TMNT MUTANT MAYHEM INITIAL THOUGHTS

WOW !!!! 

^ let that speak for itself. four whole exclamation points. really big deal.

i had a lot of hype built up for myself around this movie and honestly it knocked it out of the park. such a sweet, heartfelt version of the story that feels like an absolute love letter to weird, lonely teens everywhere. The brothers were a delight, constantly endearing, and April felt fresh and real, like a real kid I could've pointed out to you at high school. The villains were endearing and Ice Cubes Superfly was, in fact, super fly. 

Not to mention the creative work behind the film! The artstyle is wholly unlike anything ive ever seen, combining scribbled crayon-like drawings with rough almost clay-sculpted character models and slimy goop and ooze, everything felt detailed and hairy and dingy, gross in such a 2000s marketing-to-little-boys way that absolutely sells the vibe it was going for, complemented further by Trent Reznors sick industrial, synth-filled score. New York, the sewers, and the mutants themselves all feel gross in such a visceral and appealing way, its an absolutely beautiful film and I applaud it for entirely throwing conventional aesthetics out the window to create the vibe it NEEDED to have. I want to print out every frame and eat them to gain their power.

My biggest fear for the film, honestly, was it being billed as a Seth Rogen project. And you can feel his influence, the humor relies heavily on both gross-out type jokes and pop cultural references (some of which, to me, felt more targeted towards the adult audience's nostalgia than anything that the target audience might appreciate). However, only one or two jokes manage to really overstay their welcome (hello, milking, anyone?) and the performance of the turtles is enough to sell most of the jokes. Even if it doesn't quite land, it's so earnestly something a 15 year old boy would try to say that it comes back to being really, really cute.

Honestly, for me its a 4.5/5, a 9/10, an absolutely rip-roaring good time and something i would definetly give a rewatch or two, or seven if the kids in my life end up getting as obsessed with it as I think they will xD