310: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

[00:00:00] Chapter 21, new film. Let's get to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem. This one is directed by Jeff Roe and Tyler Spears, written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, which is awesome. Love them as writers. And it stars Micah Abbey,

[00:00:21] Shaman Brown Jr., Nicholas Cantu, Brady Noon, Maya Rudolph, John Cena, Seth Rogan, Rose Byrne, Paul Rudd, Ice Cube, Jackie Chan, and a few others. And the synopsis is the Turtle Brothers worked to earn the love of New York City while facing down

[00:00:41] an army of mutants. So I only got around to seeing the original TMNT movies probably late 2010s. I didn't grow up with those movies or the toys or comic books, nothing. I just was not really around that very much so

[00:00:58] I got to it quite late. I'd seen all the other movies leading up to this one when this one was announced and I was immediately excited when I heard that Seth Rogen was gonna be a part of the writing team. I think he is an amazing

[00:01:13] writer and he sure has his shared duds but there's something about his voice that just works for me. I think he's hilarious and I love Seth Rogen across the board both acting and writing wise. And one big thing right off the bat that

[00:01:27] intrigued me as well was that this one clearly, maybe I'm crazy, this one definitely takes from the Spider-Verse animated films in terms of the movie looking sort of concept art-y, sketchbook-y sort of style and I think that is great.

[00:01:44] I love that new style of animation. I'm so thankful for those Spider-Verse films that are out because I think they're both fantastic and that animation is so unique and I don't mind if others are inspired by it because I think this one

[00:01:57] looks great in its own way. Yeah, it's clearly inspired by those movies but it still makes the animation its own. It looks amazing. The colors that, again, that sketchbook comic book concept art design and animation is great. The overall cast

[00:02:15] across the board is top-notch and I love spending time really in all of the different versions of these characters. I love spending time with the four Turtles. I love all of them and that dynamic and that friendship, the love of

[00:02:29] pizza and just I just love that stuff. It makes me sound like a little kid maybe but I get some enjoyment out of it every single time and I actually do like the Michael Bay produced ones, the live-action ones. I think those are solid.

[00:02:45] They're not amazing but I seem to like it more than other people do so I'm a bit of a sucker, a late bloomer for Team NT. I don't think that this one is a five out of five amazing. I've only seen it twice now. Maybe it'll continue to

[00:02:59] grow on me over time. There are points in the middle where the plot, the pacing drops off a little bit. It's not very long which I appreciate but it's still, I don't know, maybe the animation was too in-your-face or too distracting or it

[00:03:13] was direction but I do find that there are parts that drag a little bit for me. Not too much because everything else in the movie is excellent. The designs of the different creatures and monsters that they encounter is great.

[00:03:27] It's not really a spoiler. The final moments back to school with the turtles, that's a really fun ending sequence to the movie so it's definitely underrated. Not a best of the year for me but I really really enjoyed it. I'm sad

[00:03:47] it didn't do all that well at the box office. It doesn't really surprise me considering the overall production of it but I'm really glad that we are getting a sequel. I'm so happy for that because I was expecting it to be a one-and-done

[00:04:01] deal and I'm glad that the cast and crew are returning in a variety of ways. So do check it out. If you haven't seen any of the others, you could watch this one on

[00:04:10] its own and enjoy it. It's one of those you can come into it not knowing anything and get something out of it. At least that's how I feel. Maybe I'm wrong but I definitely think you could. So that one is a four out of five.