Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle III (nowadays given the subtitle Turtles in Time, which is taken from the second TMNT arcade game) is not a memorable movie. Made in a time when the franchise was low on steam (and before the debut of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, a show that would dethrone the Turtles as the top kids' show at the time), TMNT III sees the Turtles going back to Feudal Japan after a scepter April gets Splinter causes her to switch places with Kenshin, a prince who is helping a village in a war against his evil father, Lord Norinaga. A conflict the Turtles actually get caught in as the villagers, led by Mitsu, as they must stop Norinaga and get back to present day New York.
Yeah, this is not a good film, as if I had to choose this or the Michael Bay Turtles as my poison, this would be my choice. New Line and Golden Harvest hire a new company instead of Jim Henson's Creature Workshop to do the Turtle suits, and while they do look like the Turtles, they are a lot different (but not as different as those ogres in turtle shell Michael Bay passes as the turtles). Also, the movie is geared to be more on the goofy side with some action, as the Turtles would spew one -liners (like Mikey imitating Elvis in Blue Hawaii with a lampshade). However, one major improvement over the last film is that the Turtles are now allowed to use their weapons again (after being banned from using them after parents complained about the first film being too violent), and they brought back Elias Koteas in the role of Casey Jones (after the character was replaced by Keno in the second film, another change done because of parental complaints), although he is in the role of babysitter and not involved in the fighting. Also, Splinter, Raph, and Donnie get new voice actors, and they are not good (Splinter got it worst, as he sounds like a horrible attempt at a stereotypical Asian senior).
However, the series does have some good moments (like Raph bonding with Yoshi, a kid Leonardo saves using CPR, and teaching to control his temper) and some good music. While the movie has been known to be bad, nowadays, it is not considered the worst TMNT film (that dishonor goes to TMNT 2014 and TMNT: Out Of The Shadows), but it is an okay film in my book.
