Rating of
2/4
Barely good for adults
The M.O.W. - wrote on 08/03/08
The Three Ninjas (now played by Mathew Botuchis, Michael O'Laskey II and JP Roeske II) are back, and are celebrating "Tum Tum's" (Roeske) birthday at Mega Mountain Amusement Park (Elitch Gardens in Denver, Colorado) with the new neighborhood girl, "Amanda" (Chelsey Earlywine), who is a computer genius and a klutz at times.
"Tum Tum" is anxious to meet his TV hero, "Dave Dragon" ("Hollywood" Hulk Hogan), who is making a personal appearance at the amusement park after it is announced that his "Power Rangers" type television series was cancelled by the unnamed network airing it.
What the kids and the actor don't expect is that an insane woman known to authorities as "Medusa" (Loni Anderson), along with her right-hand man "Lothar Zogg" (Jim Varney) and a group of thugs which include her inept nephews are planning to take over the park and hold all the guests and employees hostage for $10-million.
Now, the "Three Ninjas", a computer geek and a soon-to-be out of work actor have to join forces to save the park and the people from "Medusa's" evil plan.
This movie is almost as good for adults as it is for kids. There is some good martial arts fights, and some comedy that could give the adults watching a pretty good chuckle. However, the adults will realize that there is some bad performances in this movie.
Anderson is just out of place as the lead villainess, and she really doesn't make her performance believable in my opinion. She delivers her lines with no effort in making people believe that she is insanely evil as she could have. Varney was better as a villain, in a comedic way that he was known for, however he didn't have that much screen time or lines.
Hogan, who was the top villain in the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling at the time of this movie's production and release, was only fair as the martial arts actor who didn't really see much physical action as the lead actors did. The most physical action he did was throwing some punches and some simple moves he uses in professional wrestling that were suppose to be intentionally set up (he was on stage when we meet him, fighting with some stunt performers). It is also hard to believe that an actor would try to take on a group of thugs by himself when he tells the kids, whom he doesn't know has martial arts training from their grandfather (Victor Wong, who is the only actor to appear in every movie in the "3 Ninjas" franchise and in his final movie before health issues forced him into retirement around the time of the movie's release).
Another thing that is hard to believe is that four kids are able to thwart the efforts of villains. Especially ones who are seriously out-numbered by a group of bad guys with machine guns, which they use but never hit their intended target EVER.
The biggest problem with this movie is that the new characters we are introduced to in this movie are barely developed. We get the villains' motivation for taking over the amusement park, but that's it. We also get that "Dragon" is not really the hero like his television persona portrays him to be, and that he tries to be the hero that the children who watched his show have looked up to (as evident by a child who comes up to him and asks him, as he is laying on the ground, if he is a hero or the fraud his father says he is).
Like in previous movies in the series, only one of which I have actually seen, there is some good martial arts stunts in this movie. The kids are pretty quick with their moves, and are pretty good in the fight scenes. However, many times when Roeske is featured in the fight scenes, it is pretty obvious that the people he is paired up with are setting themselves up for his next move as they are positioning themselves so that he can hit them in the right spot.
When it comes to the four lead actors, they work pretty well together. Sometimes, they don't deliver their lines perfectly or have expressions on their face that doesn't look believable.
This movie, like the entire series, is pretty much for the kids. Adults won't like everything, but there is some things they might like -- as long as they can get past the poor performances and writing.
