Les tortues ninja III

The Turtles still offer great fun in their third outing on the silver screen. More aimed at children than ever, this movie has an interesting story, action, funny jokes and a happy ending. While not as good as the first two, the third movie is very entertaining. Now bring on another sequel.

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

A magic sceptor transports an ancient warrior from 1603 Japan to present day New York.The heroic foursome in turn learn they must travel back to the warrior's timeframe to battle Lord Norinaga (Sho Shinoba) and his right-hand man Walker (Stuart Wilson) who are enslaving the people.

The only film in the series to be completely absent of Shredder,the desperation begins to seep through at a very early stage.An obviously different,helium voiced actor plays Splinter,whilst we see Raphael adopt a less aggressive nature as events in the film progress.For this,and a fairly engaging script,the film is not a total failure.However,the lack of an engaging story proves to be quite a hindrance.The Turtles were certainly massive in the late 80s and early 90s and in retrospect,you could say good on them for wrangling all they could out of feature film adaptations for the franchise.Lets just say,they were certainly wise to leave it at this.**

The story of the turtles gets even more far-fetched in this inferior installment, with the turtles going back in time to 1603 Japan. The Jim Henson's Creature Shop obviously didn't provide for the turtles, which is a major blow to the overall production. There are a couple of pros that save the film from being a total disaster, including: the return of Casey Jones (Koteas), who's reprisal may make some fans feel that the second installment had a void with his omission; some fun parallels between 1603 Japan and the turtles' life in 1993 New York; wonderful set production for the Japan scenes; and well-developed new characters. While the omission of any references to the Foot Clan may heavily separate this film from the others in the series, it executes an entertaining and solid story. It's also nice to see the turtles and Splinter are still living in the abandoned underground train station from the second film, as well as Turco NOT suffering a recast of April O'Neal like Hoag did; which shows some attempt at continuity despite its major differences from the first two. However, the flaws are too great for its pros to overcome mediocre status. Right from the get-go the movie seems like a lost cause, with the opening credits being accompanied by a ridiculously, terribly unnecessary, spontaneous turtle-dance. Also, couldn't they have found a way to throw Chief Stern (Serra) in for some extra comedic-relief and continuity?

** (out of four)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III is a bad movie with good parts, that's really all you need to know.

One of the best things about the film is that the turtles get to use their weapons. The fights are much better than the 2nd's and are actually pretty exciting. The film is more like II than the first, it's more lighthearted, and surprisingly some of the jokes are pretty funny, and the dialog in general isn't terrible, but it's not exactly well-written. The turtles voices are all great, and Cory Feldman makes a welcome return in the role of Donatello, I missed him in the second film.

The film's cinematography is pretty good, the sets and lighting are decent, the scenes in Japan look really great, but the scenes in the sewer look like a set. Outside of the turtles, the acting is pretty sub-par, Casey makes a return, but his character is nowhere near as great as it was in the first. April O'Neil is basically there just to give the turtles the plot, which is disappointing to me because I really enjoyed her character in the first, and to a lesser extent, the second.

The puppetry is bad. Splinter looks horrendous and moves like a robot. The turtles suits look horrible, the lack of Henson's team is very obvious here. When their mouths move it really draws attention to how bad the mechanics are. The spots on their costumes are supposed to be subtle, not draw attention to themselves like in this film. The film is just nowhere near as good as you'd want it to be, but it's also not terrible. It's watchable and enjoyable enough, and I pop it in every once in a while because it has its moments.

5/10

All in all, this is a fun movie. After the first two TMNT movies, this one breaks with the Shredder theme (fortunately as Shredder seemed about as hard to kill as the first Terminator) and takes the brothers back in time. Warring families in feudal Japan provide the backdrop for teenage Turtle-jinx while Elias Koteas (Casey Jones) displays an enlightening dual role capability. The costumes look more comfortable at the expense of realistic but otherwise, the puns - I mean fun - keeps flowing. If you enjoyed the first two then see this one.