Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Mutant Mayhem
A few times a year, a small handful of aspiring blockbusters manage to break through my franchise fatigue and rekindle--even if only briefly--the fleeting feeling of "gee whiz" excitement that made me a movie fan to begin with. The latest tentpole movie to do this is 2023's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem , the first truly unique take on Eastman and Laird's satirical comic book creation in what feels like forever. In those early comics, the TMNT were a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the gritty comics movement of the 1980s, which made their mainstream success downright ironic. Over the decades, we've had many cartoon, live action, and CGI interpretations of the property ranging from the silly to the bizarre (paging Michael Bay), but none of them have ever felt like Mutant Mayhem. What is it about the new movie that clicks and makes it feel so different? In a word, "joy." This is the most joyful comic book movie I've seen since 2018's S...
