Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)
★★★½ — Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been a fixture of popular culture since their unlikely origins as a self-published black-and-white comic book by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in 1984. What started as a fairly gritty, tongue-in-cheek parody of Marvel's darker comics of that era quickly snowballed into a global franchise: Saturday morning cartoons, a string of live-action films in the early 1990s, toys, video games, and more reboots than most franchises have had hot dinners. By the time Mutant Mayhem arrived in the summer of 2023, audiences had already seen the Turtles reimagined several times over, including a CG-animated film back in 2007 and a pair of live-action/CGI hybrids from the mid-2010s. The question facing any new iteration, then, is not just whether it can tell a good story, but whether it can find a visual and tonal identity that feels genuinely fresh rather than recycled.
This 2023 entry was directed by Jeff Rowe, who co-directed the warmly received The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021) before taking sole charge here. Produced through a partnership between Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies, and Point Grey Pictures, the film runs a brisk 100 minutes and carries the tagline "Heroes aren't born. They're mutated." The animation style drew considerable attention ahead of release for its rough, hand-drawn aesthetic, which leaned into a sketchbook quality rather than the polished but unremarkable sheen that dominates a lot of studio animation. The four Turtles, Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo, are voiced respectively by Nicolas Cantu, Brady Noon, Micah Abbey, and Shamon Brown Jr., a deliberate choice to cast actual teenagers rather than established adult voice actors. Ayo Edebiri, who had built a strong profile in the years leading up to the film's release, takes on April O'Neil. The wider voice cast is notably stacked, bringing a good deal of personality to what might otherwise have been supporting roles. Fans of animated films will find plenty of points of comparison here, and if that particular corner of cinema interests you, it's worth checking out some other animation reviews on the site, including a look at Josep (2020) and the visually distinctive Fantastic Planet (1973), both of which play with style and tone in ways that reward attention.
The film's premise stays true to the spirit of the source material without being slavishly faithful to any one previous version. The Turtles, having spent their lives hidden underground by their guardian Splinter, are four teenage brothers who want nothing more than to be accepted as normal kids by the city of New York. They get their shot at proving themselves when they and their new ally April O'Neil find themselves tangled up with a criminal operation that quickly escalates beyond anything they bargained for. It is a story about belonging and the particular awkwardness of adolescence as much as it is an action-comedy, and the film wears that thematic concern lightly enough that it never tips into the sort of heavy-handed messaging that can weigh down family animation. The Canadian and French co-production involvement gives it a slightly broader international footprint than your average franchise reboot, for what that's worth.
Probably my favourite TMNT media since the originals. The artstyle is alot closer to the original comics (which I also love) than just about anything else. I liked the voice acting (especially the legendary Jackie Chan) and the story itself (although far removed from the iconic Shredder) was also good. I watched this with my 6 year old son (which is roughly the age I was when I first discovered the turtles) and he found it extremely funny too. The animation on the fight scenes is really slick and the soundtrack compliments it perfectly. Would definitely recommend it.
Watching it alongside my son made the whole thing land differently, I think, than it might have on a solo viewing. There's something about seeing a six-year-old genuinely lose himself in a film that sharpens your own reaction to it, and when the humour and the action are working as well as they do here, the generational gap between my first encounter with the Turtles and his just disappears. For anyone curious about other Canadian productions worth your time, the site also has reviews of Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016), which sit at a very different end of the tonal spectrum. Sometimes a franchise just gets one right, and this is one of those times.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2023 | Watched: 2025-05-25
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023) on YouTube
Where to watch
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Canada: History of the World in Three Minutes Flat (1980) · Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) · Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) · Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)
More from the 2020s: Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025) · The Long Walk (2025) · Americana (2023)
More animation: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
