Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem Review - 7 Ups & 3 Downs

1. Too Many Pop-Culture References

This iteration of the Turtles isn't shy about having the heroic quartet namedrop movies, music, and video games like their lives depend on it, and while that's true of actual teenagers to a point, it doesn't necessarily always make for the most compelling writing.

Barely a scene goes by without a character mentioning, say, Shrek, Avengers: Endgame, Forza Horizon 5, Adele, or countless other cultural touchstones, and even in a movie as breezy as this, it can't but feel a little tiresome, even forced, by film's end.

There's a faint "How do you do, fellow kids?" vibe to the dialogue, that the script is trying just a little too hard to relate to its teenage viewers, while throwing out the most obvious and played-out pop-culture nods.

That's not to say they're all bad, but sometimes less is more, and chilling out with the pandering invocations of popular media would've served it well.

These gripes aside, here's what Mutant Mayhem gets oh-so-right...