With a two year gap instead of one, and the largest budget of the series, could Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III just be the greatest film of the franchise?
Are you kidding me?! This movie is fecal! Though Turtle Mania had not completely vanished by 1993, it seems the filmmakers shepherding the live action movies had lost all inspiration to keep on shelling these things out. And can you believe something so lame is the product of a writer-director, Stuart Gillard, of so much unwanted TV, and also RocketMan. Why $20 million and the honor of four noble reptiles were entrusted to this schmuck, who’s to say?!
Ask any “Turtle” fan worth his ooze, and he’ll tell you what these movies need: The Technodrome, damn it, Krang, Bebop, Rocksteady! Denying all that is like using only Lex Luthor in every Superman sequel. But, okay, fine, supposing Eastman and Laird had contracts denying use of TV show-derived elements, limiting these movies solely to the base notion: that ninjitsu exists in this universe, and four large turtles know it. That still doesn’t excuse the laziness in conception of III, which does as so many inspiration-derived Part Threes and goes to Japan. (Another way this franchise mirrors the soon-to-be-reviewed Bad News Bears franchise.)
The “concept” of III? Send the Turtles to Japan, ancient feudal Japan, the birthplace of ninjas (and, arguably, disgusting mutation). This isn’t a horrible idea, as that’s an interesting period, and a pertinent setting for the Heroes in a Half-Shell. Too bad there are no ninjas in III, which is instead a by-the-books undemanding time travel story – which doesn’t even take advantage of that element! (Witness the totally tubular “Turtles in Time,” a videogame who’s alliterative subtitle was co-opted by III for its 2002 DVD release, which uses time travel more fully, to send the Turtles to: the dinosaurs, the pirates, the Old West, and three different futures.) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III is the worst thing its premise could yield.
And it doesn’t help matters that Jim Henson Studios has dropped ship, meaning the once-proud Turtle suits are replaced with patently fake and unexpressive monstrosities of design. (Master Splinter’s is even worse!) Check out the painted-on green splotches! Check out the complete death of martial arts prowess behind the suits! Check out…an actually decent voice cast, especially as Mike and Leo are the same as ever: Robbie Rist and Brian Tochi. Raph is now Tim Kelleher, because they’ve given up on this character. And for the first time since the first, Donny is voiced by Corey Feldman, now struggling to recover from his heroin binge, doing horrid films like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III rather than interesting films like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Meanwhile, it’s 1603 in Japan. Generic warlike shenanigans are afoot, presented as though it somehow matters now in 1993 (it doesn’t). Stuart Gillard does not effectively think four-dimensionally. Here in Norinaga Castle is the eeeee-vil warlord Norinaga (Sab Shimono, the voice of Mr. Sparkle), who is – let us guess – waging some unclear war against unclear rebels, meaning Gillard once saw Star Wars. Recently banished is his rebel-siding son Kenshin (Henry Hayashi). Most importantly, as a testament to how much III has sunken even from The Secret of the Ooze, the true baddie is a Brit, Walker (Stuart Wilson). In a lesser version of his Mask of Zorro role, Wilson (er, Walker) is intent upon winning Norinaga’s war, which will grant him…I’m not wholly sure, but Walker does cackle enough so we’re sure he is villainous. And Walker has guns, the sole reason for his threat. Walker’s a fairly camp, effeminate villain, one hell of a significant downgrade from the Shredder, in a time when we should be getting the combined forces of Dimension X!
More, plenty more to say on Japan anon. Most of the filmmakers’ budget was shattered on substituting Oregon for Asia, like many an unadventurous Californian before them, meaning New York City – the New York City that is the Turtles’ only stomping ground – is limited to their one pre-built sewer lair, a stock shot of the skyline, and a purposeless reshoot in a dance club.
Limited to this one set, where the Turtles dance around like sitcom characters, it’s no wonder characters like April O’Neil (Paige Turco) simply come and go in the manner of Kramer. And like a final season episode of a bad ‘60s sitcom, April arrives bearing a magic scepter, attained for unjustifiably arbitrary reasons off screen. This is the film’s most important prop! By this the Turtles shall travel back in time, the only thing we’ve been promised by this film, and yet…
The tyranny of the First Act delays that, even while the Turtles have zero story otherwise. Instead, Kenshin comes to the “present” (that is, 1993), and April goes to Japan. By magic. They switch clothes, which gets around the whole Terminator naked thing OK, and their clothes switch body type conveniently enough. Also convenient, Kenshin now speaks English, so – Hey, maybe it’s another magic-induced plot-enabler!...No, wait, Donny’s just technobabbles out that of course all 1603 Japanese spoke perfect, 20th Century English, because the barest few of them knew some British imperials. Guys, you’ve already invoked ass-arbitrary magic, use it!
Hence April is also able to casually converse with her captors, who put her in a dungeon. The reasoning here being that the same thing once happened to Princess Leia.
The Turtles at last have a quest: go back in time, get April, return. Simple enough, and that danged scepter doesn’t even have any qualifiers to it like “get up to 88 mph.” Of course, for lamely dramatic reasons never explained or later referred back to, Donny determines a random “space-time continuum” 60 hour time limit. Er? I doubt Gillard knows what “space-time continuum” means. He surely doesn’t know what the sentence “If I subtract the cosine from the inverted integer, then I can take the flanjular” means, except it sound smart, “sounds” being the closest Gillard can get. Donny does not fare well in this entry.
“It’s equal mass displacement,” which at least is a sensible bit of technobabble. That means as the Turtles go back, they are replaced by four samurai (who do not speak English, for the sake of a subplot to mirror Napoleon’s in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure). Four samurai who are not nude, as is the Turtles’ wont, but rather in fuck-off big diapers, so – Bye-bye, logic!
And in Japan, the Turtles (now clad as samurai, at least), instantly foul up their meager task. They are split up that very minute, partly due to a sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-Seven Samurai battle. Mike alone falls in with the rebels, and the ever-precious scepter is just completely lost. That gives this plot somewhere to go once the “save April” bit has been accomplished. Because Gillard wants us to care about the drama of rebels vs. warlords, for as predetermined as the outcome must be.
(Never once do they address the Back to the Future concerns about tampering with history, or throwing off time, or any of the reasons you actually make a time travel movie – eh, that or just showing a whole hell of a lot of different settings. No, time travel’s just an excuse to get the Turtles in an under-realized Japan, so – What were they trying to accomplish with this?!)
Rescuing April is pretty damn easy for the remaining Turtle trio, never mind she’s deep in the heart of Norinaga Castle, itself the ostensible final stage. One reason for the Turtles’ ease: in the film’s one clever conceit, everyone thinks there are Kappas – you know, Japanese demons in the form of turtles. Gillard actually knows something! This terror leaves enemies unwilling to actually battle the ninjas, depriving III of the need to construct “oh so violent” action set pieces for its action heroes. It also robs us of the one and only chance ever to see ninjas vs. pirates actually play out, for what are Walker’s greasy Caucasian thugs if not pirates? The missed opportunities just abound!
Ignoring the Turtles’ shared incompetence, this is the point where the story should end, if they still had the scepter (and Mike). Rather, off the Turtles go to wander aimlessly in the forests of “Japan.” With them is a bearded mook named Whit (Elias Koteas), whose actor you’ll no doubt immediately recognize as the guy who plays Casey Jones – who is also in this entry, again, and no, there’s no reason for this double role, as they’re not even ancestors or anything. It’s just a way to give Koteas screen time, even while Casey’s subplot sees him sewer-sitting samurais.
The Turtles meet rebels, the Turtles fight rebels, the rebels see that the Turtles are turtles (that took a long time), the rebels invite the Turtles back to their cheapo village. Except…
It’s on fire! This is Walker randomly spreading his villainy about, sans purpose, meaning…either the rebels’ hideout is already known, meaning why’s this war even still going on, or the coincidences are just piling up like so much rat caca. And since we’ve just concluded one of several poorly choreographed fight sequences, what’s one more?
The Turtles have a second match against Walker and his pirates in this setting, the Turtles’ victory again coming about through a combination of fear and tomfoolery. Deprived of their ninjitsu approach, the Turtles rather subject their victims to a volley of dated pop cultural references (mostly westerns, for some damned reasons having to do with Gillard’s uncreativity and refusal to do research). Their banter feels now like a Wayne’s World rip-off, odd considering Wayne’s World was originally riffing on late ‘80s banter the Turtles had pioneered. This crap is stupid and childishness. It’s thoroughly inoffensive, perhaps as a sop to the whiny parental beasts who critiqued the earlier entries, but it denies us everything a lad wants from the “Turtles.”
Now all four Turtles are reunited. The movie is briefly elevated (as am I) as Paige Turco graces the screen with her gams (“Leg-o-rama!”). This is the best part. And with that scepter gone, and no clue as to finding it (what’s a plot?), Donny sets the Turtles about doing the next best thing: making a brand new scepter. Apparently, the theory goes, something with the same shape will ergo have the same magical properties. (More choice Donny “smart” dialogue: “Let’s see, the square root is –”) Of course, I thought all this was perhaps a scheme to later switch the fake scepter for the real one, but I’m smarter than Stuart Gillard. Instead the fake scepter is made, then immediately broken. So what was that all about?
It turns out the rebels had the real scepter anyway, due to plot convolutions I’d rather not get into. So everyone simply looked stupid in the interim, to no end. So now the Turtles can go home and – Of course not. This is the point where they’re supposed to feel for the rebels’ plight, and offer to selflessly mess around with history first. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, you have not earned such emotional investment! Rather, thank Yoshi, Whit proves to be a bad guy (that is, a white person), and steals the scepter for Walker and/or Norinaga. So the scepter’s over at Norinaga Castle, which was easily broken into before, so I don’t see what a big deal this climax will turn out to be.
No, wait, Walker has guns! Oh my, GUNS, he’s the greatest supervillain ever! (Of course, guns being totally nonexistent in 1993, apparently.) And apparently he’s “more dangerous” than ever, as Norinaga has just given him the okay (and the gold) to use guns, whereas…Isn’t that what they just used at the village? Where the Turtles handed them their asses? I fail to see the threat.
But wait!, here comes Norinaga with a new development. See, here’s this scroll, from even more ancient times, and upon it…the Ninja Turtles?! What the?! It seems in the past, four “Kappa” overthrew a different generic warlord, as ‘tis prophesied they’ll do again. This is a most inept detail, as there are two possible explanations: Either a further sequel will show these same Turtles going further back in time, still in Japan (dream on, filmmakers!), or mutant ninja turtles simply existed in ancient Japan, completely negating the ooze premise. Either way, this makes the baddies even more scared of the Turtles, so…way to stack the deck in the wrong direction.
Oh, and the rebel leader Mitsu (Vivian Wu, The Last Emperor, The Joy Luck Club, The Pillow Book…this movie) has been kidnapped – because she’s a female. Since April’s First Act plot utility is complete, they gotta rescue Mitsu now too.
The Turtles sneak into Norinaga Castle with even greater ease than last time, seeing as everyone is now deathly afraid of them, and they also have Mike. The underwhelming fight sequence to end all underwhelming fight sequences breaks out, and Raph references the Addams Family, seeing as The Addams Family was a movie in 1991 (and Addams Family Values in 1993). Okay then.
Without dilly-dallying, let’s see how the “climax” between the dread Walker and our four Turtles plays out. Basically, Walker’s men surround the beasts (with guns), and are about to shoot them. Until –
Leo bluffs this great big rigmarole about how they’re demons and yadda yadda. Angered, Walker does a dumb, dumb thing. Rather than having forty men shoot them, he alone shall. With that phallic cannon he loves so. And we’re supposed to be more concerned? All seems lost for the Turtles when they remember, just as at the end of Ooze, that, oh yeah, they’re turtles! (How do they keep forgetting this?) This means, apparently, the power to duck a cannonball, aimed stupidly at Leo’s head rather than his torso. That’s “head-down-the-shell” ducking. Somehow this re-terrifies Walker’s ineffective pirate soldiers, who flee with Norinaga’s army for the hills, never to be a threat to Japan again (sure). They could’ve still just shot ‘em! This movie is so biased towards its heroes, it’s not even funny.
Then Walker climbs the castle’s ramparts, and dies like many a Disney villain by falling off a cliff due to his own damned foolishness. Let us never have blood on the Turtles’ claws, of course, lest that send the wrong message. (In an unrelated note, England actually censored the Turtles because the word “ninja” is in their name. England has the most arbitrary censorship laws.)
One war over and one man dead, the Turtles now have the scepter and the freedom to return home and –
Never mind, Michelangelo is staying. Now, where did this 11th hour character arc come from?! Well, because in Japan, the Turtles are heroes, gods, surely one of the less strange things the country has seen (have you seen the Turtles’ anime there?!), whereas in New York they’re treated like common C.H.U.D.s.
In theory I respect the notion to give Michelangelo character moments like this, but the proper point for that is anywhere except the very end of the movie. As it is, this just drags out the inevitable conclusion – Never mind Mike’s selfishness that a samurai is banished to 1993 if he decides to stay. For to no one’s shock, in the end the four Turtles return to their stage-bound sewer home, as ancient Japan flourishes as a Walker-free paradise. Let’s ignore the still-pertinent issues of society-wide ostracization Mike brought up, for one ending joke apparently clears all that away.
There are some opinions that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III is the end of the franchise. There are others (like myself) who’d prefer that it were not a part of the franchise, seeing as it has nothing to do with the Foot Clan, nor the Shredder, nor even anything the other movies concerned themselves with. It simply plugs the Ninja Turtles into a thoughtless time travel story that’d make the folk behind A Kid in King Arthur’s Court blush. The only joy in that is the willful anachronism of surfer slang in ancient Japan – though surfer slang would be an anachronism most anyplace. There’s no ninja goodness, which is a serious oversight. There’s nothing to strengthen the Turtles’ story, despite the chance Japan provides. No fighting, no intelligence, no interesting time travel (Leo thinks dying in 1603 prevents their births in…by their ages, I’d wager 1975 – and this really misinterprets the notion of paradox).
Curse this movie straight to the pits of hell! Maybe it didn’t singlehandedly kill the “Turtle” phenomenon dead in its shell, but it surely did it no favors. The superior TV show rattled on until 1995, surely a good 8-year life span for such an endeavor. More “Turtle” programs came out, such as the terrible live action “The Next Mutation” no one knows of, but the movies were done for. The “Turtles” basically entered a lengthy dormancy period, left behind by the children who’d grown up. Strong “Turtle” nostalgia exists, which fuels 21st Century franchise reboots, but that takes a time to get going. A lengthy “off” period is necessary for most franchises of this sort, and that’s just what III had allowed.
Related posts:
• No. 1 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
• No. 2 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)
• No. 4 TMNT (2007)
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