This is yet another origin story, so anyone who has read the graphic novel, watched any of the animated series adaptations, or stood in line for the 1991 or 2014 introductory ventures knows much of this already. Anyhow, a big scientific experiment goes haywire, covering four baby turtles and a sewer rat in a mysteriously glowing green ooze. All of them mutate into animal-humanoid hybrids, and the rat — Splinter (Jackie Chan) — raises the turtles as if they were his own sons, teaching them martial arts, family values, and undying love for all things pizza.

Rowe's take on the material does mix things up somewhat. Instead of battling against Shredder and the Foot Clan, here the intrepid heroes in the half shell are up against a fellow mutant, the gargantuan Superfly (Ice Cube) and his gang of like-minded hybrids of various species. April O'Neil (Ayo Edebiri) isn't an already established television news journalist but is instead a teenage wannabe with regurgitation issues whenever she's on camera. The human baddies are led by nasty government scientist Cynthia Utrom (Maya Rudolph), and she'd like nothing better than to get her hands on the four turtle brothers and milk their very life essence right out of them.

What's great is how the filmmakers balance a zany impertinence with genuine coming-of-age emotional complexities. Not only are the relationships between the brothers authentic, but so are their interactions with their overprotective father Splinter and their budding friendship with the determined — if still resolutely good-natured — O'Neil. Early on, John Hughes' Ferris Bueller's Day Off is referenced, and that's for good reason as Rowe and company are resolute in their pursuit to balance comedy and drama with irreverent creativity.

The action is where things come up moderately short. It all looks great, the colors leap off the screen and there is an exhilarating fluidity to the character movements, but that does not mean the majority of the big set pieces generate an equal volume of excitement. Unlike the aforementioned The Mitchells vs the Machines or this summer's hit Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the staging and visual language of the action sequences leave something to be desired. It's all too familiar, and other than a lovely, unrestrained bit of nonsense in a New York chop shop that's like an animated second cousin to John Woo's Hard Boiled mixed with classic Looney Tunes shorts, there's frustratingly not a lot to talk about, and this includes the kaiju happy climax.

We're talking about a story whose martial arts protagonists are mired in subpar action and yet the overall movie remains hugely enjoyable — that says a great deal about how strong every other creative element of this production proves to be. Even with so many writers, the script is tight, agreeably empathetic, and surprisingly more intelligent than anticipated. The animation is continually eye-popping. The whole thing moves like a shot out of a cannon, Rowe maintaining a breakneck pace without sacrificing coherence or character development.

Look, if Mutant Mayhem is what we can expect for these iconic characters going forward, then I'm all for it. For the first time ever, I understand why both my siblings randomly shout, "Turtle power!" for no apparent reason and constantly give me dirty looks for my overall disdain for these characters, their world, and every one of their cinematic outings up until now. I finally get it, and after 30 years of indifference, I'm as pleasantly shocked by this turn of events as anyone.