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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem sees the ‘heroes in a half-shell’ returning to the big screen, even though they haven’t been a draw to anyone for quite some time.
However, upon seeing the trailer, instead of making this with humans in suits, this time, it looks a bit like stop-motion animation, even though it isn’t. Even so, I quite liked that style, but like the character themselves, it’s still not a draw for cinema audiences, these days. Kids just want CGI nonsense.
The plot, such as it is, sees a mutant mix being created in a lab by scientist Baxter Stockman (Giancarlo Esposito – Kaleidoscope). The army bust in, wanting to recreate the science, he gets killed in the ensuing melee, and it leads to the turtles’ creation once a tube of the mix heads down their way…
Then fast-forwards to 15 years later, where they’re crime-fighters, yet steal groceries… So, committing crime, themselves. Huh? However, seeing them watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off at an open-air cinema, at least they have good taste.
But as I said earlier, why bring the Turtles back, anyway? Michael Bay only managed two films before that series fell apart, and now this one has hardly set the world on fire, not even making its budget back within the first week, only clawing around $55m so far at the time of posting this.
Normally, films are released on a Friday, so their initial ‘big weekend’ is just made up of the three days from Friday until Sunday, but in the case of this film, it was released on Monday July 31st, so it has a 7-day ‘weekend’ to try and make that figure big. Oddly, the earliest a film can release in order to maximise that is a Saturday. The last time I remember this happen, was with 2014’s Transformers: Age of Extinction, which came out on Saturday July 5th 2014 in the UK, so its first ‘weekend’ was actually 9 days, up until Sunday July 13th.
Enter Superfly (Ice Cube – Straight Outta Compton: Director’s Cut), who’s stealing TCRI technology, including a radioactive storage unit, he wants to turn all animals into mutants, kill all humans, and the turtles want to stop him.
Alas, the plot is all over the place, the budget was $70m, and I can’t begin to imagine what that was spent on – certainly not a script! Plus, young aspiring journalist April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri – Black Mirror: Joan Is Awful) is now black, because it’s 2023 and Hollywood feels it needs to change the race of its characters, in case the audience gets offended by a white face.
Ultimately, I figured beforehand, that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem could go either way, but after watching it, I would struggle to find a more boring film released this year.
It also teases a potential sequel in the mid-credits scene, details of which you can find out in the video above, but given the poor box office take, it won’t be happening.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem isn’t yet available to buy on any home formats.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 100 minutes
Release date: July 31st 2023
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Cinema: Cineworld Didsbury
Rating: 1/10
Directors: Jeff Rowe, Kyler Spears
Producers: Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen, James Weaver
Screenplay: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jeff Rowe, Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit
Characters: Peter Laird, Kevin Eastman
Music: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
Voice cast:
Donatello: Micah Abbey
Michelangelo: Shamon Brown Jr
Leonardo: Nicolas Cantu
Raphael: Brady Noon
April O’Neil: Ayo Edebiri
Cynthia Utrom: Maya Rudolph
Rocksteady: John Cena
Bebop: Seth Rogen
Leatherhead: Rose Byrne
Wingnut: Natasia Demetriou
Baxter Stockman: Giancarlo Esposito
Splinter:Jackie Chan
Superfly: Ice Cube
Mondo Gecko: Paul Rudd
Ray Fillet: Post Malone
Genghis Frog: Hannibal Buress
Times Square Guy: MrBeast
Spider: Derek Wilson
Curious Goon: Lukas Williams
Bad Bernie: Michael Badalucco
Bald Bronson: Dempsey Pappion
Normal Nate: David Faustino
Apologetic Goon: Kyler Spears
Man Who Loves Being Young and Free to Go Places: Jeff Rowe
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.