As the Marvel Cinematic Universe limps along and DC attempts a second act, the best superhero movies are actually coming from the world of animation.
Sony’s innovative “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse” and superb sequel “Across The Spider-Verse” served the tired genre a much-needed double shot of espresso.
And now, far more unexpectedly, Paramount’s awesome “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” has tossed it a rallying Red Bull — alongside, naturally, a slice of pepperoni.
Running time: 99 minutes. Rated PG (sequences of violence and action, language and impolite material). In theaters.
These pizza-loving reptiles have never been afforded the same respect given to comic book vets like Spidey and Batman. For good reason.
Unlike their venerated peers, these bruhs behaved like young Matthew McConaugheys while yelling “cowabunga” and chowing down on cheese and sausage. Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker movies have won Oscars, and the turtles were Saturday morning kids TV.
But “Mutant Mayhem” is their finest hour (and a half). It’s a huge improvement from the live-action trilogy from the 1990s and 2007’s heinous “TMNT.”
Before you call the prestige police, though, directors Jeff Rowe and Kyler Spears aren’t out to sap away the quartet’s defining innocence and turn them into dark, terrorist-fighting vigilantes a la Christopher Nolan. Instead, they bet big on the title and shrewdly explore what it would be like to live as a hormonal, teenage, mutant, ninja turtle.
Take an early funny-yet-sad scene when 15-year-old, born-and-raised New Yorkers Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Raphael (Brady Noon) and Donatello (Micah Abbey) sneak into an outdoor screening of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” in Brooklyn. Their rat guardian, Splinter (Jackie Chan), forbids them from being seen by evil humans.
“Is this high school in real life?,” asks one while watching the movie.
Wistfully says another: “Maybe one day everyone will love us like they love Ferris Bueller.”
These kind outsiders’ motivation for fighting crime isn’t a weighty “with great power comes great responsibility” mission, but a relatable adolescent desire to simply fit in.
They figure: How could people, although terrified of mutants, possibly resist heroes?
The film isn’t all emotional heart-tugging, of course. We learn the dudes’ origin story — how 15 years earlier Dr. Baxter Stockman’s lab experiment leaked down into the NYC sewer system and splashed on four turtles and a rat. They all then developed human characteristics, built a home underground and learned jiu jitsu, with the help of Splinter, from old martial arts flicks.
Here, NYC is experiencing a crime wave (even a film about talking turtles gets it), and their first try battling bad guys comes while recovering high school journalist April O’Neil’s (Ayo Edebiri) stolen scooter from some thugs. Soon the turtles are pursuing the dastardly Superfly (Ice Cube), who’s plotting to destroy Manhattan.
The fight scenes are remarkably exhilarating and spontaneous for being, well, animated.
And all of the jokes — written by Rowe, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, among others — are truly very funny and witty while still making sense for this vision of the five boroughs.
They’re spoken by a genuine, young cast, who sound like they’re having a party after school instead of the usual stiff, one-day-in-the-studio delivery.
Just as exuberant as the kids are the other, adult man-animal hybrids, voiced by John Cena, Rose Byrne, Paul Rudd, Rogen and others. Especially hilarious is Chan, as Splinter the rat, who brings a Woody Allen neurosis to his sensei.
Balancing out the mirth is the look — a grimy, but impeccably accurate New York. The aesthetic combines the exaggerated lines of a graphic novel with just enough CGI for added reality. What we end up with is a more truthful version of Times Square than most live-action movies come close to.
And the soundtrack is an off-kilter triumph. “Mutant Mayhem” makes particularly fun use of the 4 Non Blondes’ song “What’s Up?” — “I said, ‘Hey! What’s going on?’” — throughout.
Unlike that mostly forgotten nineties band, I suspect the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” will not wind up a one-hit wonder.
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