Movie Review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 

Directed by Jeff Rowe

Written by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jeff Rowe, Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit 

Starring Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Hannibal Burress, Rose Byrne, Nicolas Cantu, John Cena, Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Jackie Chan, Ice Cube, Post Malone

Release Date August 2nd, 2023 

Published August 6th, 2023 

I watched the 1990 live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles recently for a review timed to the release of the latest attempt to rebuild the Turtles as a viable movie franchise. What I found was a movie that I absolutely loved. I was too old when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released in 1990, I was 14 and I thought it was for much younger kids. Look back now, with the wisdom of more than 30 years, I can say, yes, it is a product for young children, younger than 14 even, but it's a wonderful product. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 is a ridiculously fun movie. It's filled with wonderful invention and kid friendly action. 

Everything that came after that movie, not counting the television shows that I've never seen, has been a dreary slog. Each new film iteration of the Turtles has carried with it the very obvious burden of corporate exploitation. Each of the various filmmakers who tackled the franchise appeared to be doing so with a studio held gun to their head that dictated exactly how the movie should be geared toward selling merchandise and creating sequels was the only reason these movies existed. Thus, we got a series of joyless, unpleasant live action and animated attempts to leverage a popular I.P into a cash making machine. 

I say all of this to demonstrate the bias that the latest iteration of the Turtles on the big screen was up against in my mind. To say that I was cynical about seeing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the big screen again would be a grave understatement. What a lovely surprise it is then to report that the newest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles adventure, subtitled Mutant Mayhem, doesn't completely suck. In fact, it's actually pretty alright. The team of Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and director-co-writer, Jeff Rowe have found a tone and spirit that does well to hide the high level corporately leveraged truth behind its creation. 

Mutant Mayhem is yet another Turtles origin story. We have the back story courtesy of a flashback to the origin of our antagonist, a fellow mutant named Superfly. Superfly was the creation of mad scientist Baxter Stockman. Baxter created the ooze but was killed not long after by an evil organization who wanted to steal his ooze and use it to create their own mutant army. A very young Superfly fought off the baddies, rescued his fellow mutant babies, and fled into the night. He left behind one last tube of ooze which breaks and drips into the sewer. There, it finds the Turtles who are rescued by Splinter (Jackie Chan) who gets into the ooze himself. 

Splinter is rightfully afraid of humans. His first time taking his turtle babies to the surface world nearly ends with them being killed. Thus, Splinter becomes deeply overprotective. He spends the next decade training his Turtles, Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Donatello (Micah Abbey), Michaelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.) and Raphael (Brady Noon), to fight. Using old, abandoned VHS tapes, Splinter trains his Turtles to be able to defend themselves against humans. As the Turtles grow up into their mid-teens however, they've only become more and more curious about humans. They wonder if humans arent't as bad as Splinter claims. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review Tag

Tag (2018) 

Directed by Jeff Tomsic

Written by Rob McKittrick

Starring Jeremy Renner, Ed Helms, Jon Hamm, Jake Johnson, Hannibal Burress

Release Date June 15th, 2018

Published June 16th, 2018

Is Tag juvenile? Of course, the comedy featuring an all star cast playing an extreme version of the schoolyard classic game will inspire a number of think pieces about growth stunted man-boys and their unwillingness to grow up. This however, misses the genuine and very sweet, and very funny point of Tag. Based on a true story, Tag is an ode to friendship and how the friends we make as children remain special whether we stay in touch or not.

Tag stars Ed Helms as Hoagie, a veterinarian with a thriving practice, a loving and supportive wife, played by Isla Fisher and even kids that we don't meet in the movie. However, for one month of each year, all of Hoagie's grown up responsibilities go out the window. In the month of May, Hoagie plays an unending game of Tag with his group of childhood friends including Callahan (Jon Hamm), Chili (Jake Johnson), Sable (Hannibal Burress) and the best of the best Tag champion, Jerry (Jeremy Renner).

In the nearly 30 years that these friends have played Tag, Jerry has never been tagged and now, he's decided to retire, un-tagged. This sends Hoagie and the rest of the gang on a desperate quest to get Jerry before the end of the month and his retirement. How far is Jerry willing to go to keep his streak alive and make things interesting? He's scheduled his wedding on May 31st and specifically did not invite his four closest friends.

Naturally, Hoagie finds out about the wedding and notes it as the perfect time to tag Jerry. However, these guys are actually Jerry's friend and don't want to ruin the big day, thus allowing for rules to be in place specifically to cater to the feelings of Jerry's new bride, Susan (Leslie Bibb), who may or may not be in on Jerry's scheme to remain un-tagged. Along for the ride is a Wall Street Journal reporter, Rebecca (Annabelle Wallis) who drops her story on Callahan as the CEO of a major company in favor of this story about this epic game.

Tag is the first feature film for director Jeff Tomsic. Previously, Tomsic has made his career in television, directing comedy specials for people like T.J Miller and sitcoms such as TBS's underrated The Detour and Comedy Central's much loved Broad City. Tomsic doesn't yet have much visual invention in his work but it's solid and professional. The stand out moments are the big comic set pieces such as a forest chase where Jerry has an elaborate escape and a church set scene that once again finds Jerry out thinking about his buddies.

As I was saying in the opening however, as juvenile as Tag unquestionably is, there is a good heart to it. The goal of these guys, characters who are based on a real group of friends in Oregon, is to remain friends and remain in touch, quite literally. Many of the set pieces in Tag are based on bizarre things these real guys have actually done including dressing in costumes and chasing one another on golf carts.

The point is that the childlike joy inspired by the game Tag keeps these lifelong friends from growing complacent. That's the thing about friendships from childhood, complacency and distance creeps in and while modern technology allows many ways for us to stay in touch, there is nothing better than a milestone moment of being in the same place at the same time to really remind you how important having friends is. Life can so easily get in the way, a game of Tag now and then, or your friendship equivalent, may be just the thing an adult needs to get by.

Movie Review Nerdland

Nerdland (2016) 

Directed by Chris Prynoski 

Written by Andrew Kevin Walker

Starring Patton Oswalt, Paul Rudd, Kate Miccucci, Riki Lindholme, Mike Judge, Hannibal Burress

Release Date December 6th, 2016

Published November 29th, 2016 

Nerdland features the voices of Paul Rudd and Patton Oswalt as John and Elliott, loser roommates starving for fame. John is an aspiring actor and Elliott is a screenwriter though neither seems particularly interested in the work that goes into becoming famous, just the fame. There could be comedy to be wrung from a pair of fame-whoring losers but Nerdland pretty much stops at making John and Elliott losers. 

After John fails at a lame attempt to get Elliott’s screenplay into the hands of a dopey movie star during an interview junket the two begin brainstorming awful get famous quick schemes. Among the failed attempts at becoming stars is a YouTube style video where they give a giant check to a homeless person in hope that their charity will go viral. Unfortunately, Elliott fails to record the attempt and the homeless man runs away with the oversized novelty check. 

After fame manages to elude them in several other ways the guys take a shot at infamy, brainstorming a mass murder spree. John and Elliott visit their landlord with the intent of making her their first victim, which should be easy, they reason, because she is very old. Naturally, they fail as killers as well and the film then spins off into a minor media parody after the guys witness a robbery and become the targets of both the police and dangerous mobsters.

Throughout the movie references are dropped regarding a rebuilt Hollywood sign. The reveal of the sign is mentioned several times during the film and it comes up one last time during the film’s climactic scene. Spoiler alert: We never find out why the sign matters in any way. That actually may not be a spoiler as it plays absolutely no role at all in the outcome of the film or the fates of John and Elliott and yet it drags on throughout the entire run of the movie.

The sign bit is emblematic of how sloppy and shapeless Nerdland is but that is not what makes the film so damn disappointing. It’s the talent that made this shapeless, sloppy, mess of a movie that is so disappointing. On top of Patton Oswalt and Paul Rudd, a dynamic comic duo completely wasted, we have the talents of Riki Lindholme and Kate Micucci, AKA Garfunkel & Oates, Mike Judge, Paul Scheer, Laraine Newman, Hannibal Burress and “Seven” screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker.

Chris Prynoski is the director of Nerdland and I have to imagine he is responsible for the final product. Prynoski has a cult following from his similarly odd animated TV shows Metalocalypse, Superjail, and the recent live action and animated series Son of Zorn. Prynoski’s style is combatively unfocused, he seems to actively not care if the audience laughs. Prynoski engages in the kind of anti-comedy that attempts to mine laughs from the absurd lack of something funny. Sometimes this kind of comedy can be exciting as a taunt toward a passive audience. In Nerdland it just feels messy and shapeless, even if you feel like you get the anti-joke.

I cannot for the life of me tell you why the movie is called Nerdland. I guess that John and Elliott could be considered nerds but they aren’t really interesting enough to earn any label other than losers. The one character who could rise to a common stereotype of a nerd is played by Hannibal Burress but he is such a grotesque caricature that he defies any simplistic label. Burress’s character is fat and sloppy and runs a comic book store and has access to the darkest corners of nerd culture; something the movie seems to use for narrative convenience except that Prynoski loses interest in even playing out his narrative clichés.

Anti-comedy is tough to pull off. The intent is to drive away lazy audiences and potentially entertain a few of the like-minded souls willing to overlook the ugliness to find the bold and daring comedy below. Andy Kaufman eating ice cream on stage at The Comedy Store is anti-comedy at its finest, a daring taunt from a comic genius who knows that the absurd silent scene on stage is funnier than most of the written material of any other comic. Chris Prynoski is no Andy Kaufman. His brand of anti-comedy isn’t as well refined or daring, merely off-putting.

The joke of Nerdland seems to be its own existence. It plays as if Chris Prynoski hired an all-star team of comic talents with the intention of doing nothing remotely funny with them. It is most certainly a taunt and it does provoke the audience but it lacks wit. Only Chris Prynoski knows why Nerdland is intentionally unfunny and if that self-satisfaction is enough for him then I bow to him. I don’t recommend his movie but I respect what I assume is the self-satisfying result.