TMNT 3

The last TMNT movie to date, and it’s not a surprise why. I thought the creative team had drunk too much Kool-Aid and had somehow returned to childhood when conceiving and creating this film. It’s camp, childish camp through and through. Bad dialogue, bad bad acting and a storyline that while intriguing and good at first glance is ruined by a bad ending and the campy silliness of it all. Perhaps I’m being unfair, perhaps I’m not seeing it through the eyes of the little kids they hopes to appeal to with this movie, but down to the turtles costumes, horrible jokes and acting this movie was the weakest of the Turtle series and not surprisingly put an end to any further production of TMNT features.

April brings a magical scepter to the Turtle Lair when she’s about to go on vacation, and it whisks her away to 1600s Japan in the middle of a battle between an evil warlord named Norinaga whose own son is fighting against him. The son, Kenshin, is put in April’s place in the future, and so the turtles resolve that they must follow the reporter and save her before time runs out and she’s trapped in feudal Japan forever.

They go back in time, leaving Kenshin and Splinter in the care of Casey Jones (?) and they find themselves separated from Mikey and trying to keep their heads on between the Lord Norinaga’s ninja, an evil British pirate named Walker and trying to find their missing brother and the magic scepter before they too are trapped in time.

Compared to the last two movies in this line, this film truly sucks. The special effects take a step down, even in the robotics and design of the turtle costumes. They look dopey and their facial movements are too jerky. Splinter looks awful too, like he’s aged thirty rat years. The lack of any cool villains really hurts this one too. The warlord and Walker are weak bad guys compared to our old friend the Shredder, and I think honestly the best actor might be that of Stuart Wilson who plays Walker. He’s a little hokey, but it seemed like he was wasted on this movie.

The premise of this movie was a good one and it could have been awesome, but somehow through strange and perhaps unintended means this film was a failure of production and a flop. I seriously cannot believe the director Stuart Gillard sat in on his dailies and let some of the things in this movie slip through the cutting room.

The only other issue I take with this film is that it was obviously created and written by someone who HATES guns with a vengeance. I don’t mean fighting and war, I just mean GUNS. Every chance they can in some of the strangest moments they have characters gasping in terror or sounding alarmed to death because somebody said that evil word. One would think the greatest evil in the movie is not the Warlord or Walker, but those metal tubes in their hands. I wouldn’t mind so much if they decried all forms of weaponry, but when Mikey gleefully finds swords to use and the other turtles are so happy to get their three-fingered hands on some other form of killing merchandise it seems just a little hypocritical. You say I’m off base? I tell you to get real.

I have found more to like about this film the more I’ve watched it, but the best thing in this movie from my POV is the development of Raph’s character and his relationship with a little boy named Yoshi. It’s sweet, but hardly makes up for the rest of this lemon. I hate to say such things as big a TMNT lover as I am, and if it were any other movie with this bad a production quality made in the last ten years than a turtle one it would see the trash can pretty quick, or at least be used for comic relief nights only. I wish the TMNT movies had gotten better with time and progression, but unfortunately they went so far down by this installment that they effectively killed the movie franchise. Perhaps with the resurgence of popularity by the new cartoon show there could be a chance, but if this movie does anything it teaches that one should learn from the past.

Story: 1/2 fundamentally I like the story, and it’s fun to many degrees, but it inevitably suffers from the production values.

Acting: No comment. It would just be too negative. Even the TURTLES were terrible in this one!! NO!!!

Special effects: Locations and just about everything else but the turtles suits were good, but even the computer created effects were revealing of the low budget this film was given.

Language: A few Gods and some light cursing from Walker.

Sexual content: none

Heart enlightenment factor: Because it’s the lightest and the goofiest of the three it does have some better buzz moments if you really take the effort to invest in the characters and situations.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3