Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
Tags: cult, psychedelic, violence

Plot synopsis:
In feudal Japan, a young man is being chased by four samurai on horseback. As they go into the woods, a mysterious woman emerges from the underbrush and watches closely. However, the samurai eventually capture and take the youth, revealed to be a prince named Kenshin, with them.
In the present, April O'Neil has been shopping at the flea market in preparation for her upcoming vacation. She brings her friends gifts to cheer them up. Michelangelo is given an old lamp (the lampshade of which he wears as an impression of "Elvis Presley in Blue Hawaii"), Donatello is given a broken radio to fix, Leonardo is given a book on swords and Raphael is to receive a fedora, but having stormed off earlier, he is never formally given it. For Splinter, she brings an ancient Japanese scepter. Back in the past, Kenshin is being scolded at by his father, Lord Norinaga, for disgracing their family name, but Kenshin argues that his father's desire for war is the true disgrace. Their argument is interrupted by Walker, an English trader who has come to supply Norinaga with added manpower and firearms, and Kenshin leaves his father's presence to brood alone in a temple. There, he finds the same scepter and reads the inscription: "Open Wide the Gates of Time".
In the present, April is looking at the scepter and it begins to light up. She is then sent back in time, while Kensin takes her place; each wears what the other did. Upon arrival, April is accused of being a witch, but Walker deduces she has no power and has April put in prison to suffer. Back in the present, Kenshin is highly distressed upon seeing the turtles and calls them "kappa". After learning from Kenshin of the situation, the turtles decide to go back in time to get April. However, according to Donatello's calculations; they have to do it within 60 hours, otherwise the scepter's power will disappear due to the space-time continuum being out of sync. They bring in Casey Jones to watch over the lair and use the scepter to warp through time. When doing so, the turtles are replaced by four of Norinaga's Honor Guards and are confused at their new surroundings.
Back in time, the turtles awake on horseback and make a poor show of riding their steeds. During the confusion, Mikey (who is carrying the scepter) ends up riding off alone into the forest and gets ambushed by an unknown assailant. The others go to search for April at Norinaga's palace, where their identity as Honor Guards allows them cover in their search. After following one of Walker's thugs into the prison, the turtles rescue April and also free another prisoner named Whit (locked up for trying to start a mutiny against Walker, and who bears a striking resemblance to Casey), but their sloppy escape ends up leaving them all alone in the wilderness and without a clue where to go. Meanwhile, in the present, Kenshin is getting impatient and anticipates a fight from Casey. Casey instead introduces him and the Honor Guards to television hockey, which manages to calm them down for the time being.
Out in the woods, the turtles, April, and Whit are again attacked, this time by villagers mistaking them for Norinaga's forces. The attack stops when Mitsu, leader of the rebellion against Lord Norinaga, unmasks Raphael and sees that he looks just like one of her prisoners. The turtles realize that she is talking about Mikey and accompany Mitsu to her village. When they arrive, the village is being burned down by Walker's men. As the turtles help the villagers save it, Mikey is let out by a pair of clueless soldiers and joins in the fight. Walker is forced to retreat, but the fire continues to burn and has trapped a young boy named Yoshi inside a house. Michelangelo saves Yoshi from the fire, then Leonardo helps him recover by performing CPR.
As Walker continues bargaining with Lord Norinaga over buying guns in exchange for gold, the turtles spend some time in the village. Donatello decides to have a replica scepter made so they can get back home, while Michaelangelo teaches some of the people about pizza and later tries to console Mitsu about Kenshin, whom she is in love with. Raphael also gets in touch with his sensitive side through the child Yoshi, ironically being the one who teaches Yoshi on how to control his temper. Back in the present, the Honor Guards from the past are quickly adjusting to life in the 20th Century, and Casey decides to challenge them to a hockey game. To Casey's dismay, the Honor Guards think hockey is about beating up each other. Meanwhile, Kenshin and Splinter show fear that the ninja turtles will not return home in time before their sixty hours are up.
In the past, the replica scepter is completed, but an argument between Michelangelo and Raphael ends up breaking it. To make matters worse, Mitsu informs them that Lord Norinaga has agreed to purchase Walker's guns and will attack the village in the morning. When Raphael sneaks off to visit Yoshi, however, he is surprised to find the original scepter in the child's possession. The turtles are overjoyed to see it but are angry at Mitsu for hiding it and essentially forcing them to fight her war, however, Mitsu's grandfather clarifies that it was his idea to have the turtles fight in her place.
Suddenly, Whit betrays everybody and captures Mitsu, and the turtles return to Norinaga's palace to save her. After rescuing her, they are cornered by Norinaga and are made to fight waves of his soldiers. The turtles respond by freeing the prisoners in the palace, starting an all-out war on the palace grounds. After a while of fighting, Leo defeats Lord Norinaga in a heated sword duel, comedically finishing him by cutting his hair and then trapping him inside of a bell. Deciding to cut his losses, Walker takes the scepter and tries to escape to his boat. When cornered by the turtles at the dock, Walker throws the scepter into the air as a distraction. The turtles catch the scepter, while Whit launches a catapult at Walker and knocks him off the dock to his death.
The turtles are now ready to return to their own time, but Mikey says he'd rather stay (in particular because he wanted to be with Mitsu). Raphael decides he wants to stay as well because he feels like the Turtles are appreciated in Japan unlike back home. The other turtles and April try to convince them otherwise until Kenshin activates the scepter and makes the decision harder. After a long debate (which included Mitsu telling Mikey to keep his promise about Kenshin returning to the past), Michelangelo reluctantly agrees to go home with his brothers, but just barely misses grabbing the scepter in time. The Honor Guards switch back with the Turtles (all except for Michelangelo). Fortunately, the last remaining Honor Guard activates the scepter and swaps places with Mikey just before the scepter burns out.
In the past, Norinaga admits surrender to Mitsu and Kenshin, and the two lovers share a tender reunion. Michaelangelo, meanwhile, is depressed over the thought of growing up, but Splinter cheers him up by performing the "lampshade Elvis" impression, and the rest of the turtles join in with a final dance number.

Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III in my opinion it is a underrated solid good sequel to the original flick.
It is the second sequel to the 1990 live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film.
STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All CostsA 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.**.
With a little help from the Jim Henson workshop and some well-cast B-actors in key support roles, the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film was a major success that utterly dumbfounded the studio system.
While the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will never be confused with the likes of RoboCop, the first film went back to the roots of the original comic book and depicted a world that was, for all intents, rather dark.
The turtles, in their usual confused weird-species adolescent fervour, take it upon themselves to go back and rescue her, because we all know how an adolescent turtle would go all bug-eyed at the thought of rescuing a woman who looks anything like Paige Turco.Elias Koteas, the real star of the original film, gets to jump back in here, but the character he is best known for spends most of his time eating pizza, watching over a bunch of Japanese soldiers who changed places in time with the turtles (don't ask), and sharing conversation with the shag carpet that Splinter turned into.
In this movie, the turtles and April travel back in time, and rather go back to like the time of the dinosaurs, they go back to Feudal Japan in the 17th Century.
The scepter they use to travel back in time was cool.I've read reviews on this film, specifically on Wikipedia where one of the reviews stated that they felt like the movie would only appeal to kids, and not only that but looked like it was written by a kid.
This movie takes us back to Japan during that time, and I feel like they do a great job in brining 17th Century Japan back to life.
The turtles are at it again with their 3rd Turtle movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 but unfortunately, it isn't as good as the first two, the first one was a classic and the 2nd one was very good but the 3rd one is fairly dissapointing, the worst thing about this movie is Splinter's voice was awful and going back to time was a cheesy idea, but fortunately Elias Koteas returns as the immortal Casey Jones although he only gets to appear in about 10 minutes of the whole movie and Corey Feldman returns as the voice of Donatello (he couldn't make it to the 2nd one due to heroin addiction).
And since the second story pushed away from the Comic's original storyline....(TGRI was really TCRI...and was run by aliens from outer-space) There was no way a plot that furthered the story would be any good...unless....they chose the script they chose for this movie.
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.
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.
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.
Maybe kids will like it, but me, I found that just sitting alone with my own thoughts are more creative than watching this sad, pathetic excuse for a TMNT movie.
The Turtles arrived in the middle of a war, they have to battle the Evil Lord Norinaga (Sab Shimono) and an English Pirate (Stuart Wilson) to reclaim the magic scepter that will bring back below the subways of New York City.Written & Directed by Stuart Gillard (Rocketman) made an enjoyable film that has great action, humour and fun for the whole family.
When your a kid and still hate this TURTLES movie you know it must be brutally bad, which unfortunately it is that and worse.
Pauly Shore, Freidberg and Seltzer, Jamie Kennedy, and Ed Wood all together could've made a better "comedy" than this.Also with writing, out of all the possible movie ideas and Ninja Turtles characters available, they chose to have the Turtles sent back in time to ancient Japan.
The Turtles look like they were made for a children's TV show, not the third instalment in a successful movie series based off a cartoon.
But I feel like I should give my two-cents on the first 2 movies.The first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a classic movie for any fan.
1/10 If you want to see a review before watching, or even after watching to find out how bad this is, I recommend you-tube "The Angry Video Game Nerd: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." It gives you a great breakdown of what is wrong with this 3rd TMNT movie while still discussing why the the first 2 are good movies.
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 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.
Pokemon wouldve been an even bigger success if they had, instead of pasting three episodes together and calling it a movie, had invested the time and money to make a live action film with actors, just so that it would be something worth remembering.
To Be honest this isn't a bad movie i love it it turtles i mean it lucky enough to be turtles not some crappy one which is not the fight scenes are that great but still there weren't very many fight scenes in the first one nor the second but give it a chance i think this turtles movie is for major turtles fans only and besides They go back in time how cool is that even though it not like the game turtles in time it stills a movie that has great laughs and not only does it have great laughs it does have good battle scenes but the only thing that was not good about this movie was that Leo looked like he got punched in the face don looks like he got older Ralph looks like he become a pussy and Mikey well he just Mikey master splinter on the other hands sounds like he has a cock in his mouth and some of the acting well is just plan horrible like some of the japan people but overall this turtles movie to me gets a 9/10 only because i love TMNT and the games and i cant wait for the new TMNT coming in 2011.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III however didn't belong to be in the theaters or be watched since it lost all the darkness of the original and concentrated on cuteness and having children involved.The plot of TMNT III deals with the ninja turtles going back in time after finding a device that takes the turtles all the way to 1800 Japan where a war is going on.
With the turtles in Japan, they befriend many of the townspeople with tough turtle Raphael being a pal to young Yoshi while Michaelangelo finds love.While I was glad to hear Corey Feldman's voice as Donatello after his absence from the first sequel due to the drugs along with seeing Elias Koteas as the crazed Casey Jones, the film wasn't the same.
Like a lot of prepubescent children in 1989 or 1990, my imagination was captured by this new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fad.
Like a lot of prepubescent children in 1989 or 1990, my imagination was captured by this new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fad.
Despite the negative critical reception of TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II: THE SECRET OF THE OOZE, the film was still a financial success and another TMNT film was announced, but this would be the last film to be released by New Line Cinema.The film was titled TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES III or TMNT III or TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES III: TURTLES IN TIME.The plot revolves around the "Sacred Sands of Time", a mystical scepter which transports the Turtles back in time to feudal Japan, where they become embroiled in a conflict between a daimyo and a group of rebellious villagers.The plot of this movie just drives me crazy a little bit, but the story is a little bit incoherent in a few areas, but it can also get really amazing and this movie should have gotten more praise and acclaim that the first film did and I really don't know why people hate this movie.The turtles look stupid as hell in this film and the visuals are impressive, and part of the reason why I think the turtles look as bad as they do is because and they are just fantastic and simply amazing.The music is composed by John Du Prez and it is spectacular.
Despite the negative critical reception of TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II: THE SECRET OF THE OOZE, the film was still a financial success and another TMNT film was announced, but this would be the last film to be released by New Line Cinema.The film was titled TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES III or TMNT III or TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES III: TURTLES IN TIME.The plot revolves around the "Sacred Sands of Time", a mystical scepter which transports the Turtles back in time to feudal Japan, where they become embroiled in a conflict between a daimyo and a group of rebellious villagers.The plot of this movie just drives me crazy a little bit, but the story is a little bit incoherent in a few areas, but it can also get really amazing and this movie should have gotten more praise and acclaim that the first film did and I really don't know why people hate this movie.The turtles look stupid as hell in this film and the visuals are impressive, and part of the reason why I think the turtles look as bad as they do is because and they are just fantastic and simply amazing.The music is composed by John Du Prez and it is spectacular.
The visuals and designs of this film is just amazing and really cool and spectacular.The acting is okay and that, along with the music is what keeps me from hating this movie in the worst way I can possibly can.
The visuals and designs of this film is just amazing and really cool and spectacular.The acting is okay and that, along with the music is what keeps me from hating this movie in the worst way I can possibly can.
Corey Feldman and the original TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES cast returns to do their voices of their respective turtles and it sounds amazing.Paige Turco plays the role of April O'Neill and she does a great job once again.
Corey Feldman and the original TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES cast returns to do their voices of their respective turtles and it sounds amazing.Paige Turco plays the role of April O'Neill and she does a great job once again.
Elias Koteas plays the role of Casey Jones once again and he does a great job once again and he is just incredible this time, especially after being absent from the second film.After this film, another film was in development for a release in 1997 titled "TMNT: The Next Mutation", the film would introduced new turtles, but this project was cancelled after trying to get it made.So, in 2007, both Warner Bros.
Elias Koteas plays the role of Casey Jones once again and he does a great job once again and he is just incredible this time, especially after being absent from the second film.After this film, another film was in development for a release in 1997 titled "TMNT: The Next Mutation", the film would introduced new turtles, but this project was cancelled after trying to get it made.So, in 2007, both Warner Bros.
Making things harder to weigh pros and cons is that for every plus, there seemed to be a minus to counter it.After anticlimactically defeating The Shredder for the SECOND time in a row (the first being from the original), the quadruplet of turtles come across an ancient magic Japanese staff that is able to transport people to another time.
The sound effects also come across more like a cartoon than an action film.Some of the practical effects looked better on our heroes for the third time.
I am a huge fan of the first and second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they were both fun films that even the oldest adult could still have fun too, I grew up with the cartoon and movies, so I just loved them from minute one.
But they find out that they need to help the army against and evil British soldier, or at least from what I've gathered.Please, stick to the first and the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, those are really the worthy and fun movies for the classic cartoon and story.
The story's not bad, and it's good to see Elias Koteas reprise his role of Casey Jones from the first film, but somehow this just does not match the charms of the original.
The turtles find themselves transported back in time to ancient Japan.The best thing about this film: the return of Casey Jones (Elias Koteas).
I recommend this to fans of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, maybe in particular those who want it less obviously and obnoxiously a "family film", without at all excluding kids from watching.
In this installment of the Ninja Turtle trilogy, the team must use a magic scepter to travel back to 17th century feudal Japan to rescue April who had teleported on accident.
I would've much preferred to see the Baxter Stockman/Mousers story arc brought to the big screen instead of the "zaniness" of Ninja Turtles trying to ride horses.On a positive note, Elias Koteas returns as Casey Jones, one of my favorite elements from the first film.
Back in New York, Donatello and Splinter have determined that the scepter is a time-switch device, and for the Turtles to use it, people from the past will be brought to the present.
The Turtles get their friend Casey Jones to guard the people from the past that will appear when the TMNT go back in time to find April.
They are great movies for kids and anyone who wants to see giant teenage turtles beat up a lot of bad guys.
If your kids love the ninja turtles and can't get enough, then this is good, but if you expect a somewhat decent movie, skip this one..
Not alot happens in this one (the Turtles go back in time to 17th century Japan, have lots of fights) though some of the fight scenes are pretty good.
The movie choice, none of them and instead create a new concept in which the Turtles travel back into time to 1603 feudal Japan.
It's just a harmless and silly little movie about four time traveling ninja turtles...what did you expect?
Yes, the Turtle costumes look cheaper than before, but at least there's no messy and confusing CGI like in the new TMNT movies.
While the last two films convinced you that these puppets were real characters, here they look like the unconvincing special effects they are.There are other reasons "Ninja Turtles III" is considered the crappy one.
Yeah, it's the worst one in this Ninja Turtles trilogy and it is a bad movie.
The thing is, this seemed more like a live action Ninja Turtles TV show from the 90's over it actually seeming like it's a movie.
So, her friends, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, use the scepter to go back in time to rescue her.Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) was entertaining--the animatronics were good, excellent fight choreography, it had a nice film noir look to it, and it was fun watching a live action Turtles movie with guys in rubber costumes.
Not this time...The movie opens with a fight in 16th century Japan that doesn't make any sense, then what we get is the Turtles dancing to ZZ Top. No creativity, no suspense, no thought.
OK but not as good as the first 2 Ninja Turtle movies.
This is an OK sequel to the first Ninja Turtle movies, but not as good as the first two though.