Ready for yet another new look for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? The heroes in a half shell have been through so many iterations that you’d think they had used all the styles up, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, the new animated Turtles film from Seth Rogen, pulls out a new look once again as we can see in the first teaser trailer for the movie.
I’m going to call the new style the “Into the Spider-Verse” style because that’s basically the influence it’s clearly going for, and it looks stunning, really. The film looks like an organic painting, and the action has that over-cranked feel to it that’s starting to dominate US children’s action animation (check out Puss in Boots as well). Still, the more striking aspect of the trailer is that these Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles actually sound and look like teenagers. The voice acting and design of the turtles make them feel far younger than they’ve been portrayed usually, and their activities and dialect feel like they’ve been updated for a modern teenage sensibility.
Rogen is producing the film after he picked up the lagging film side of the franchise from Michael Bay and redeveloped it into this. The film will follow the story of the turtles as they attempt to become the heroes of the city while a rash of mutants begins to terrorize it. It’s not exactly an origin story, but it is definitely set up to reintroduce the characters yet again, as the Mutant Mayhem teaser trailer shows them explaining where they came from to April O’Neil. The film comes from Gravity Falls‘ Jeff Rowe, who also wrote and directed the fantastic The Mitchells vs. the Machines, and is written by Brendan O’Brien.
Voicing our turtles and their nemesis is a powerhouse cast that’s as famous as it is diverse. Our turtles are played by Micah Abbey as Donatello, Shamon Brown Jr. as Michelangelo, Nicolas Cantu as Leonardo, and Brady Noon as Raphael. Then you’ve got the supporting cast, kicking off with Jackie Chan as Splinter, as he settles comfortably into being every kids movie’s old, wise kung fu master. Alongside him are John Cena as Rocksteady, Hannibal Buress as Genghis Frog, Rose Byrne as Leatherhead, Ice Cube as Superfly, Natasia Demetriou as Wingnut, Ayo Edebiri as April O’Neil, Giancarlo Esposito as Baxter Stockman, Post Malone as Ray Fillet, Paul Rudd as Mondo Gecko, and Maya Rudolph as Cynthia Utrom. Yea, Rogen is going deep into the Ninja Turtles’ rogues’ gallery for this it seems — and completely avoiding Shredder at the moment.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem will release on August 4. And don’t worry, if you don’t like this version of the Ninja Turtles, there’s always the live-action one in the works.
