Parents' Guide to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

This irresistibly crowd-pleasing reboot is a fun, funny adventure with distinctive animation, enthusiastic voice acting, and a memorable soundtrack. Screenwriters Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jeff Rowe, Dan Hernandez, and Benji Samit have impressively captured how 15-year-old boys talk, tease, and act in Mutant Mayhem's screenplay. A few scenes of the turtles egging one another on will ring especially true to many teens (and parents). And Edebiri is a wonderful new April. She's smart, observant, and determined -- and she's not sexualized, unlike many live-action versions of the character. Chan is ideally cast as Splinter, who's more father than sensei in this particular story but still knows how to show off his martial arts prowess. The performance continues to prove how adept Chan is with comic timing. Ice Cube's Superfly is a villain with an understandable hatred toward humans, and he adds some levity to the role in a way that renders him not quite as scary as other TMNT baddies.

In addition to the talented cast, the movie boasts a New York-centric hip-hop soundtrack that includes songs from De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Busta Rhymes, DMX, Gravediggaz, and Naughty by Nature. (Audiences of a certain age may walk out singing "Can I Kick It?") As with the Spider-Verse films, the animation here is vibrant and immersive, lovingly exploring city and mutant life. Director Jeff Rowe uses New York as another character in the film, both below and above ground. One of the movie's sweetest aspects is how much the turtles want to go to high school, even after April reveals how she's been bullied. They crave friendship and connection beyond their relatives, and it's a touching reminder that Leo, Donnie, Mikey, and Raph are still kids, making this an ideal feature-film version of TMNT for tweens -- but one that will still delight older moviegoers, too.