An explosive cartoon with an unforgettable bestiary—as tempting as a New York pepperoni pizza.
A mysterious scientist conducts experiments on animals in a secret laboratory. A quartet of mutated turtles and a rat named Splinter manage to escape, along with a whole host of terrifying creatures, including Superfly—a mutant obsessed with destroying humanity. The turtles grow up under Splinter’s leadership, learn martial arts, and meet their kindred spirits: they team up with journalist April O’Neil to challenge a dangerous syndicate.
Still from the animated film “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”
The Ninja Turtles have about as many lives on screen as cats. After all, there is no limit to the reincarnations of the green mutants! At least, in the last two decades, both animation and cinema have significantly enriched the turtle universe. Whether it was worth it is a big question: hardly anyone remembers Kevin Monroe’s 2007 cartoon today, only the most desperate fans were interested in last year’s “Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” from Netflix, and the film reboot under the sensitive guidance of Michael Bay made almost everyone talk about commerce and soullessness of the craft. But Jeff Rowe—the newly minted author of “Turtles”—decided to follow the path of the latest “Spider-Man” films, returning the heroes to their carefree youth, or rather, focusing on growing up (characteristically, this also happened in John Watts’ cinematic “Spider-Man” films, and in the breakthrough animated dilogy from Sony Pictures). Today’s superheroes don’t grow up, but experience the torments and joys of youth with all their intensity. Like the recent projects about the spider superhero, the new “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” look not at their comic background, but rather at the tradition of teenage comedies from the 80s. It is no coincidence that in one of the scenes, the quartet of mutants watches John Hughes’ “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”—viewers who come to the new turtle story will have roughly the same experience: carefree adventures in the big city, separation from their parent, and the search for their own identity in a world where they just want to be accepted. “I’m not like everyone else” is not a privilege for a superhero, but rather a curse.
“Mutant Mayhem” is an intricate and colorful symbiote cartoon. The lively and dynamic animation is reminiscent of the contribution made by “Spider-Man” to development and trends: everything sparkles and illuminates, driving the viewer through the greenish tunnels of sewers and the night streets of New York. The authors are not shy about the grotesque: the combat mutant turtles, both in infancy and in more adult years, are shown with the artists’ undisguised craving for exaggeration, external distortion of proportions, and gambling play with forms. When the heroes meet Superfly and the mutant syndicate on their way—even more so. The cartoon smoothly grows into a phantasmagoric terrarium, where the style of Japanese kaiju is borrowed—in other words, in such a universe it would be a crime to shun the ugly.
Still from the animated film “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”
Regarding other adversities—there is, for example, an unexpected approach with April O’Neil. Not only is she not depicted as a slender beauty like Megan Fox (it’s amazing what a vulgar simplification Bay’s team went for in 2014), she is constantly throwing up in the frame—an unenviable start for a young journalist. The turtles strategically and cunningly steal food from stores, and the villain in the cartoon is not a brutal martial arts master (Shredder is still far away), but an insect-like monster with a mutated claw that grows to the size of Godzilla. The whole story, it is not difficult to guess, is presented in a feverish non-stop rhythm, accompanying the aesthetics of the disgusting with brisk humorous inserts (a separate plus is a lyrical flashback about Splinter’s acquaintance with the turtles, almost in the style of James Gunn).
“Mutant Mayhem” is really hooliganism, more like not an ordinary superhero film, but rather a self-absorbed fun from the Troma studio, where laughter is combined with a bizarre grotesque ornament. You don’t have to go far: the cartoon is made by real movie fans who will not fail to accompany turtle training with the song Push In To The Limit, joke about Chris Pine, or mockingly play out the laws of kaiju films (although the creators had a much wider source of inspiration, including the night romance of “Chungking Express”).
Naturally, the creators know the measure and dilute the circus of reptiles with quite human emotions: children go through the path from rejection and alienation to socialization. From sewer turtles, persecuted by people from the streets, the quartet of mutants turns into heroes of New York. The script participation of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg is visible to the naked eye in how the story and gags are saturated with the juices of pop culture, and pubertal issues are now a problem not only for teenagers from the 2000s (the “Superbad” comes to mind), but also for anthropomorphic turtles. In any case, “Mutant Mayhem” is a wonderful revision that does not parasitize on nostalgic feelings, but rushes forward, using the power of modern animation and following the synthesizer rolls of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.