Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Turtles in Time
The Secret of the Ooze

Return to the Main Page

Summary:
April O'Neil is about to go on vacation, but it's interrupted by a strange lantern-thingy taking her back in time to 1600 feudal Japan, being switched by a samurai who ends up in modern times. The turtles find their way back in time to save April.

Review:
Man. My oh my. They should have stopped while they were ahead, but of course that's not like a movie studio! HAH! It's another one of those movies that has so many flaws, writing a checklist would be the most proficient method, unless I felt like writing a novel, and people felt like reading it.

First off, it looks like major budget cuts were made for this one. The turtles look very different from before. More "cartoony" and, well.. dumb. Not only that, I think the puppeteers from the first two movies either quit or got fired, and they hired a first timer crew that doesn't know much about making shit look good. Splinter was so lazily presented, that I doubt even budget constraints could justify its horrible results.
They bring back Casey Jones this time around... to sit around the whole time and watch over the Honor Guards of the old-school Japan. These four dudes are the replacement for the turtles to get back in time. They mention the need to have "equal mass displacement", so I wonder how four Japanese guys that look to be about 140 pounds each are of equal mass to the turtles, who are listed as 170-180 pounds, but look more like they're about 190-220 pounds of muscle and shell (but they'd be even HEAVIER if they were REAL turtles!). This isn't even mentioning a healthy Japanese samurai being the same mass as April. Oh, and every Japanese person in 1611 speaks ENGLISH? FUCK ME! Don't think about it, your head will hurt too much.

Once again, the turtles spew bad jokes, but this time the jokes are REALLY bad. Not just corny, but plain TERRIBLE. It hurts my ears listening to it. I also think the movie itself is just plain REALLY BAD. Forty five minutes into it, I felt like I had been watching it for an hour and a half. The acting is bad, the set design is bad...

Even worse is the idea that these turtles transport into the Honor Guard armor, yet it's adjusted for the turtles' faces and sizes. Or that no one notices they aren't human until the masks are taken off.

Fuck, I can go on and on about how nothing in this movie is notable, except for the lameness. Instead, I'll wish anyone on this planet considering to watch this to just steer clear. Beware. Watch one and two, then skip this and pretend it was never made.

GRADE: F

Reviewed 3/22/07