There are some good gags and clever innovations in the animated but there is one brilliant idea: casting Ice Cube as the voice of the movieB次元官网网址檚 mutant insect supervillain Super Fly.

It might have once been hard to foresee the value of having the emcee who rapped of B次元官网网址渄ropping bombs on your momsB次元官网网址� as the MVP of a PG-rated kids movie. But weB次元官网网址檙e now up to the seventh B次元官网网址淭eenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesB次元官网网址� film, not counting all the series and videogames. ThatB次元官网网址檚 a lot of movies for a bit of IP thatB次元官网网址檚 clung more firmly to lunch boxes than it has to pop culture. For the turtles, it was getting to be time to either, as Ice Cube would say, B次元官网网址渃hickity-check yoB次元官网网址� selfB次元官网网址� or try something new.

B次元官网网址淢utant Mayhem,B次元官网网址� which opens in theaters Wednesday, canB次元官网网址檛 entirely get over the feeling of trodding over well-covered turtle ground. But if we must go once more into the ooze, the film by director Jeff Rowe (co-director of ) and co-written by co-producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, is probably the best of a not-so-stellar franchise. ItB次元官网网址檚 certainly the one most invested with that B次元官网网址渢eenageB次元官网网址� part of the turtlesB次元官网网址� name. Plus, itB次元官网网址檚 got Ice Cube as a fly who quotes from the OB次元官网网址橨ays.

The animation is vividly textured, the beat is persistently hip-hop (Lauryn Hill, De La Soul, OlB次元官网网址� Dirty Bastard and others pack the electronic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) and the New York of the film is impressively detailed. But the most important twist to this B次元官网网址淭eenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesB次元官网网址� iteration may be diving into the teenage-ness of its 15-year-old turtles.

If B次元官网网址淏arbieB次元官网网址� was balanced between B次元官网网址淢utant MayhemB次元官网网址� gives itself over more fully to the mindset of adolescence. ThatB次元官网网址檚 in the gross-out humor and the comic book-like feel of the animation. But these are also recognizable teenagers who watch movies (B次元官网网址淔erris BuellerB次元官网网址檚 Day OffB次元官网网址�), pine for concert tickets and make goofy phone videos of themselves slicing watermelons.

What Donatello (Micah Abbey), Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.), Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu) and Raphael (Brady Noon) really want is to fit in and go to high school like other teens. They have been relegated to the sewer ever since Splinter, a rat voiced by Jackie Chan, happened upon them after they were exposed as hatchlings to the same ooze that spawned Super Fly B次元官网网址� who himself was the product of experiments by scientist Baxter Stockman (Giancarlo Esposito, fated to dubious laboratories).

Splinter has much the same opinion of the majority of the rats in B次元官网网址淩atatouilleB次元官网网址�: Humans canB次元官网网址檛 be trusted. (SplinterB次元官网网址檚 particular fear is that they will B次元官网网址渕ilkB次元官网网址� him.B次元官网网址�) So the turtles have grown up underground, a little like the homeschooled family of while yearning for the wider world.

They find a hint of it with a high-school journalist named April OB次元官网网址橬eil (Ayo Edebiri), who wants to document, and thus prove to humankind, their decency. At the same, the turtles meet the charismatic Super Fly (voiced with bombastic aplomb by Ice Cube) and his band of mutants. At first, theyB次元官网网址檙e fast-friends B次元官网网址� B次元官网网址渃ousins,B次元官网网址� Super Fly says B次元官网网址� but the turtles then start hearing of Super FlyB次元官网网址檚 plans to turn all animals into mutants and eradicate the world of humans.

B次元官网网址淧eoples, they got to go,B次元官网网址� chimes one mutant.

Some of the thunder of B次元官网网址淢utant MayhemB次元官网网址� has been stolen by B次元官网网址淚nto the Spider-VerseB次元官网网址� and B次元官网网址� films that likewise upend the typical look of studio animation and do it with a pulsing soundtrack; but they did it more eclectically.

Yet this B次元官网网址淭eenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,B次元官网网址� while a half shell of those films, has its own low-key charms. ItB次元官网网址檚 goofier, grosser and mostly fun. The four turtles are never more than a hard-to-differentiate bale of overlapping dialogue of doubt and anxiety. But that first word in their name finally feels genuine. Seven films in, itB次元官网网址檚 only right that Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael should get a renaissance.

B次元官网网址淭eenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,B次元官网网址� a Paramount Pictures release, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association for sequences of violence and action, language and impolite material. Running time: 99 minutes. Three stars out of four.

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