[And - Sponsored by Movie Palette] Seth Rogen backs a new rendition of the pizza-chewing reptiles for a new generation, but is this animated take the best film version to date, and do for the Turtles what Spider-Verse did for Spider-Man?
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00:00 This video is sponsored by Movie Palette.
00:02 Hello and welcome to Projector, and on this episode,
00:05 the pizza-chewing teenage mutant Ninja Turtles get a reboot with Mutant Mayhem.
00:10 [MUSIC]
00:26 Fifteen years after Baxter Stockman, voiced by Giancarlo Esposito,
00:30 dropped his ooze into New York sewers, the teenage mutant Ninja Turtles,
00:34 including Mika Abbey's Donatello, Shimon Brown Jr.'s Michelangelo,
00:38 Nicolas Cantu's Leonardo, and Brady Noon's Raphael,
00:42 have been raised by their rat father, Splinter,
00:44 voiced by Jackie Chan, who warns them against interacting with humans.
00:48 After accidentally revealing themselves to aspiring reporter April O'Neil,
00:51 voiced by Iowa Debrie, she alerts them to a series of robberies across the city,
00:56 and the Turtles discover the mastermind behind them is Superfly,
01:00 voiced by Ice Cube, who leads a gang of Baxter's former mutants
01:04 with a plan to destroy humanity.
01:06 The teenage mutant Ninja Turtles have had a very checkered history with the big screen.
01:10 In 1990, they had their first live-action outing, backed by Jim Henson,
01:15 who gave absolutely terrific suits to the production,
01:18 as well as the fact the film just got the tone just right,
01:21 in that it was perfectly suitable for kids, but did have a little bit of a dark edge to it.
01:26 Maybe a little bit too much so for parents at the time,
01:29 who complained about its content and its violence.
01:32 But several decades on, that still holds up as arguably being the best Turtles movie to date.
01:38 Sadly, its sequels were a case of rapidly diminishing returns,
01:42 with the third film effectively killing the franchise on screen for over a decade.
01:47 In 2007, we got the first CG animated feature, TMNT,
01:52 which largely felt like a fans-only affair for the most part.
01:56 Then, in 2014, we had Michael Bay producing a reboot of the Ninja Turtles,
02:02 with god-awful CGI designs.
02:05 Those character designs in those movies are so ugly.
02:09 The first film was embroiled in a lot of late-stage reshoots,
02:13 when it was revealed that they were going to turn the Turtles into aliens,
02:17 and basically give them the Transformers treatment.
02:20 And the sequel, Out of the Shadows, in 2016,
02:22 was an improvement on that prior movie,
02:25 in that it felt like a very silly Saturday morning cartoon.
02:29 But nevertheless, the ship had already sailed,
02:32 and audiences didn't return for the follow-up.
02:35 Which brings us to Mucint Mayhem,
02:36 which is meant to kick off a whole new version of the franchise,
02:39 which is going to be spun off into a television series,
02:42 that's going to fill in the gaps for this film's sequel in a few years' time.
02:46 This version of the Turtles is backed by Seth Rogen,
02:49 who was apparently a big fan of the prophecy when he was a kid,
02:53 and it's directed by Jeff Rowe.
02:55 So if you thought the movie had a lot of Lord and Miller DNA to it,
02:58 despite the fact they're not actually involved with this movie,
03:01 that's the reason why.
03:02 Rowe directed The Mitchells vs. The Machines,
03:05 which they were involved in,
03:07 and he carries in a lot of that star and aesthetic
03:10 into this version of the Turtles.
03:12 And the question with this remake,
03:15 is whether it can regalvanize the Turtles for an entire new generation.
03:20 And I would say, yes, it does,
03:23 even if it's not the perfect Turtles movie.
03:26 The first most striking thing about Mucint Mayhem is its entire visual look.
03:30 It's another example of how the Spider-Verse movies
03:32 have rejuvenated Western animation
03:34 by allowing filmmakers to be more daring and experimental in their approach,
03:39 to actually create unique art styles
03:41 that reflect their movies' distinctive personalities.
03:44 And this is a great example of that.
03:46 What Jeff Rowe is doing here,
03:48 basically expands upon what he was doing in Mitchells vs. The Machines.
03:52 That movie had a very scrappy look about it,
03:55 leaning into the aesthetic of Doodles,
03:58 you know, the kind of crude drawings that you'd make
04:00 in the edges of your notepad.
04:02 And Mucint Mayhem takes that and goes one step further.
04:07 And so there is a purposefully kind of rough look to the entire movie.
04:12 And you might even call it ugly,
04:14 but it's a deliberate kind of ugliness
04:16 because obviously we're dealing with Mucint reptiles.
04:20 So that makes sense.
04:22 Not only do you have that kind of hand-drawn aesthetic on top of 3D,
04:26 but also the character designs are very unusual
04:30 in that they're quite asymmetrical and odd-looking.
04:33 Even the human characters have a kind of vaguely monstrous quality to them.
04:37 The look of the movie has this very youthful, kinetic look about it,
04:41 especially in the action set pieces,
04:44 where they really go into the almost abstract.
04:47 Even when the movie isn't entirely capturing your attention,
04:51 it always looks brilliant.
04:53 There are a couple of little issues with the animation.
04:56 Sometimes the lighting makes characters look a little bit too three-dimensional,
04:59 which looks very odd with this art style.
05:02 And I can understand just not liking the aesthetic of it in general,
05:06 finding it too busy,
05:07 because there's a lot happening on screen constantly.
05:11 But clearly you can tell that they wanted to make this
05:13 the Spider-Verse of the Mucint Ninja Turtles franchise.
05:17 You can tell that by the look of it,
05:19 and you can tell by the story.
05:20 What sets this version of the Turtles apart
05:22 from virtually every other incarnation I can think of
05:24 is it leans very heavily on the teenage part of the title.
05:29 So while it is a retelling of their origin story for a new, younger audience,
05:33 it also reframes it as a coming-of-age tale.
05:36 There's an early scene where the Turtles are sneaking around the city,
05:40 and they catch an open-air screening of Ferris Bueller's Day Off,
05:43 which is a little bit weird,
05:45 because it's live-action clips in the middle of this animated film,
05:48 and I personally would have animated them
05:49 to fit more with the aesthetic of the movie,
05:52 but that's a small gripe.
05:53 The point is, it sets up this idea
05:56 that this is almost like the 80s John Hughes version of the Turtles.
06:01 That's their homage and their debt,
06:03 but it also sets up that the Turtles are yearning for a proper teenage life.
06:09 They've been taught all their lives to be afraid of the outside world,
06:13 that's openly hostile and threatening to them,
06:16 that they won't be accepted,
06:19 but they're at an age where they're now starting to push at their boundaries.
06:23 They're kind of getting into trouble,
06:25 but also there is this desire to actually be accepted
06:29 and be embraced for who they are,
06:32 and so in that sense, they kind of find it with the other mutants
06:36 when they encounter them later in the movie.
06:39 That offers, potentially, that environment for them
06:42 to actually be with people that are like them,
06:45 but they also want to be involved with the human world
06:48 and are so endlessly fascinated about it.
06:51 Again, kind of roots their fixation with pop culture
06:54 on this desire of kind of watching the world from a distance.
06:57 You particularly see this with Leonardo,
06:59 who more than anything else desperately wants a "normal teenage life",
07:05 and I think this reflects the target audience,
07:08 and there's a lot of adolescent fears and anxieties
07:10 about being different and not fitting in and being ostracized for that.
07:16 The Turtles fear that they are seen as monsters,
07:20 and more than anything else,
07:22 they just want to go to high school like everybody else.
07:25 They want to feel included,
07:28 and so the whole story of the film is the Turtles,
07:32 if you excuse the pun,
07:34 learning to come out of their shells
07:36 and actually embrace their uniqueness
07:39 and actually be celebrated for that,
07:42 and I think that's reassuring for younger viewers.
07:45 And that youthfulness extends to the voice acting,
07:48 because again, setting itself apart from other TMNT properties,
07:51 the Turtles are actually voiced by actual teens
07:54 for I think the first time.
07:56 The filmmakers very much embrace an improvisational approach,
08:00 as you would expect for something backed by Seth Rogen.
08:02 They had all the Turtles actors actually recording together at the same time,
08:07 and you can hear the difference.
08:09 The way the Turtles talk feels organic.
08:12 It feels very much in the spirit of how teenagers actually speak to one another,
08:17 the way they bounce off of their conversations.
08:19 And yeah, sometimes the Turtles are kind of annoying,
08:22 and they talk over each other,
08:24 but that's what actual teenagers do.
08:27 But also there is the fact that there is a lot of contemporary references,
08:31 which makes sense for the Turtles.
08:32 They've always had that.
08:34 The thing is, it's a little bit jarring for maybe someone of my age
08:38 or someone that has come from the Turtles from much further back,
08:42 who puts them in the era of say, Vanilla Ice,
08:44 which does get a very quick shout out in this movie,
08:48 but they largely drop references to things like Adele or K-pop,
08:52 which might be a little bit jarring to those viewers.
08:56 But the thing is,
08:57 Mucint Mayhem really isn't trying to cultivate itself
09:00 towards older nostalgic viewers deliberately,
09:05 in that yes, it does include little shout outs for those fans,
09:09 but really it is aiming itself at the younger demographic,
09:13 which honestly is refreshing to see,
09:15 because so many of these legacy franchises now
09:19 are relying solely on references to older versions of it,
09:23 and instead Mucint Mayhem decides,
09:26 "Actually, we're going in a completely different direction
09:30 that's at once familiar, but also brand new in many ways."
09:34 Jackie Chan is also a great choice as the voice of Splinter,
09:38 especially because he adds a kind of knowing humour to the role,
09:41 especially in a key expository flashback early on,
09:44 where he relays his and the Turtles' backstory,
09:48 with a kind of wink at the fact that,
09:50 yeah, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you think about it,
09:53 but just go with it.
09:54 And he's training the Turtles, of course, updated,
09:57 because he's watching tutorials on YouTube,
10:00 as well as vintage Jackie Chan clips,
10:03 circa Drunken Master,
10:05 which is a very, very cute touch.
10:08 And I do think that some longer-term fans
10:10 might be divided about the fact that this version of the character
10:13 largely drops the backstory that Splinter has had in other versions.
10:18 Mucint Mayhem is definitely leaning heavier
10:21 on the fact that Splinter is meant to be the parent,
10:24 and so over the course of the film, he's trying to appease them,
10:27 he's trying to keep them happy,
10:29 and he's trying to offer them touches of the outside world,
10:32 to try and get them to stay underground.
10:35 But the thing is, he's a parent that doesn't quite know
10:39 how to handle the situation,
10:41 but also, there's this idea that because he was a street rat in Mucint Mayhem,
10:47 and because he's grown up trying to evade humans,
10:50 that kind of prejudice and hostility against humanity
10:54 is what drives much of his decisions about keeping the Turtles underground.
10:59 And I think there is a good story idea here
11:02 about Splinter having to confront that,
11:04 about having to actually deal with his own prejudices,
11:08 whilst also appreciating that he wants the best for his own children.
11:13 I think the execution of it in this movie is a little bit too rushed.
11:18 I do think that the emotional payoff doesn't quite land in the way that it should do,
11:23 but certainly, that's a really strong story idea,
11:27 and gives Splinter a lot more to do than he has done in a lot of other Turtles films.
11:32 As you've probably already noticed I've been hinting at,
11:34 while I think the movie looks visually brilliant,
11:36 I don't think the script is up to that same level.
11:39 It's just not as solid as the Spider-Verse movies,
11:42 which is a bit of a mean thing to say,
11:45 because honestly, those movies are masterpieces.
11:47 That's such a high bar to reach,
11:50 but that's clearly what Mucint Mayhem is trying to emulate.
11:53 That's the point of comparison.
11:55 So unfortunately, it's the difference between something that's great
11:59 and something that's just good,
12:01 and Mucint Mayhem is firmly the latter.
12:04 And there are some things with the script that I wasn't a big fan of,
12:07 like for example, the way it treats April O'Neil.
12:10 Now there's nothing wrong with Ira Debris' voice performance.
12:13 I actually think that she works really well in the role,
12:16 especially with the teens cast as the Turtles.
12:19 The problem is that they've given April this absolutely bizarre subplot
12:25 where she is so terrified of being on camera
12:29 that she uncontrollably projectile vomits.
12:32 To the point where this became a viral sensation,
12:36 and now everyone at high school goes around calling her "Puke Girl".
12:40 And this scene, with a huge en masse vomiting sequence,
12:46 just feels like it's wanted to have a completely different movie.
12:49 Two of the credited writers on the screenplay are, of course,
12:52 Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.
12:54 This seems like something that they wrote,
12:56 and it feels like something that's wanted out of where there are rated comedies
13:01 and has landed in this family movie.
13:03 And it just kind of feels a bit out of place and a bit unnecessary.
13:08 But the biggest issue that I had with the script
13:10 is that in terms of its story structure and pacing, it's very odd.
13:14 The first half of the movie, for example,
13:17 is strangely lacking in mayhem or mutants,
13:20 aside from the Turtles and Splinter.
13:23 And I understand why,
13:24 because in many ways the film is designed to set up
13:27 this whole new incarnation of the franchise,
13:30 and so it needs to set up all the pieces.
13:33 So a lot of time is spent in the first half of the movie
13:36 actually setting up the Turtles' relationship,
13:38 and the Turtles' relationship with April, and with Splinter,
13:41 and all that stuff.
13:42 That's all necessary.
13:44 The problem is that it feels actually slow on a story progression level,
13:49 in that not much is actually happening in terms of the narrative.
13:53 It's only around halfway through when the Turtles finally meet Superfly
13:57 and the rest of the mutants, so it finally finds its own momentum.
14:00 But until that point, I do have to admit that I was
14:04 starting to drift away from the movie,
14:06 and I was doing that as an older adult viewer.
14:08 You can imagine the kids in the rest of my screening,
14:11 who I do have to admit were starting to get a little bit fidgety and restless
14:15 in the middle portion of this movie.
14:17 It simply wasn't holding their attention in the way that it should do.
14:22 But it does recover from that
14:24 once it finally kicks into gear the plot of the film.
14:28 Ice Cube is well cast as Superfly.
14:30 He has the right kind of menace and intensity that he calls upon,
14:33 but also he's very well versed in improvisational comedy,
14:36 going back all the way to the Jump Street movies.
14:40 And the way that they've characterized Superfly is very well done,
14:44 especially in the way that they've kind of made him
14:46 a mirror image of Splinter in some respects,
14:50 in that because he grew up as a fly,
14:53 he has a lot of resentment for humans,
14:55 to the point that he has become toxic, if you excuse the pun.
15:00 And he just simply wants to overthrow the rest of humanity
15:04 and replace them with mutants as the dominant species.
15:08 He's not interested in integrating himself into society.
15:12 He wants to destroy it, no matter what the cost.
15:17 The movie also reintroduces a number of members of the Turtles Row Gallery,
15:21 many of which haven't actually appeared in a film version before.
15:24 For example, Bebop and Rocksteady are voiced by Seth Rogen and John Cena.
15:29 And I do have to admit the movie commits a little bit of an own goal here
15:32 by casting Rogen as Bebop,
15:35 which traditionally in a number of previous Turtles adaptations
15:39 was actually voiced by a black actor and was a black character that had mutated.
15:44 Although this film actually kind of sidesteps that
15:47 in that Bebop and Rocksteady are just mutated animals in this incarnation,
15:51 but still kind of worth noting.
15:54 But nevertheless, Rogen and Cena do work off of each other quite well.
15:58 But I think most of the movie is stolen by Paul Rudd as Mondo Gecko,
16:03 who is absolutely hilarious.
16:05 Rudd is just having a ball of a time,
16:08 just kind of leaning into this over-topped surfer stick.
16:12 "Bro, bro, bro!"
16:15 He even gets an "Introducing Paul Rudd" credit at the very end of the movie,
16:19 which is quite amusing.
16:21 I think that Rudd is actually funnier in his few minutes of screen time in this film
16:26 than he was in pretty much the entirety of Quantumania.
16:30 And I do think that the casting choices they put into these villain roles is pretty good.
16:34 You've got Post Malone as "Reefale", constantly singing.
16:39 That's why they've cast Post Malone.
16:41 But also Rose Byrne as Leatherhead.
16:43 My issue is that the movie tries to cram too many villains in,
16:47 and I know what the filmmakers were doing here.
16:49 They're trying to establish these characters so they'd be set up for the television series,
16:53 where they'll get their own individual episodes and get expanded upon there.
16:58 The problem is, in such limited screen time,
17:01 there really isn't that much room to actually make these characters fully formed,
17:06 and especially make them distinctive.
17:08 And so they just kind of blur into each other,
17:11 especially if you're not familiar with them from previous Turtles incarnations.
17:15 It kind of feels like a little bit of a waste of the starry voice cast
17:19 to just basically make them extended cameos,
17:22 maybe having about five or ten lines if they're lucky overall.
17:27 It just feels like a little bit too much,
17:30 especially when they don't actually do all that much in the movie.
17:34 There's only one major set piece where they're all fighting against the Turtles
17:38 in this kind of extended card chase,
17:40 which is exciting and well done,
17:43 but with all these villains, you'd expect the Turtles to have more confrontations with them
17:49 over the course of the story, when really, that's not how it plays out.
17:53 But as if the movie doesn't have enough issues with pacing or villains,
17:57 it then throws TCRI into the mix,
17:59 which is a big part of the Turtles' lore,
18:02 because they created the ooze that everyone's come from.
18:05 And the movie establishes them in the prologue with a hunting down Baxter.
18:09 That's how it ended up in the sewers.
18:11 And I personally would have actually left it there.
18:15 I would have actually come back to it at the very end of the movie,
18:18 maybe as a mid-credits scene,
18:20 just to re-establish them for the television series
18:22 and not have it intrude too much on the main plot of the movie.
18:26 But that's exactly what ends up happening here,
18:29 in that the movie seems to be building up momentum towards the climax,
18:34 and then it just stops for about 10 minutes
18:36 for all this TCRI stuff that I personally feel is completely unnecessary.
18:42 The story could have done without it.
18:45 TCRI are led by Cynthia Uhtrom,
18:47 voiced by Maya Rudolph,
18:49 with a very peculiar and, to Turtles fans, maybe quite telling accent.
18:54 She wants to create super soldiers using the mutants,
18:57 so she spends the whole movie watching them and waiting for a moment.
19:02 And yeah, this sequence does have the payoff to a very weird milking gag
19:07 that runs all throughout the movie.
19:09 Again, I'm going to wager that's a Rogen and Goldberg edition.
19:13 But even so, I don't think that necessitates this entire stretch of the movie,
19:18 which is largely unnecessary.
19:21 It just slows down and bloats out the movie,
19:23 and adds yet another villain to a story that simply doesn't need it.
19:28 And as a result, it feels like something that would have been better served
19:31 with just focusing on it in the television series,
19:34 rather than as a distraction in the film itself.
19:37 It's another example of the movie trying to cram far too much into its shell.
19:42 But once all that stuff is out of the way,
19:44 the movie finally delivers on the mutant mayhem it's been promising.
19:48 And the action set pieces in this art style are really visually arresting and dynamic,
19:53 and they're aided even further by the soundtrack by Trent Rasnall and Atticus Ross,
19:58 which provides a pounding backbone to many of them.
20:01 In fact, my issue is I don't think the film actually made full use of their scoring,
20:07 because a lot of the movie has licensed music over it,
20:11 which is a big issue in family films of late.
20:13 It feels like they're just playing the hit,
20:16 because kids like them, and they provide a bit of nostalgic flavor for adults.
20:21 And it feels like those songs are taking the place of where scoring should actually be.
20:27 But still, when it finally arrives, the mutant mayhem does actually deliver,
20:32 especially because in animation,
20:34 they're allowed to get some properly big scope out of those set pieces,
20:38 and go full Kaiju at the end of the movie,
20:42 in a way that we haven't really seen in other Turtles properties.
20:46 I just wish, overall, the movie had a bit of a better balance,
20:50 where it found time for its characters that it clearly loves,
20:55 and having those action beats to go alongside them.
20:59 And I feel like the movie is almost there,
21:02 but not quite right in terms of balancing that on its swords.
21:07 You can tell that Mutant Mayhem is made by people that clearly adore the Ninja Turtles,
21:11 and that passion can be felt at all times,
21:14 even if it's maybe a little bit too much to cram into 99 minutes.
21:18 I don't think it's the best Turtles movie to date.
21:21 I still think that's held by the 1990 film,
21:25 and I'm not saying that out of nostalgia.
21:27 You see, I was born a little bit too late for the Turtles' initial popularity,
21:32 so by the time I was growing up, they were very much out of fashion.
21:36 I didn't see any of the Turtles films until I was an adult.
21:40 I didn't see them until 2016.
21:42 So I'm telling you, genuinely, I do think the Henson 1990 film is the best one,
21:48 but Mutant Mayhem is very much a close second.
21:52 The thing is, though, I'm an old.
21:55 This movie really isn't made for me.
21:57 It's made for younger viewers.
21:59 It's there to establish the Turtles for a whole new generation,
22:03 and I think the movie succeeds at that,
22:05 and the way that it ends up, it leads to something that I think shows a very different direction
22:12 for the Turtles to head in that actually shows a lot of promise and potential for new storylines.
22:19 I think that there is a lot of life for the heroes in a half shell yet.
22:24 You've probably seen this swish thing in the background of the entire video.
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22:39 In this case, this is Terminator 2, Judgment Day.
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23:15 Until next time, I'm Matthew Buck, fading out.
23:19 [MUSIC PLAYING]
23:22 (upbeat music)