How About That Thing?

3 Ninjas was a movie franchise from the 90s. It consisted primarily of the adventures of three boys and their grandpa as the boys learned martial arts, and the ninja way. If that sounds exciting… Yeah, prepare to be disappointed. It’s been ages since I’ve seen any of them, and I never did see the one where Hollywood Hogan guest starred, but as memory serves, these movies kind of suck. Like, even when I was the appropriate age to be watching these movies, I remember them not being good.

The first time I ever saw a 3 Ninjas movie was at a sleep over . One of my friends brought it over, along with some other movies we’d all been meaning to see at some point. I remember we were excited to watch it… only to end up stopping about halfway in because it sucked so much. We ended up switching over to Angels in the Outfield, and never spoke of that movie ever again.

Years later, I remembered being one of the kids at a local babysitter’s house, and one of the other kids encouraged us to check out 3 Ninjas Kick Back. In his opinion, it was the best of the then trilogy, and you technically didn’t have to watch them all in order to enjoy them. I ended up taking his word for it, and… Honestly, I ended up liking Kick Back better. To be fair, though, that’s not saying a lot. I wouldn’t have said Kick Back was the best of the then trilogy so much as I would’ve said it was the least worst. Like, Terminator: Dark Fate is the least worst of the newer Terminator movies that’ve come out over the years, but that still doesn’t mean it’s good. That just means Terminator: Salvation, and Terminator: Ginisys had set the bar absurdly low.

Fast forward to the present day, I find myself looking through all my various blueprints, half-finished scripts, and miscellaneous scribblings for something to stuff on this site and call content. It was right about then that I found that I’d apparently considered doing a Nostalgia Critic styled review of this movie. Then abandoned it early on for whatever reason. But then I found it, and got to wondering if the movie was genuinely as bad as 2017 me thought. I mean it’s obviously not Shakespear… Hell, it probably isn’t even Joe Don Baker, if we’re being ENTIRELY honest. But something in that incarnation of ya boy wanted to talk about this movie and poke fun at it on YouTube. So I decided to locate it, and give it another watch.

And lucky for me, someone had uploaded it to YouTube for free in all of its entirety! I mean you COULD rent the OFFICIAL copy for eight bucks, or you could spare your wallet the humiliation, and watch it for free on some random dude’s channel.

DISCLAIMER: How About That Thing does not condone on-line piracy in any way shape or form. However, if it means I don’t have to pay eight bucks for a movie I’m only going to watch once, and a movie that I already know is going to suck, then for riffview purposes, I’m taking advantage of the situation.

Our movie begins with the titular 3 ninjas and their sensei, who’s also their grandpa, in the middle of ninja training. And as long as we’re at the beginning, let’s do a little rollcall, shall we?

This is Rocky: the green ninja, the oldest of the three, and the leader of the trio. He’s the smart one, but he gets distracted by beautiful women. Puberty is a bitch in that regard.

This is Colt: the blue ninja, and the middle child. He’s the trickster of the group… But he’s also the hothead of the group, and his lack of impulse control is usually his ultimate downfall.

This is Tum Tum. No, seriously, that’s the name he got saddled with. He’s the yellow ninja (though the fan wiki insists he’s orange), and he’s the youngest of the trio. He likes food. That’s literally all there is to his character. Well, that, and and his ultimate martial arts technique appears to be kicking people in the balls. Which, on one hand, is pretty dirty, but on the other hand, ninja don’t fight with honor, so… I don’t know. All I know is the kid playing Tum Tum in this movie is probably the worst actor of the three… But he’s a kid, so I can show a little leeway.

Last, but not least, is Grandpa Sensei himself, Mori Shintaro. He’s the grandpa who introduced the three to the art of ninjutsu, and acts as their sensei throughout the entire franchise.

Once we’re introduced to the characters, we witness a few exercises, and sit in on some lectures. When it’s all said and done, Mori declares he has nothing further to teach them, and will take them to Japan. There, they will train under an even better grandmaster.

He then tells them the story of how he won a dagger in a martial arts tournament. If you have the dagger, as well as the samurai sword that goes with it, you can open a locked chamber somewhere in an abandoned castle in the outskirts of Japan, and find a shit ton of gold.

Mori won the dagger fifty years ago, and the samurai sword is believed to be lost to time… Right up until they introduce the villain of the movie.

. His name is Koga. I think. I got a little confused at one point, because I thought the Japanese town this all took place in was called Koga. Maybe I misheard? I don’t know.

In any case, he’s obtained the samurai sword, but now, he needs the dagger. And since the man who has the dagger is in America, he’s going to need some help getting it.

But we’ll get to that later. Right now, we have baseball to play!

Yes, baseball. IE, that sport all my middle school bullies touted as the vastly superior form of entertainment. Especially when compared to “that [BUNDLE OF STICKS]-ass crap over in WWF.”

But setting whatever childhood trauma aside, though, you better believe that when I think ninja movies, I think baseball.

SIDE NOTE: I never really thought about it till now, but man, there’s a lot of baseball in kids movies from this time.

Throughout the game, we see that priorities aren’t where they ought to be. Rocky is distracted by babes, because puberty is a bitch. Tum Tum is distracted by food, because it’s literally his only personality trait. And Colt ends up initiating a fight between the two teams. I was going to make a joke about how I was pretty sure this was baseball and not hockey, but it turns out a surprising amount of donnybrooks break out on the baseball diamond too.

In any case, the umpire decides to suspend the game and reschedule it for next week. Which I’m pretty sure is not only not standard procedure, but I’m pretty sure the umpire isn’t allowed to make that kind of decision. Then again, I never had the opportunity to play in little league, so what the hell do I know?

We then cut to…

Oh dear lord, what wide awake hell is this? Well, if nothing else, they make the shitty band I played synth for in high school look a lot better by comparison. And our set list consisted of a couple generic blues songs, a Papa Roach cover, and an original song the lead guitarist assured me sounded suspiciously like that song by Cold that was making the rounds that year.

The leader of the group, the dude with the bleach white hair, is Glam. The other guys… Who knows? If they have names, they weren’t worth memorizing. Either way, they’re the stereotypical hurr durr henchmen in movies like this. They’re so dumb, the drummer can’t even count to four on his own. They’re band is so bad, they make Green Jelly look like Strativarius.

Glam gets tasked with stealing Mori’s dagger by Koga, and… It goes about as well as you expect. Both in terms of the bad guys being brick stupid, and the ninja battle looking less like a battle, and more like something from one of the Home Alone movies.

I have no clever quips at this point. This shit is seriously embarrassing to sit through. I’m beginning to think I should watch the rest of this in incognito mode in order to save myself the embarrassment of having this in my YouTube history. And you should see my YouTube history..

The idiots are beaten, and make a retreat. Mori comes back home, and demands to know why the cabin is an even bigger mess than when he left it. The ninjas tell him about the burglars… But since they only heard the part where they were considering swiping some VCRs while they were there, they assumed they were just burglars. Mori berates them, telling them they needed to let the police handle these sorts of matters, feeding them a line about how ninjas don’t get involved if they don’t have to. Which… Eh, I guess. But then we wouldn’t get such wacky zany antics like Tum Tum pie-facing an idiot who can’t tell the difference between lemon meringue and banana cream!

And so, the trip to Japan is on. Glam and his brigade of bumbling idiots try to steal the dagger again, but thanks to a little trickery with the sticker, they steal the wrong bag, an thoroughly piss Koga off in the process. Koga punishes Glam… By having his assistant spin him around really fast? I think is what’s going on here? It’s dumb, whatever it is. I mean yeah, it’s a kids movie, so he’s not going to hack off a finger, or kill the guy right there in his office, but really?

Meanwhile, Mori ends up in a car accident. He calls the kids to keep them up to date, and he believes the dagger is stolen. He also has nothing nice to say about the nurse looking after him, which seems like a desperate attempt at comedy that eight-year-old me wouldn’t even find amusing. I’m also pretty sure that nurse is performing acupuncture, which I’m also pretty sure is a CHINESE thing, not a Japanese thing. Well, you know 90s America. Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these.

Immediately afterward, the ninjas then discover that Grandpa’s bag got switched. On the positive side, it means that the bad guys don’t have the dagger after all. On the downside, it begins this running gag with Tum Tum and his Ding Dongs. And it’s right about here I started getting Vietnam flashback callliber memories about this movie I’d thought were long gone.

I kid you not, this whole thing with Ding Dongs is just… Ugh. It’s too stupid to be comedy, and it’s not ironic enough to be anti-comedy. It comes up throughout the movie from this point on, and it never gets any funnier. What is the point of this? The best I can think of is “hurr hurr hurr, they’s called Ding Dongs, hurr hurr hurr, that’s funny.” Except I’m pretty sure even my nine-month-old son wouldn’t even laugh at this shit. And he laughs like a lunatic at mom going “BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!”.

They obtain plane tickets to Tokyo via the art of “ninjanuity.” Which is basically the classic tape recorder trick, and… I have to admit, this was probably the one time in this entire fucking movie where I did get a bit of a chuckle. Partly because it’s amazing to see someone using cassette tapes from yee olden answering machine to pull this off, and also because they use the tape to call the person on the other end a vampire, a witch, a dragon’s butt, etc. Not exactly reinventing the comedy genre, but at this point, I’ll take what I can get. Especially after that Vietnam flashback about the Ding Dongs.

Their mother comes home, and finds that they’re gone. While looking for them, she uses their ninja names… Which, if I can be nitpicky for one moment, sounds like bullshit. The parents clearly don’t approve of that ninja nonsense, and I imagine the mom and dad alike would refer to them by their REAL names. Unless there was something established in the one-point-five movies I haven’t seen. Also, my memory of the first one isn’t that good anymore to boot… You know what, forget it.

After meeting with their Grandpa, confirming they still have the dagger, and a very not funny bit with “Nurse Shibuya”… Wait, Shibuya? I thought Shibuya was a town? Or maybe a district? I guess it could be a sir name. Whatever.

After all that, they arrive at the tournament. And Colt decides to sub in for the guy who made it to the finals. How he plans on pulling that off… I don’t know. They either never explain how, or my brain is turning into mush at this point and I’m just hoping to god this fucking thing ends soon. Then I look down at the timer, and see I still have half a movie to go. Ugh.

Anyway, Colt passes for the finalist, and he takes on this white ninja right here.

The fight between Colt and this white ninja… Is honestly not terrible. Lord knows I’ve seen worse. Hell, I’ve seen worse IN THIS MOVIE. At absolute worst, the white ninja ends up winning by performing an honest to god hurricanrana on Colt. I guess they studied under Ultimo Dragon at some point?

And then, to add insult to injury, the winner unmasks, and reveals themselves to be… Gasp… A GIRL!

Oh the shame! Oh the humanity!

Trust me, Zeds, back in the day when we were allowed to have genders, being a boy who got beaten in a fight against a girl was one of the greatest humiliations. Right up there with getting pantsed during a fight, or being knocked out cold in the first four seconds with one punch after mouthing off for entire minutes.

Rocky and Colt meet up with the grandmaster of the tournament to explain why their grandpa couldn’t deliver the dagger himself. And Tum Tum… Perves out over the grandmaster’s feet.

Look, I’m a firm believer of “to each their own” and all, but christ, kid, show some restraint! It’s guys like you who make the rest of us look bad.

The girl, whose name is revealed to be Mio, convinces her mother to let the ninjas stay with them for the time being. And just in time for Japanese baseball! Which I imagine is the exact same as American baseball, but still… Criminy, what is it with ninjas and baseball in this movie?

Unfortunately, while Mio is a fantastic martial artist, it turns out she’s not very good at catching baseballs. The ninjas agree to teach her to be a better baseball player. In exchange, she teaches them how to be better ninjas.

meanwhile, Glam and his boys give Koga a recording of Mori conversation with the boys. Koga comes up with a new plan, and has his assistant chuck Glam and the boys into the nearest pond. And that’s pretty much the last we hear of those guys.

Later, the ninjas meet up with the grandmaster… Only something is off. Instead of speaking Japanese like he did at the tournament, he speaks English now. Tum Tum points out that he’s apparently a lot taller now, and one of the others points out his contradictions regarding the dagger ceremony. Throughout this sequence, I got to say, I’m somewhat impressed. One of the most important tenants of ninjutsu is the ability to see through deception, and these boys, while still needing Mio to point it out, are definitely suspicious. If nothing else, it’s a good start, while simultaneously pointing out their inexperience. They know something is askew, but they don’t know what, exactly. Good for them.

Battle ensues… And whew boy. This literally makes any putty patrol fight with the power rangers look dignified by contrast. Although the one mulligan I’ll give them is that they’re able to carry on a phone conversation with their parents as the fight is going on. That right there takes some skill.

Sadly, they’re embarrassing fight results in the bad guy taking them all hostage. And a couple of scenes later, it appears I might have jumped the gun on that bit with Glam and the boys getting dumped in the pond being the last of them. Seriously, these guys just don’t go away! They’re like cockroaches. Or Five Finger Death Punch.

Glam and the boys get one more chance to redeem themselves. Their mission: abduct Mori and bring him to Koga . And…

Oh for fuck sakes. Really? We’re doing this old shtick.

Look, I’m no rainbow flag waving keyboard warrior or nothing, but has there ever been an instance where this was funny? Obviously, none of them are even remotely passible, but come on!

Naturally, the plan backfires in a fashion someone thought was hilarious. It’s just too bad I wasn’t that guy. Never the less, Koga has a backup plan, and it ends up working way better. Almost to the point where I wonder why he even bothered with Glam and the boys in the first place. Seriously, I can understand having to work with what you have, but a guy like Koga can surely afford better henchmen than this. SURELY!

Koga gets what he wants out of Mori, and leaves him with his boys and Mio.

The boys formulate a plan to escape… Which is basically trick the bad guys into THINKING they escaped, and then sneaking past them while they’re all baffled. I feel like I should be giving these kids props for figuring out to use the ninja art of illusion… But I just know it’s going to be something stupid.

The trap is sprung… And to my surprise, it’s actually not as dumb as I thought it was going to be. The worst of it is Tum Tum getting in some “Ooh, don’t you just hate us?” after the guards get locked into their own cell. Maybe there’s hope for this movie yet.

Then the rest of the escape happens, and… Yip, this is right back to being embarrassingly silly. I’d make a comment about power rangers again, except with the kids in their ninja getup fighting entire squads of nameless goons, this actually does kind of look like a power rangers episode.

And then, at the end, they run into…

Sumo wrestler? *sigh* Sure, why not?

They fight the sumo, and beat them, but not before one squashes Tum Tum, and we get a pretty lazy fart joke out of it.

With that all out of the way, they need to follow their grandpa to the castle where the gold is being kept. And how are they going to get there? Why, by hang gliding, of course.

I’d seriously make a joke about how someone saw the Dead or Alive movie… But technically, this came first. Still, though, what is it with ninjas and hang gliders?

Meanwhile, Koga unlocks the treasure room. And at this point, the final battle takes place. The bad guys lose, the good guys win, Tum Tum finally finds his god forsaken Ding Dongs…

Yeah, I’m rushing this ending. All I can say in my defense is this is pretty much where I gave up. I found myself facepalming at an alarmingly frequent basis as I went through this movie, but somewhere around this point, I just gave up.

So yeah, I’m probably not going to do a movie based article in a riffview style (as it’ apparently called) like this again. It was already a challenge getting screenshots on TV shows, but an entire two-hour movie? On top of having to watch this embarrassment to children’s cinema again, I had to rewind over and over again to get the right screenshots, and it’s WAY more sensitive when you have something longer than twenty-two minutes to watch through.

Final verdict: yeah, this movie is just as bad now as it was the first time I watched it back in the 90s. In fact, it might actually be WORSE now. How the hell did this franchise get four movies? Especially when the two movies I’ve actually seen were this genuinely horrendous?

The only thing worse than this movie was having to write about it. Not because I hate writing for this site or anything, but because screencaps were a lot harder to obtain, and it resulted in a lot of rewinding in order to get the shots I wanted. Which meant having to endure entire scenes of varying quality over and over again just to get that perfect shot. Yeah, I’m definitely never doing a riffview for a long while, so I hope you enjoyed this effort.

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