There have been many, many, many adaptations of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since the comic’s inception, including six TV series, six movies across three separate franchises, dozens of video games, and a live touring musical extravaganza. Not to mention an upcoming Jost Bros. joint. You could say the franchise has had a long … shell-f life. So when Seth Rogen produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, he had to come up with a fresh spin on the old turts. His unique angle: Let the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles actually be, like, teenage. Shockingly, it appears to be the first time anyone has thought to do this. In the trailer for the animated film, Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael are all voiced by actual teen actors at varying levels of voice droppage, and they’re shown doing silly kid stuff like filming iPhone videos and mishandling their weaponry. The dream they hold close to their heart? Being normal high schoolers. Leonardo adds a crucial, though “not likely,†aspiration: “Maybe get a girlfriend?†he says in the trailer.
The trailer also teases some expected mayhem among the mutants, including the villainous Bebop and Rocksteady, voiced by Rogen and John Cena, and a Jackie Chan–voiced Master Splinter. Ayo Edebiri plays April O’Neil, a young investigative reporter who doesn’t know her goo from her ooze and takes an interest in the group. She’s tracking Superfly (Ice Cube), a mutant leading a recent crime wave with his mutant friends espousing a mutant nationalist ideology. The turtles realize, “We take out Superfly, and then everyone will think we’re cool. They’ll accept us!†But they’ll have to go against their own to do it. And while we don’t see it in the trailer, Post Malone apparently voices a half-man, half-fish named Ray Fillet? The whole thing is rendered Spider-Verse style, which is to say it looks good. And it comes out August 4. Cowabunga, my fellow teens.
This post has been updated.