Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)

Directed by: Stuart Gillard

Starring: Elias Koteas, Paige Turco, Stuart Wilson

As a child of the 80’s, I loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles growing up. Had the toys, watched the cartoon, loved the first two movies, I even got a horrible plastic tent with their image on it that literally suffocated kids if they fell asleep inside it without ventilation. It was good times. The third installment in the live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series is the reason I stopped liking TMNT and decided to move on to bigger and better things. Like Ghostbusters.

In TMNT 3, the turtles get transported back in time to feudal Japan via a magic lantern. Originally they go to save April O’Neil, their reporter friend, but once they get there they are recruited to fight for the villagers against their oppressive Daimyo. They do all this with their classic grace and humility, failing to understand even the slightest thing that happens around them and then laughing at their half-assed jokes. Oh, the turtles.

Besides the drop in quality of the script and even the banter between the turtles, the most obvious difference between this movie and the first two in the series are the turtle suits used. In the first two, the Henson company was used to design the animatronics, and with good reason, since Henson is the leading company when it comes to all things puppets. For TMNT 3, they apparently threw away the old suits and replaced them with Chuck E. Cheese dancing animals. The facial motions are clanky and ridiculous, and Splinter himself looks like a cheap Halloween prop. Why would they do such a thing? I have no idea. Maybe it was cheaper?

Anyway, if you ever see a VHS copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, you can be happy in the knowledge that by not buying it you’ve saved yourself 75 cents that you can instead spend on a frozen burrito, money much better spent.