The Ninja Turtles and the War Against Antiquated Standards of Beauty
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There’s a sweet irony, or perhaps more of providence, to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles being named after the great artists of the Renaissance. Leonardo (Da Vinci), Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael were four of the most influential artists in history, whose work redefined art and their society’s perception of beauty. The turtles, Leo, Mikey, Donnie, and Raph are teenagers who just want to do teenager things, so shaking up the art world probably isn’t on their agenda.
But challenging perceptions is the central theme of the reboot spearheaded by Seth Rogen, who co-wrote the script with Evan Goldberg, Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit, and director Jeff Rowe. Animated in a rough, street art style that’s painterly and vibrant, Mutant Mayhem feels heavily influenced by the seminal Spider-verse films but makes sure to distance itself by leaning into odd and exaggerated cartoonish proportions. Visually, Mutant Mayhem is stunning. In a year where two of the most beautiful and groundbreaking animated films (Across the Spider-verse and Pixar’s Elemental) have preceded it, Nickelodeon’s Mutant Mayhem more than holds its own and in fact, arguably serves a greater purpose.
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The deliberate skew of the art style towards asymmetry and an unfinished feel is intended to challenge viewers’ perceptions of what is beautiful. Mutant Mayhem, almost without question, is an incredibly beautiful animated film while featuring some truly grotesque characters. The story focuses on the mutants, side characters from past iterations of the property who made up the turtles’ rogues gallery. Mutated and misshapen animals with laughable proportions, bug eyes, and questionable fashion are united under the leadership of a jacked, hypermasculine mutant fly who wants nothing more than to eradicate humanity.
Superfly (Ice Cube) takes all the wrong lessons from sociopolitical activism, the mutated Hyde side of Black Lives Matter’s Jekyll, taking the stance against discrimination and hate into a violent extreme that is just the same hate on steroids. Mutant Mayhem makes sure to drive home the point about othering, ostracism, and rejection based purely on appearance as Splinter (Jackie Chan) and the turtles’ experiences are shared by the other mutants. He and his turtles make their home in the sewers, far from the piercing, judgmental gaze of humanity.
People can be cruel. Mutant Mayhem reimagines April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri) as a young black woman with a squat appearance and wide hips, an aspiring journalist in high school instead of a seasoned TV reporter. It’s a far cry from the shapely redhead from the ‘80s cartoon or Megan Fox from the last two live-action films. It’s a deliberate change intended to make a more relatable character (because let’s face it, far fewer women will see themselves as Megan Fox than as an ordinarily-proportioned teen) and the loudest, harshest reactions on the Internet over the change only prove the point.
April O’Neil, who has had various iterations from her beginnings as a mixed-race, curly-haired reporter from Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s original black and white comics, somewhere along the way became a fetishized, sometimes sexualized character. Angry men took to making memes mocking the new April’s appearance on the pretense of defending the source material while conveniently ignoring all the changes made to other characters in the film. Not only did Rowe and company seem to know this was exactly what was going to happen, but Mutant Mayhem’s central philosophy revolves around the idea that beauty is absolutely relative.
Mutant Mayhem takes square aim at outdated standards of beauty and blows it up into smithereens. The first time Leo (Nicolas Cantu) lays eyes on April, he’s instantly smitten. He repeatedly calls her beautiful and none of his brothers say otherwise. They’re anthropomorphic turtles, after all, so it’s not like they have any right to call out anybody based on appearance. That’s really the point. We’re all basically turtles and mutants to each other and rejecting anyone based on their appearance or even, say, skin color, is just really bad behavior.
It seems like a simple premise but Mutant Mayhem is a far more ambitious and groundbreaking story than it lets on. From purposely, categorically describing April as beautiful to granting the mutants acceptance by contrasting their good and heroic behavior against the truly ugly face of violence and hate, Mutant Mayhem takes a strong stance for subjective beauty that can’t be overstated. In fact, it doubles down on it by having sparks fly between two of the most repulsive animals in the mutant menagerie. If the purpose of the film wasn’t clear enough, a hilarious, passionate kissing scene between a rat and a cockroach should spell it out.
Perhaps it’s a lofty ambition for a cartoon to try and redefine for a generation what beauty is. But the fact that it has the courage to do it so loudly and unapologetically counts for something. It’s also quite notable that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles well and truly feel like teenagers this time. Leonardo, Michaelangelo (Shamon Brown, Jr.), Donatello (Micah Abbey), and Raphael (Brady Noon) sound and speak like real teenagers, using lingo that feels authentic to today’s generation of teens. The camerawork also cleverly shifts from the uneven, handheld style in scenes with the kids to a more steady, formal view when focusing on adults.
Mutant Mayhem is a visual delight, but the award-winning pair of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross also infuse it with a perfect soundtrack. Rogen, who voices Bebop, seems to have dragged all his friends to cameo and it’s a real delight. From Mondo Gecko (Paul Rudd) to Leatherhead (Rose Byrne) to Ray Fillet (Post Malone), the film’s cast is like one crazy party. Even John Cena throws in a few lines as Rocksteady!
Rowe, who co-wrote the incredible The Mitchells vs. The Machines on Netflix orchestrates a solid and wonderful reboot that not only refreshes the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but takes it to new ground with an unexpected yet long overdue sort of ending that opens doors for new stories. By addressing the turtles’ otherness directly and giving a definitive response, Mutant Mayhem gives the franchise its freshest start and possibly the most exciting update it’s ever had.
Mutant Mayhem is now showing in cinemas nationwide.Â
