The fun-loving nostalgia and callbacks – even Vanilla Ice’s ‘Ninja Rap’ from 1991’s dorky Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II gets a nod – are all cut with an affecting note of melancholy. There’s so much to love in what follows, from the very Rogen-y humour (think: body horror for beginners and a killer joke about the ‘best Chris’ in Hollywood) and pop-art New York cityscapes, to the fan-favourite mutants and the crate’s worth of hip-hop cuts on the soundtrack. The anything-goes animation style hits like a needle scratch on a dusty old LP Cub reporter April O’Neil ( The Bear ’s Ayo Edebiri) is on hand to help out. But a bigger threat is out there: Superfly, a Cronenbergian insectoid nightmare voiced by Ice Cube. Also mutated is Splinter, a rodent sensei voiced, in an inspired touch, by the actual Jackie Chan.įast forward 15 years and Splinter is the teen Turtles’ overprotective shut-in dad, who lingers in their sewer lair issuing dire warnings about humans that the movie’s criminal underworld – all ugly goons and grotesque henchmen – bears out in full. It’s just the latest in a new wave of Hollywood ’toons that owe more to manga and anime than traditional CG animation.įor confused Gen Z-ers and Millennials who didn’t grow up in the era of Velcro and Max Headroom, the movie’s opening tackles the Turtles’ origins in snappy style: a vial of mutant pathogen falls down a sewer and turns four adorbs baby turtles – Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo – into the reptile kingdom’s nunchuck-wielding answer to Jackie Chan. Jeff Rowe, co-director on The Mitchells vs the Machines, and his animators underlay the familiar adventures of the four genetically modified turtles with an unfamiliar animation style: all glitchy, punky, doodly, drawing-outside-the-lines splurges of colour and action. Like Spider-Verse, the anything-goes animation style hits like a needle scratch on a dusty old LP. What it lacks in those movies’ dazzling storytelling, it makes up for in visual effervescence and a steady stream of big laughs. Shelve any scepticism because Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a blast – a worthy companion piece to the groundbreaking Spider-Verse films. On the evidence of this Seth Rogen-produced animation, the answer might just be ‘a lot’. ![]() ![]() How many more times can you reshell those sewer-dwelling martial artists for kid-friendly fun? Movie and a Wham! documentary, the idea of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot seems like pushing the ’80s nostalgia trend to breaking point. Even in a year that has already given us origin stories for Tetris and Nike Air Jordans, a Super Mario Bros.
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