Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’s first trailer has the heat

Paramount Pictures’ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem from director Jeff Rowe isn’t the only upcoming feature about heroic pizza-eating reptiles, but judging from its first trailer, it’s almost certainly going to be the better-looking one that gets people excited to see it.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem tells the familiar but all-new story of master rat martial artist Splinter (Jackie Chan) and his four adoptive sons Donatello (Micah Abbey), Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), and Raphael (Brady Noon) — all of whom happen to be humanoid turtles mutated by sewer ooze.

As tends to be the case in Ninja Turtles stories, Mutant Mayhem’s brothers are used to keeping the streets of New York City safe by operating in the shadows as they take on foes like Bebop (Seth Rogen) and Rocksteady (John Cena). But after years of keeping their hero work secret, all the boys really want is to be accepted and loved by their city as regular kids like their new friend April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri).

Mutant Mayhem’s trailer makes clear that it’ll be focusing on the turtles’ early years as they’re still figuring out how to best use their skills for good. What really jumps out, though, is the film’s gorgeous sketch-like art direction and the gritty / grimy texturedness that defines the film’s aesthetics — something that immediately sets it apart from other recent Turtles projects like Netflix’s Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles also stars Hannibal Buress, Rose Byrne, Ice Cube, Natasia Demetriou, Giancarlo Esposito, Post Malone, Paul Rudd, and Maya Rudolph. The movie hits theaters on August 4th, 2023.