TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES III (1993)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological, sociological*

I'm amazed to see the level of obloquy visited on TURTLES III back at the time of its release. I'm sure most critics back then weren't eager to see another TMNT flick, but the fact is that it's a reasonably well made formula film.

Given that the awful second film made decent money, I'm surprised that TURTLES III seems poised to correct all the failings of Number Two. That film was notable for eliding the presence of the four heroes' individual weapons, but III starts out with the teenaged terrapins practicing with their weapons in a choreographed montage. Moreover, while the later fight-scenes are PG at most, there's no hesitation about showing the nunchuks, et al, in action.

Additionally, though a lot of the humor is still silly-- Michaelangelo mistakes a guy on horseback for Clint Eastwood-- it's not laid on with a trowel as it was in Number Two. There's also a certain amount of drama from standard perils, like a kid trapped in a fire before being rescued by the aforesaid turtle. And the character of Casey Jones (Elias Koteas), dropped by Number Two, at least makes a token appearance.

One criticism was that the time-travel plot didn't derive from the comics, but let's face it; the early TURTLES narratives weren't exactly a great fount of creativity. Further, having the half-shell heroes voyage back to feudal 1600s Japan was a good way of having them connect with the origins of their ninja-hood.

So April O'Neil (Paige Turco again) buys an ancient Japanese scepter as a gift for Splinter. (With the defeat of the Foot in the last film, he and his "sons" are back in their sewer hideaway.) But the specter activates its time-travel magic, and both Splinter and the Turtles behold April whisked away and replaced by Kenshin (Henry Hayashi), a young nobleman from the 15th century. The Turtles then have to make a similar exchange, taking the place of four feudal warriors so that they can go back and find April. 

Inevitably, the heroes get mixed up in local politics. Kenshin's father, a power-hungry warlord, seeks to establish total control of his territory with the help of European weapons bought from an unscrupulous trader, Walker (Stuart Wilson). Kenshin, in rebellion against his father, allied himself with a rebel movement led by Kenshin's girlfriend Mitsu (Vivian Wu). The Turtles' rescue mission doesn't go smoothly, as Michaelangelo gets separated from his brothers and they lose the time-travel device. There follow many hijinks and reversals, and a few tolerable character moments. Feisty Raphael bonds with a young kid; April has an odd almost-romance with a young guy with an uncanny resemblance to Casey Jones (maybe because he's played by the same actor). There's even a curious allusion to the possibility that the Turtles will make some other tine-trip to an even earlier period of Japanese history, because there are legends of turtle-demons appearing in old legends.

Since Stuart Gillard both wrote and directed TURTLES III, I tend to give him the lion's share of credit for the improvement. This is another surprise, because all of his other IMDB citations, both as writer and as director, seem to be average journeyman works at best. In any case, even though the first TURTLES gets pride of place for launching the successful series, TURTLES III is the most purely enjoyable.