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 II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)

Director: Michael Pressman

Cast: Paige Turco, David Warner, Ernie Reyes, Jr., Toshishiro Obata

Have I Seen it Before: Almost as many times as the original.

Did I Like It: The first film was a huge success, and as often happens, a sequel was rushed into production. The film doesn’t work nearly as well as its predecessor, and ultimately doesn’t have to. It has a very short grocery list of things it needs to accomplish. Turtles arrive. They fight.

Now, some have noted that the violence of those fights is significantly turned down, even going so far as not having the various turtles use their trademark weapons in combat. In an early scene Michelangelo improvises a line of sausage links in lieu of his normal nunchaku. Honestly? The change in combat doesn’t even occur to me when I am watching the film, and I’m only reminded of it when reading about the film after the fact.

One could pick at the thing that happen in the film. Why does the ooze not only cause Shredder to grow, but also change the sharpness, number, and configuration of his blades? Who thought Ernie Reyes Jr.—an accomplished and capable stuntman—needed to try regular acting this time around? Why is the titular “secret of the ooze” actually what the casual viewer would have suspected all along (that it is just improperly disposed of nuclear waste)? Why is Vanilla Ice playing a club near the wharf, or for that matter, why is Vanilla Ice even in this movie in the first place?

One could pontificate on all of those issues and more, but what would be the point? Should we damn a kids movie for not reaching for more than its basest trappings? Even then, there are moments where this film reaches for more than the sum of its parts. Casting David Warner alone classes up the proceedings quite a bit. There’s also that line where Michelangelo reminds himself to drop a line to Ralph Nader. That’s not a line that six-year olds at the time will get. For that matter, here in 2020 it inspired a fifteen minute conversation about Nader’s career as a consumer advocate before he made a name spoiling (yes, you read that right, didn’t think this review was going to be a reignition of twenty-year-old political debates, did you?) elections.

I’ve seen plenty of films purporting to be for grown-ups that don’t inspire that kind of discourse. Just goes to show you that even films like this can hold some surprises.

If only they had kept it up.