MOVIE REVIEW: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)

Oh boy, do I have some catching up to do! To make a long story short, I've got several important events coming up, combined with work that have completely turned my life upside-down until the beginning of April. But no matter, whenever I find a few minutes to myself, I do what makes me happy, like writing. So ever since I saw TMNT, I realized I'd never actually seen Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III of the original series. While I have been told by all accounts that it is terrible, I saw it, and I was surprised by how entertaining at the core it actually was. Sure it's dated as sin, and cheesy enough to make four large pies (get it? Nah, didn't think so). But it put a smile on my face for the nostalgia kick.

On a regular visit, journalist April O'Neil gets sent back in time by a mysterious artifact she brings back to the Ninja Turtles. Determined to rescue her, the turtles go back in time to Feudal Japan, and encounter a kingdom under siege by a ruthless warlord and a corrupt British colonist. Meanwhile, April finds herself in hot water when she accidentally convinces the people she's a witch, and Splinter, along with Casey Jones need to acclimatize a group of warriors accidentally sent back in place of the turtles. Oh yeah, and there's the obligatory brother-issues between the turtles on top of that.

If this movie were made today, it would be no different than anything released straight-to-video, production-wise. The whole movie is so cheap-looking, I'm surprised it actually made it to theaters. Even for the 90s, it looks as though it were a TV-movie, straight off of the Family Channel. Still, I wasn't too bothered by this, since the whole time I knew what I was getting out of it. The action is fast, fun and the comedic gags are childishly silly, but I found it all to be very enjoyable, as someone who was once young when this originally came out. Granted by biggest problem was that there were some awkward moments; a lot of jokes fell flat, and Leonardo gives CPR to a child one scene, but everything was really all in good fun. As an unashamed "Turtles" fan, I found it fairly enjoyable.

7/10

Peace,
- Jon

MOVIE REVIEW: TMNT (2007)

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, an unforgettable staple of my childhood: One of the most dynamic cartoon series for anyone who grew up in the early 90s, the turtles have experienced an unanticipated and welcome resurgence in recent years. Enter TMNT, a film reboot of sorts for the series that sort of picks up where everything left off and injects fresh new life in the series, despite the movie being rather ordinary for a cartoon actioneer.

Ever since the events of the last film series, the turtles have gone their separate ways. But Leonardo, being the stalwart one, resolves to bring them back together after persuasion from their friend, journalist April O'Neill that New York City needs the turtles back to fight crime. When a mysterious, ancient Aztec power is unleashed upon the city, even the once-formidable Foot Clan finds themselves against the odds which puts the turtles in a compromising position to bring themselves together, or let New York implode unto itself.

TMNT was a welcome homecoming in my eyes and did excellent justice to the series by making me feel right at home with the atmosphere. The animation is slick and polished, it gives off a cheap look of "Jimmy Neutron", at first, but in reality, the simplistic look is more about they style and the intention to emulate the cartoon series of old. The thing with the story is, the story itself doesn't really feel too fresh and comes off more as the typical revisonist story, complete with fracticious inner-team conflict that results in a falling-out (but you know they're going to make up, again!). I also wished the film had more action, there were really only two major fight scenes with all the turtles, the rest were more intimately relegated to singular characters. Half of the fun of watching "Ninja Turtles" was seeing all of them in action at once, so I felt the action could have delivered a bit more. But overall, TMNT was fun, the creators could've done a lot to easily screw things up, and thank goodness, they didn't.

7/10

Peace,
- Jon