Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem Looks Like The Best TMNT Movie Ever
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem's first trailer looks amazing with its heavily stylized animation and it's already being praised as the best movie since the original 90s trilogy.
Paramount is about to hit the sewers in style. From producer Seth Rogen, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is on the way, and the new trailer teases the best entry in the franchise since 1990 after Michael Bay’s disappointing duology (according to Rotten Tomatoes). The incredible animation, character designs, and all-star cast already fill fans with hope.
The influence of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was clear in the animation of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and now Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem looks to also take a page out of the Spider-Verse playbook. The trailer showcases the film’s low frame rate action, 3D animation with 2D, hand-drawn accents, and a gritty vibrance reminiscent of the comic book pages that inspired it.
Ninja Turtles creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird first introduced the Heroes in a Half Shell in comics set on (and under) the mean streets of 1980s New York City. The new film captures the city’s grimy neon look with a modern twist. Michelangelo wears braces while Donatello films the turtles slicing watermelons on his cell phone.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is taking the teenage aspect of the characters to a new level, aging the characters down to feel more like kids than ever before. The film will also introduce a much younger April O’Neil, the human reporter who befriends the Turtles on the surface.
The film looks to earn its title. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem will be just that as the Turtles face off with Bebop and Rocksteady, Leatherhead, Genghis Frog, Ray Fillet, and more. On top of all the mutants, the Turtles must contend with the evil scientist Baxter Stockman.
Seth Rogen has been developing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem with Paramount and Nickelodeon Movies since 2020, but the actor and producer has been a fan of the Turtles his whole life. He promised fans that the movie is personal and made with love from everyone involved.
The trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem has sparked some controversy over changing the looks of certain characters, but the hype has outweighed those grievances. The movie is a breath of fresh air for fans who felt slighted by Michael Bay’s Ninja Turtles films from 2014 and 2016.
A young cast voices the heroes. Brady Noon (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) voices Raphael, Nicolas Cantu (The Walking Dead: World Beyond) plays Leonardo, Shamon Brown Jr. (The ChiI) is the party dude Michelangelo, and Micah Abbey (Cousins for Life) plays the bespectacled Donatello.
Joining the kids are Paul Rudd, Rose Byrne, Jackie Chan, Giancarlo Esposito, Seth Rogen, John Cena, Ice Cube, Maya Rudolph, Natasia Demetriou, Hannibal Buress, Post Malone, and Ayo Edebiri as April O’Neil. The film is directed by The Mitchells vs the Machines co-director Jeff Rowe from a script by Neighbors writer Brendan O’Brien.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is expected to reach the surface world on August 4, 2023. The Ninja Turtles’ return to the big screen looks to make a splash at the late summer box office and return the film franchise to heights it hasn’t seen since the early 1990s.
