Going into this movie I knew I was going to enjoy it, after all I grew up watching the Turtles, I had so many of their toys as a kid – Metalhead was my all time favourite, I still love the original movie and as an adult I have quickly grown to love anything from the minds of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Though I was pleasantly surprised at how much I loved this film, its that perfect mix of childish silliness with a tonne of amazing references, I was literally in pain from laughing so much at points so if you want to avoid spoiler’s I would say skip reading this article, go see the movie and then come back to see my thoughts on it.

Firstly, let’s talk animation, I have seen a lot of people comparing the animation style in this movie to Across the Spiderverse, but I don’t really see that. To me this is more like Japan’s animation system where they allow artists to find their own unique style and this helps them create unique and stunning animated films, and yes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is an absolutely gorgeous film to look at. Every scene is a treat for the eyes, even if more than a few were quite gross.

Then we have the cast and, omg is the cast amazing for this movie. The movie stars the voices of Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, and Brady Noon as the title team, alongside a supporting ensemble voice cast that includes Ayo Edebiri, Maya Rudolph, John Cena, Rogen, Rose Byrne, Natasia Demetriou, Giancarlo Esposito, Jackie Chan, Ice Cube, Paul Rudd, Post Malone, and Hannibal Buress.

If you have given a cursory glance at this film, you will know that the sound track is absolutely radical. They have heavily leant into the use of East Coast Hip Hop, which perfectly ties in with the location of the movie but beyond that they squeezed in the infamous “Ninja Rap” the original version of “What’s Up” as well as the Heman Mix by SLACKCircus aka Fabulous Secret Powers. As for the films score, I was shocked to see that he was credited to Trent Reznor (of Nine inch Nails fame) along with his frequent collaborator Atticus Ross. With these two at the helm the score was just phenomenal.

Being a film about ninjas, teenage ninjas for that, the action was frantic and exciting. Though I do have a soft spot for the fight between Splinter and the security guards. The entire fight sequence was a complete homage to classic Jackie Chan action sequences, which is just appropriate because of course he was voiced by Jackie.

Other random highlights would be Post Malone and Ray Fillet, Paul Rudd as Mondo Gekko and Rose Byrne as a Gender Swapper Leather Head. It was also nice to see not one but two nods to Turtles cocreator Kevin Eastmen, with April’s high school being named after him and he was also the voice of one of the humans at the end of the movie.

In the end this may not be the Turtles I grew up watching and there most definitely have been changes that I do not like, villains made more comical and lack of a tie to Shredder, but it was a fun movie and it was great to see the turtles being voiced by kids. All round another fantastic summer movie and one really worth seeing.

I look forward to what they come out with next.