‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’ delivers new kicks, but only for a while

Review by Brian Lowry, CNN

(CNN) — From its kinetic and colorful animation to the playful irreverence, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” owes a clear debt to another recent superhero franchise – taking a trip through the Turtle-Verse, if you will. Energetic and sporadically funny, it’s a passable effort to jump-start a comic-book franchise that has enjoyed a long if uneven crawl across the screen.

Created in the 1980s, the Turtles first exploded into TV syndication (remember “Heroes in a Half Shell?” Sure ya do), sporadically returning in various incarnations ever since.

This time the Turtles feel a little half-baked, with the reins have been handed to the prolific producing team of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who share script credit with director Jeff Lowe (“The Mitchells vs. the Machines”) and two others, with reports there are already plans for a sequel and related series.

Despite Rogen and Goldberg’s harder-edged superhero sensibilities (see Amazon’s “The Boys” for one), “Turtles” clocks in with a PG rating and is mostly appropriate for younger kids. It’s adults, rather, who might find the movie growing tedious, especially during its last third, which tacks on a tired and uninvolving action sequence to pad out the story.

Until then, “Mutant Mayhem” is marginally merry, rehashing the Turtles’ origin story involving the strange green ooze that turned them into talking reptile bipeds, dwelling in the sewer with the rat, Splinter (voiced by Jackie Chan), who adopted and raised them.

With actual teenagers providing the voices, the central quartet – Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), Donatello (Micah Abbey) and Raphael (Brady Noon) – engages in lots of savvy pop-culture banter, name-checking everything from “Avengers: Endgame” to BTS. The teen-boy formulations have a goofy charm, if not necessarily representing the kind of material likely to possess a particularly long shelf (or shell) life.

Mostly the Turtles just want to fit in, chafing against the limitations of their subterranean home and lack of social interaction. As a result, they’re practically giddy when they encounter April O’Neil (“The Bear’s” Ayo Edebiri), an outcast who fuels their plan to behave like heroes in order to convince the wider world to stop fearing and hating them.

The opportunity to demonstrate their good intentions comes in the form of another anthropomorphic villain, Superfly (Ice Cube), who is pursuing more violent path toward acceptance. The movie bogs down once he and his minions enter the picture, becoming loud and chaotic in tiresome ways.

Indeed, given Paramount’s grand plans to milk “TMNT” for all it’s worth, the most promising iteration of this variant might be the prospect of a series, since the smart-aleck-y tone lends itself more to small TV bites than a theatrical meal.

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” always sounded like a one-note joke that improbably broke through the pop-culture clutter, and thanks to the “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”-esque animation and nostalgia, it might be time for them to emerge again.

The subtitle, however, proves as much a warning as a promise. Because while these mutants deliver their fair share of mirth, that comes with a little too much mayhem for their own good.

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” premieres August 2 in US theaters. It’s rated PG.

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