'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem' backflips its way into a new generation

Arizona is really testing us this summer. It’s always hot, but we’ve entered unprecedented heat — staying inside with air conditioning, jumping in a pool or getting out of town are the only ways to live right now type of heat.

For those of you with kids at home, getting restless as it’s unrealistic to really play outside and allotted screen time is up before noon, there is finally an answer to, “What the heck am I going to do with these kids today?”

Salvation comes in the form of four martial arts-trained adolescent amphibians. "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" backflips its way into theaters this week and subsequently into the culture of yet another generation.

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What is the plot of ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’?

The movie starts 15 years before the timeline fans are used to. Scientist Baxter Stockman’s (Giancarlo Esposito) laboratory is being infiltrated by the TCRI strike force through the request of Cynthia Utrom (Maya Rudolph). Stockman has stolen the mutating green ooze that turns normal creatures into oddities in an attempt to create a family after a lifetime of feeling alone.

Flash to the current day where our four favorite crime-fighting turtles are flipping around the tops of New York City buildings to pick up groceries. Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), Donatello (Micah Abbey) and Raphael (Brady Noon) stop at an outdoor screening of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," longing for a life of normalcy and high school. Their rat father, Splinter (Jackie Chan), warns them of the dangers of the outside world: that no one will accept them, they’ll be feared and, worst of all, they’ll be milked.

(Despite turtles not having nipples, this is a running gag in the movie.)

One night, they intercept high-schooler and aspiring journalist April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri) from getting her scooter stolen and stumble upon the lair of mechanics who have been helping Superfly (Ice Cube), the mastermind behind a string of crimes. April and the teen Turtles see taking down this pest as a way to get what they all want: for people to like them.

April films the turtles fighting crime to post online and writes fervently about the masked bandits taking down bad guys, one nunchuck strike at a time. It comes to a head when the shelled youngsters meet Superfly face to face, only to find out that he’s not a human villain but a mutant like them — a mutant from Stockman’s lab, to be exact.

Superfly isn’t the only infected animal, though. His “brothers and sisters” are a group of other mutant creatures. An overtly Australian alligator named Leatherhead (Rose Bryne), a super chill skateboarding gecko named Mondo Gecko (Paul Rudd) and an R&B-singing manta ray named Ray Fillet (Post Malone), among many others, make up this ragtag gang.

Together, their goal is to mutate all of the animals in the world and take over the Earth as the prominent species. The mantra is essentially if all of the humans are killed, there will be no one left to cast them aside. The Turtles face a moral dilemma and team up with the other mutants to bring down Superfly — a tale as old as time.

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There's a nod to Vanilla Ice's 'Ninja Rap'

The joy of what makes "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" work is that it is truly a family film. Parents, or even millennials returning to the theater to see their favorite childhood reptilian vigilantes, will love the nod to Vanilla Ice’s "Ninja Rap" from the 1991 Turtles sequel that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have weaved into the movie. And Gen Z and Gen Alpha will love overt BTS and "Avengers: Endgame" references.

Since the Turtles are from New York, producers Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and the rest of the TMNT team fill out the rest of the soundtrack with East Coast rap from the '90s.

Like most coming-of-age stories, the underlying theme is that we’re all outsiders looking for acceptance. Whether that’s because you’re a humanized teenage sea creature or a student writing a school paper who feels overlooked, we all just want friends and community.

It’s bold to compare "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" to the likes of John Hughes classics of the 1980s, but there’s a reason the boys stop to watch "Ferris Bueller" at the beginning of the film.

Highlighted by great voice acting, especially from the four actors playing the main teenagers who are relatively unknown actors — and by Ayo Edebiri, who is taking over the summer with her starring role in "The Bear" — the movie will catapult the ninja turtle lore into yet another generation. Cowabunga!

'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem' 4 stars

Great ★★★★★ Good ★★★★

Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★

Director: Jeff Rowe.

Cast: Ayo Edebiri, Nicolas Cantu, Shamon Brown Jr., Micah Abbey, Brady Noon, Jackie Chan, Ice Cube.

Rating: PG for sequences of violence and action, language and impolite material.

How to watch: In theaters Wednesday, Aug. 2.

Reach the reporter Amanda Luberto at aluberto@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandaluberto.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: Mutant Mayhem' review: Back with a bang