Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series comes to a close with an installment that ultimately falls right in line with its subpar predecessors, as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III suffers from many of the same problems that plagued the first two titles in this thoroughly unremarkable franchise. The storyline follows the Turtles (Tim Kelleher’s Raphael, Robbie Rist’s Michaelangelo, Corey Feldman’s Donatello, and Brian Tochi’s Leonardo) as they and April O’Neil (Paige Turco) are sent back to Feudal Japan by a magical scepter, with the bulk of the proceedings subsequently detailing the gang’s ongoing efforts at assisting local villagers defeat an evil warlord (Stuart Wilson’s Walker) and, eventually, making their way back home. Despite the substantial change in scenery, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III comes off as yet another overtly juvenile effort that relies mostly on the protagonists’ ceaseless wisecracking to propel the comparatively epic narrative forward – with the film’s relentlessly underwhelming atmosphere compounded by its almost total lack of fish-out-of-water elements (eg the Turtles arrive in the past and instantly adjust to their new surroundings). The expected lack of character development among the protagonists remains just as problematic as ever, as there’s simply never a point at which one is able to work up even the slightest bit of interest or enthusiasm in the foursome’s continuing escapades. It does, as a result, go without saying that the action-oriented third act is hardly as rousing or exciting as one imagines it’s meant to be, with the anticlimactic finale cementing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III‘s place as a barely watchable capper to a consistently disappointing series.

*1/2 out of ****