Wolff rating: FAIR
Plot summary: The turtles find an ancient scepter that can send them back in time to Japan.
Biased, pithy comments: The Bill'n'Ted influence is strong in this film, but it retains some of the lowbrow laughs and amusement of the first film with less of the cheapness of the second. I liked it (I have the TMNT comic book, too, but that's another story), but it wasn't great---scatterbrained plot, lots of places where it looks like the scriptwriters wanted to go some direction that didn't pan out, amazingly hackneyed characters, and a wildly dumb scene that would have made more sense in ``Backdraft'' than here. Also, low on the kung fu and the music is solidly poor. Skip, unless you're a young'un or you've seen TMNT part 1 so many times you really need to move on. Still better than part II, but that isn't saying all that much. The director is responsible for Disney's horrendous ``Rocketman,'' so we're not talking about intelligent film.
Other Notes: Yup, it's not the same April as the first film (though the same as the second). She shows up in ``NYPD Blue'' as Officer Abby Sullivan, one of the show's many fine supporting actresses.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Elias Koteas, Paige Turco, Stuart Wilson, Sab Shimono, Vivian Wu, Matt Hill, Jim Paosa, David Fraser, Henry Hayashi.
Directed by: Stuart Gillard