First impressions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

I can hardly believe it, but I have overcome my decades-long aversion to this franchise. And I'm dazzled by some aspects of this promising animated reboot.

I have somehow avoided seeing any of the...

No, let's try that again: I have deliberately avoided all TMNT material until now. And that makes me quite an exception for my generation, as the comics arrived when I was in middle school and the games and animation hit when I was in high school. Something about the characters' crassness and recklessness reminded me of certian classmates I wanted to avoid. I was a Tolkien/Lewis/Lucas guy who read Watership Down once a year since the age of 10. I liked my stories epic — the more mythic, the better. Nothing about teen turtles appealed to me.

These infamous teen turtles began on the pages of comics, and now they’ve finally become animated onscreen heroes. [Image from the Paramount Pictures trailer.]

But the Spider-Verse-style animation of the trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem impressed me. (Promise me your movie is visually beautiful, and I’m halfway there.) And at the end of a frustrating day, when a friend texted me to see if I wanted to join him, I thought... why not?

And I'm delighted to report that the animation is even more beautiful than the trailer implied. (Can I use the word beautiful for a film that spends so much time in the sewers?)