but rude, and Michelangelo, as you may have gathered, is a party dude. Fans have seen the heroes in a half-shell on our big screens in a few troubling forms: in rubbery live-action, and in dodgy Michael Bay-produced CGI, among others. But the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem might be their finest cinematic joint yet, giving the TMNT their own vibrant, animated epic reboot.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
The film comes from The Mitchells Vs. The Machines director Jeff Rowe, and Superbad writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, with a stellar comedy cast voicing characters you might half-remember from the totally tubular 80s toy and kids’ TV phenomenon. Here’s everything we know about this exciting new film: grab a slice of cheesy ‘za and dive in.
1. The mutant ninja turtles are finally actual teenagers
How is this the first time the TMNT have all been portrayed by teenage actors?! 1990’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at least had a 19-year-old Corey Feldman, but the new film cleverly used the heroic amphibians’ young age as a storytelling catalyst. Screenwriter Seth Rogen says he “literally got [his] start by writing a teenage movie”, so “the idea of honing in on that element was really exciting. As a lifelong fan of Ninja Turtles, weirdly the ‘Teenage’ part of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was always the part that stuck out to me the most.”
Micah Abbey is the team’s geek Donatello; Shamon Brown Jr. is class clown Michelangelo; The Amazing World of Gumball voice actor Nicolas Cantu is self-appointed leader Leonardo; and Good Boys star Brady Noon voices the bad boy Raphael. Awkward, exuberant, and constantly talking over one another, the youthful actors nail that “inauthentic confidence that teenagers have”, as director Rowe likes to put it.
2. A flashback of the turtles as wee babies will explode your heart
As trueheads will know, the TMNT came to be back in 1984, in Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s gritty comic books parodying the mutants and ninjas of series like X-Men and Daredevil. Why do they have the names of Italian renaissance artists? Literally just because their creators thought it would be “quirky”.
In most iterations of the turtles mythos, the gang were once sewer-dwelling baby turtles, who got all mutant-y and ninja-y after being exposed to radioactive ooze. Mutant Mayhem gives us a quick, utterly adorable peep at that origin story, with mini Leo, Raph, Mikey and Donny waddling their way into a now-humanoid Splinter’s heart, before he teaches them awesome martial arts skills (via YouTube) to help protect them from the cruel human world. I’ve simply gotta cuddle baby Donatello. Look at him. Look at him again.
3. The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri is teen journalist April O’Neill
Intrepid reported April O’Neill is typically depicted as a headstrong, capable white woman who’s a tad older than the turtles. Mutant Mayhem perfectly mixes this up by casting comedian Ayo Edebiri, who is just absolutely everywhere right now, as a less confident, teenaged April, who hopes that spreading the turtles’ bizarre story can establish her as a journalistic talent. Edebiri appears in comedies Bottoms and Theatre Camp this year, as well as continuing to stress us TF out as The Bear’s chef Sydney. Her nervous, hilarious energy should balance out the turtles’ extroversion nicely.
4. The film’s distinct, scrappy style was inspired by school notebook sketches
Right from when its first trailer dropped, Mutant Mayhem was already being compared to Sony’s Spider-Verse films, with its imperfect, mile-a-minute visual style. While Into The Spider-Verse has undeniably encouraged other animations to go for more graphic, surreal aesthetics, Mutant Mayhem is a little more particular in its inspirations, drawing from colourful kid art and OTT conceptual designs.
One of my favourite choices in the film’s look lies in its asymmetrical character designs: our four heroes look nicely-balanced, while the humans around them sport exaggerated facial features and lopsided heads. It drives home the film’s theme of acceptance, as the turtles long to be seen as more than mutant freaks by the bustling New York society above them.
5. Jackie Chan is the gang’s dad: mutated badass rat Splinter
The martial arts legend is warm and funny as the turtles’ adoptive father Splinter, whose shabby outfit was apparently based on Jeff Bridges’ iconic ensemble as The Dude. Once loathed by the outside world, he’ll do anything to defend his boys from the life he endured as a NYC street rat—and that overprotective narrative arc will speak volumes to audience members who are second-generation migrants. Director Jeff Rowe admitted this nuanced immigration theme wasn’t originally intended, but said his team saw parallels between Master Splinter and other first-generation migrant parents. Splinter will need to learn to let the turtles flourish into adulthood, whatever oozy risks might come their way.
6. The villains squad includes the voices of Ice Cube, John Cena, Rose Byrne…
…screenwriter Rogen himself, Post Malone, Hannibal Buress, and (my personal fave) Paul Rudd as the extremely 90s Mondo Gecko. NWA frontman Ice Cube gets his own cold af theme song as lead villain Superfly, an escaped experiment of scientist Baxter Stockman (Giancarlo Esposito) who reckons humanity’s time is over—he has a wild crew of fellow mutants to bring about a bold, new, yucky future. Cena and Seth Rogen are bulky henchmen Rocksteady and Bebop, Rose Byrne is the Aussie-accented Leatherhead, WWDITS star Natasia Demetriou is batty baddie Wingnut, and Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch voices the unintelligible cockroach Scumbug. Post Malone’s character Ray Filet is a big ol’ manta ray who literally just sings his own name in falsetto: “Ray Fileeet…”
7. The cast recorded their voice roles together: an unusual method for animation
It’s typically important to record voice acting performances in isolated sound booths, so that each voice can come together as crisply as possible in the final, complicated mix. But to Rogen and Rowe, capturing the way the film’s good guys and bad guys interacted together in an authentic, messy way felt more important. After seeing the four TMNT lead actors fooling around out of character, Rogen felt he had no choice but to bring that chaotic energy into the recording booth, catching every inflection and improvised comic bit: “they would all hang out together in the kitchen of the recording studio, and they would all just talk over each other and make fun of each other; screaming at each other.”
8. TMNT creator Kevin Eastman has a sweet cameo
Comic book artist Kevin Eastman could’ve never predicted that his original forty-page, black-and-white TMNT issue would’ve spun out into this latest animated blockbuster decades later. À la Marvel’s string of Stan Lee cameos, the creator is given an emotional shout-out in the film itself, as he voices a human bystander who comes to Splinter’s aid just in the nick of time.
Another surprise cast member who’s perhaps more recognisable to iPad-addicted, YouTube-challenge-following kids in the film’s audiences, popular YouTuber Mr Beast also has a quick little cameo in the film, as ‘Times Square Guy’.
👀 can you find @MrBeast in #TMNTMovie #MutantMayhem? https://t.co/MQagqvI2xw pic.twitter.com/v6Vcj6gdkF
— TMNT (@TMNTMovie) August 1, 2023
Pioneering his YouTube empire with outrageously expensive stunts and giveaways, Mr Beast (real name James Stephen Donaldson) is the platform’s most-subscribed individual user. He’s not super recognisable in the final film TBH.
9. The Nickelodeon film has a few sneaky references to iconic kids TV shows
The turtle gang are just as obsessed with the internet and pop culture as any other teens, so you’ll hear plenty of references to The Avengers and anime throughout their speedy dialogue. But, being a Paramount and Nickelodeon production, Mutant Mayhem is also able to sprinkle some brief glimpses of one Spongebob Squarepants and mentions of Hey Arnold! in amongst the action. Just a few weeks before this new reboot hit cinemas, Nickelodeon announced that they had acquired the rights to the original 1980s TMNT series, meaning we could perhaps see an old-school Splinter teaming up with, idk, the Rugrats in some upcoming crossover or something.
10. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s score is bolstered by a hip-hop soundtrack
The lads behind Nine Inch Nails and countless compositions for David Fincher and Pixar hits bring a sense of propulsive cool to Mutant Mayhem‘s soundscape. But there’s plenty of recognisable, retro needle-drops on the soundtrack, too: from a fight scene set to “No Diggity” to a car chase where He-Man’s much-memed cover of “What’s Up” blares from a stereo. Vanilla Ice fans need not worry either: a brief snippet of his ludicrous TMNT crossover tune “Ninja Rap” gets a little screentime, too.
11. A sequel and Paramount+ spin-off show are already being developed
Director Jeff Rowe has expressed enthusiasm for a feature-length sequel to Mutant Mayhem—perhaps one that’d see our boys face off against their most iconic foe, the Shredder (see below for more info…). And to bridge the gap between this original film and whatever that follow-up may be, Paramount+ has already announced a two-season animated series titled Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It seems pulling off a successful Turtles reboot is top priority over at Paramount: here’s the official plot description we’ve got so far.
“The Turtles will be challenged like never before as Leo, Raph, Donnie and Mikey each go it alone for the first time. Faced with new threats and teaming up with old allies, the Turtles will discover who they really are when they don’t have their brothers at their sides.”
12. Shredder was originally meant to be the film’s Big Bad. When does he show up?
Not to disrespect Ice Cube’s valiant efforts as Superfly or anything, but the character is not amongst the TMNT’s most famous villains. When are we going to see globby freak Krang, or, most importantly, the domineering Foot Clan leader Shredder?
Well. Rumours of the supervillain making it into the rebooted franchise were inevitable, and now character designer Justin Runfola has confirmed that he was asked to create concept art for a revamped Shredder, who we can hopefully see in the franchise’s next entry.
Since the Film has been out for about a month, safe to say we've all seen it! Time to share all my shredder concepts! I was very happy and appreciative to be able to throw in some concepts for our ol' pal oroku saki #characterdesign #TMNTMutantMayhem pic.twitter.com/7OftBO5hi5
— Justin Runfola (@JustinRunfola) August 28, 2023
If the 1990s TMNT theme song has taught us anything, it’s this: “when the evil Shredder attacks, these turtle boys don’t cut him no slack”. We would expect nothing less from Leo and his green teen brothers in the planned sequel and sequel series. Cowabunga, my most righteous, tubular dudes.
