3 Ninjas follows three brothers who train to be Ninjas with their Japanese grandfather played by Victor Wong, The boys' training doesn't sit well with their father, a no nonsense FBI agent who's in pursuit of arms dealer Snyder who is also a ninja an a dishonored pupil of the Boy's Grandfather. After the FBI's latest raid on his cache he takes it upon himself to kidnap the boys so he can force their father to back off and their grandfather to train his ninja henchmen.
Produced in 1992, 3 Ninjas is often called a rushed mashup of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Home Alone, and the movie does very little to disprove that assertion, though the TMNT connection maybe somewhat more tenuous. The movie plays like a mashup of one of Cannon Films' ninja movies from the 80s(American Ninja, Enter the Ninja, etc.) and kid shenanigans popularized by home alone. The titular 3 Ninjas are played reasonably well by the three child actors, but there's so little to them personality wise that they're all pretty much interchangeable, with the exception of the youngest one; he eats........ a lot......that's it.
The movie is a mixture of action and comedy and does both poorly. The humor is predominantly based around pratfalls and there's very little in the way of variation for them. The sequences are also awkwardly staged be they comedic or action oriented because a) it can't let anything "too serious" happen to its child characters and b) the size difference between the kids and their would be kidnappers means the henchmen have to stumble around awkwardly to adjust for the height difference which makes any of the scenes of ninja fights in this movie both a bore and uninteresting. The movie also has an obnoxiously zippy and whimsical soundtrack that plays throughout the majority of the movie and feels like it's trying to make the movie seem more energized than it is.
3 Ninjas is a pointless and vapid source of entertainment made watchable only by the fact that director Jon Turteltaub knows how to cut away from scenes and make the would be humor not limp about on screen. Other than the relatively sure handed direction and serviceable acting the movie is a waste of time. If you have children interested in Martial Arts or kid shenanigans there's better alternatives.
Produced in 1992, 3 Ninjas is often called a rushed mashup of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Home Alone, and the movie does very little to disprove that assertion, though the TMNT connection maybe somewhat more tenuous. The movie plays like a mashup of one of Cannon Films' ninja movies from the 80s(American Ninja, Enter the Ninja, etc.) and kid shenanigans popularized by home alone. The titular 3 Ninjas are played reasonably well by the three child actors, but there's so little to them personality wise that they're all pretty much interchangeable, with the exception of the youngest one; he eats........ a lot......that's it.
The movie is a mixture of action and comedy and does both poorly. The humor is predominantly based around pratfalls and there's very little in the way of variation for them. The sequences are also awkwardly staged be they comedic or action oriented because a) it can't let anything "too serious" happen to its child characters and b) the size difference between the kids and their would be kidnappers means the henchmen have to stumble around awkwardly to adjust for the height difference which makes any of the scenes of ninja fights in this movie both a bore and uninteresting. The movie also has an obnoxiously zippy and whimsical soundtrack that plays throughout the majority of the movie and feels like it's trying to make the movie seem more energized than it is.
3 Ninjas is a pointless and vapid source of entertainment made watchable only by the fact that director Jon Turteltaub knows how to cut away from scenes and make the would be humor not limp about on screen. Other than the relatively sure handed direction and serviceable acting the movie is a waste of time. If you have children interested in Martial Arts or kid shenanigans there's better alternatives.