Released in 1993, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III is an infamous movie! People love to make fun of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III and to be fair, for good reason! The first two live action Turtles movies are fantastic, but this third entry is nowhere near as good as those other two.
How to Download Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III was released on March 19, 1993. You can download or stream the film from a digital platform. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice. Also, read our reviews of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Secret of the Ooze.
The Movie Review
While in 1993, Ninja Turtles were not as popular as they were in 1990 and 1991 when the other movies came out, I honestly do not think the popularity of the franchise is the issue here at all. To start with, the suits are not made by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop and they look kind of horrific. The suits looks so much worse than they did in the other movie.
The people who made them were clearly talented so I do not want to rip them apart. However, when side by side with the Jim Henson suits, these look so bad in comparison. With The Secret of the Ooze, they took a more comedic and slapstick tone than the first movie and it worked. While I prefer the first movie, The Secret of the Ooze is still a ton of fun.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III on the other hand is just kind of dumb and it does so many things wrong! April gives the Turtles and Splinter some gifts, Splinter’s gift is a weird scepter that opens up a portal to ancient Japan, sending the Turtles and April there and bringing four Japanese guards and a warrior called Kenshin to New York. Look, the “Turtles in Time” premise is great, the idea of the Turtles fighting Ninjas is so cool, yet the execution is severely lacking.
The Problem with the Main Villain
A huge problem that the movie has is the main villain. Forget getting Krang, Leatherhead, Baxter Stockman, or some other iconic TMNT character as the main villain. Instead, we get a really boring Englishman called Walker. Walker has about as much personality as a dead fish and he is just so freaking lame!
Wasted Potential of the Time Travel Plot
The Turtles being in Japan and getting into scrapes with ninjas is an awesome idea. Instead, we get a bunch of goofy scenes and Mikey is hardly even featured in the movie as he gets split up from his brothers once they land in Japan. The main issue I had with The Secret of the Ooze was the lack of Casey Jones and they do fix that here,
However, Elias Kosteas as Casey Jones is completely wasted in this movie! Sure, he plays the role perfectly, but he is basically here to keep an eye on the Japanese guys and it sucks that this is what he was reduced to. We get no Casey and Raph busting each other’s chops! I feel really bad for Elias Kosteas that he came back to the franchise and this is what they had him doing.
Overall Impressions
To be fair, I would never say that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III is absolute garbage, but it is still not a good movie. It is so much worse than the two that came before it. The suits look worse, the fight scenes are worse, and the humor is worse there is nothing that this movie does better or even as good as the other two movies. Although the wall scroll with the Turtles in Japan looks so badass, I would love to have a replica of that in my collection. I can watch this and have fun with how bad and absurd it is so I guess it does have that going for it.
