I’ve been pretty excited about the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem with the animation style and the whole aspect of the Ninja Turtle being portrayed as actual teenagers. I’m a huge fan of the franchise and grew up reading the comics and watching the classic ‘80s animated series, and those first couple of live-action films were awesome. This new film offers a completely different vision of the franchise and I was so happy with the direction that they are taking it.The movie is an absolute juggernaut of animated awesomeness with an art style that was made to look like the kind of sketches you might find scribbled in a teenager’s high school notebook in the ‘90s. It’s a delightfully unique style that I think audiences and fans will dig. At least, I hope they do! If you’re a nostalgia-driven fan, this movie yanks at your feelings like an enthusiastic orchestra conductor leading the Symphony of Your Childhood. For me, I just love these characters so much and finally seeing them act as real teenagers gave me something I’ve been wanting to see for a long time. I know they’ve always been teenagers, but in the past, they’ve always come off more as adults. This is really the first time they’ve been portrayed as real teens.Watching this movie unleashed that inner child in me and took me to my happy place. The film tells a coming-of-age story of the four Ninja Turtles who have grown up in the sewers and all they want is to find acceptance in the world and be able to live normal lives, they want to do the kinds of things all teenagers and when they meet April O’ Neill and learn about a villain named Superfly doing some shady stuff in New York City, they come up with a plan achieve their dream. The story takes the Ninja Turtles on quite an epic adventure filled with suspense, humor, lots cool of action, and there’s even some emotional depth. The movie also takes some unexpected twists and turns and it will be interesting to see how audiences and fans react to some of these things. I appreciated the story and the fact that the creative team took these beloved characters and did something new, fresh, and exciting with them.The characters in the movie are meticulously crafted, fleshed-out individuals with compelling arcs and fun personalities that make you invest in them. They each have their own strengths, vulnerabilities, hopes, and fears. Of course, one thing they all have in common is their love of pizza. When talking about the tone of the film, director Jeff Rowe shared that they wanted the movie to be like Stand By Me and Lady Bird. But, you know, with Ninja Turtles.” I think they accomplished that. The voice cast of the film includes Micah Abbey as Donatello, Shamon Brown Jr. as Michelangelo, Nicolas Cantu as Leonardo, Brady Noon as Raphael, Jackie Chan as Splinter, John Cena as Rocksteady, Seth Rogen as Bebop, Ice Cube as Superfly, Rose Byrne as Leatherhead, Natasia Demetriou as Wingnut, Ayo Edebiri as April O’Neil, Giancarlo Esposito as Baxter Stockman, Post Malone as Ray Fillet, Paul Rudd as Mondo Gecko, and Maya Rudolph as Cynthia Utrom.Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem was a blast to watch and an enjoyable movie-going experience. I had a smile on my face the whole time and by the end of the film, I just wanted to yell Cowabunga!