Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)

In a world where every toy we played with as children now seems to have its own film, reboot, or franchise, this Seth Rogan produced reboot has gone somewhat under the radar, what with the behemoth that is Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach's Barbie taking over the planet.

Directed by Jeff Rowe, with Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg heavily involved, the new vision for the mutant turtles is fun with a capital F.

The film has no right to be as good as it is, with the glitchy animation style imposed on the action rigorously effective, and while the final act is a little overstretched, its similarities to Marvel's endless finales are ones that should be taken note of by the superhero giant.

The story itself is fairly generic; if you know the vague origins of the ninja turtles this will be familiar territory (a mutant ooze is released into the sewers of New York City in the films' pre credits sequence turning various animals into mutants) with our heroes eventually fighting a big bad in the form of Ice Cube (on superb form) as mutant Superfly, one of many references to the blaxploitation era of the seventies.

The references for film and music fans don't end there; far from it. The soundtrack contains wall to wall eighties and nineties hip-hop bangers from start to finish, and put these alongside the instantly recognisable industrial electronic work of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and you're onto an absolute winner.

Trent Reznor providing the score for what is arguably a kids' film is something that, if you suggested twenty years ago may have resulted in the white van turning up at your door; this is a man who's behind albums such as Pretty Hate Machine (1989) and The Downward Spiral (1994) and his career has since taken in work with David Lynch and two Oscar wins. The man is a genius. And whilst Mutant Mayhem is certainly not genius (the length, not all the jokes land, some of the fight sequences are a little too frenetic) it's one that openly makes reference to the early bearer bonds heist in Michael Mann's Heat (1995) and (although this might be a slight stretch) an illusion to the album cover Orphaned By the Ocean by Teeth of the Sea, in which the villain's lair is held.

The film is surprisingly terrific, hugely enjoyable, and the obligatory post credits sequence setting up an inevitable sequel was one that had my five-year-old daughter and I fist bumping at the prospect. 7.3/10