Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)

Director: Stuart Gillard

Cast: Elias Koteas, Paige Turco, Vivian Wu, Sab Shimono

Have I Seen It Before?: I have a very strong memory of seeing it opening weekend at the now-abandoned Super Saver Cinema. I remember really liking it, both the movie and the theater. I’ve spent most of the two years since it closed half-heartedly considering buying the theater. Such a thing would have been a folly and absolutely ruined me. Now all movie theaters are gone.

I miss movie theaters…

Wait. What were we talking about? Oh. Right. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. Definitely saw it in ’93. Can’t say I remember ever watching it since then, which brings me to…

Did I like it?: It’s difficult to write the review I would be immediately inclined to write this film. A very dear friend of mine claims this movie as his favorite movie of all time. You don’t want to knock that. You don’t. You don’t.

And yet…

From the very first frame where we are reunited with the four turtles, something has gone wrong in the sewers of New York. Clearly, these movies were never designed to elevate (or really even meet) the art of cinema. They were designed to make money. The producers realized—and mostly correctly—that kids will watch movies about these characters regardless of the circumstances. Why would they continue to pay out the premium money for Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, where there might be a scrappier puppet studio out there that would be more than willing to underbid.

And it shows.

The turtles look rubber, not like any kind of biological creature as I might have previously understood them. It’s actually sort of a virtue of a lesser sequel that it makes its predecessors look far better by comparison. One might have believed the Turtles and Shredder could exist previously. Here, we are very pointedly never shown the bottom half of the sensei, because I’m pretty sure they could not or did not build that bottom half for the money that was paid out. The motions of the turtles’ mouth are preposterous, whereas they were getting pretty damned good with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991).

The film is more claustrophobic, too. Where previous films attempt to fool the moviegoer into thinking that the film might have been shot in New York. This film is clearly shot in the studio and on a few remote locations. It is in every way a cheaper film.

It is also not without its charms. I’m begrudgingly forced to give credit to the film for not blindly trying to resurrect The Shredder and The Foot Clan (especially after the prior somehow mutated his own weaponry). The setting is completely different, and for better or worse you cannot hang the “more of the same” accusation on this sequel. The scenes in feudal Japan have a certain B-movie samurai charm if you don’t attach a lot of expectations to the proceedings.

Hell, if they had only kept the Henson people on the payroll, the movie might have been an unqualified success and we could have gotten a two or three more of these movies.

I’m not sure that would have been a good thing, though.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

Director: Steve Barron

Cast: Judith Hoag, Elias Koteas, Corey Feldman, Kevin Clash

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, certainly. In fact, my first viewing of the film became somewhat legendary in my family mythology, but that is mostly because immediately after leaving the theater I puked down an upward moving escalator, thus ruining that particular mall in Dallas forever for a number of people.

But that had little to do with the movie itself, I think.

Did I Like It: A movie based on a cartoon primarily designed to sell action figures that was itself based on a comic book that was a spoof of 80s Daredevil comics* is going to have a hard time producing a film that would be worth watching at all. 

So, it’s saying something that this may be the best big-screen version of the turtles we are going to see. The puppet work from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop (it was one of the last projects Henson worked on before his untimely passing) is remarkable, almost bringing an air of believability to a concept that happily has nothing to do with reality. The mouths of the various creatures don’t quite match up with the voice actors looped in later, but it wasn’t exactly like the cartoons looked like they were pontificating lovingly on the subjects of ninjutsu and pizza. On that front it actually makes the film a pretty solid adaptation of the cartoons, although the more far out concepts like the technodrome and Krang would have to wait for this century and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016).

The film also works where others might have failed by pulling off its most significant illusion and convincing film goers that it actually takes place in New York City. With the massive puppetry work on display, large part of the film had to be filmed in the controlled environment of a studio, but with judiciously edited second unit photography, the film still feels like it takes place in a pre-Giuliani NYC with a crime rate spiraling out of control and a sewer system you might not want to jump into on first invitation.

*Look it up. Just once in a live-action adaptation of Daredevil, I would like to see the young Matt Murdock carrying a box of innocent looking turtles before he gets radioactive waste splashed on his face.