I don't know if I can add to what others have said about this movie's crappy-ness. They really cut corners on this one: For example, in the first movie, the kids seem to be pretty good at this karate stuff. You have to kind of suspend your disbelief when the youngest attacks anyone, because you can just see him getting picked up by the scruff of the neck and hung up to dry until the fight is over. But it's a kids' film so that's not really a spoiler. And there is a lot of "Home Alone"-type stealth-fighting on the kids' side to help even things out. At the time, I saw the original actors from "3 Ninjas" on the "Tonight Show" and they seemed to really know karate, and were pretty charming for kid actors.
By contrast, in this last abomination, you can see in the fight scenes that there is no contact, and frequently there is cheap, obvious, camera speeding up to make it look like a real fight, not choreography. The littlest one, who is even younger than he was in any of the other movies, (there are all new actors for the kids in this movie, a big mistake, and what's up with the mullet/ponytail on Colt? Even knowing karate he's going to get his ass kicked with that haircut! I'm gay but that look's too faggy for me. I mean, really! Butch it up a little, will ya?) In a good kids' movie there is something for the adults, too. But this movie doesn't really have much for the kids. Bad acting by Hulk Hogan and the kids, bad, bad, bad writing and directing, the earlier mentioned fake fight scenes (maybe these kids could take on an adult who didn't know karate, but for them to beat an adult NINJA, just because they have been trained by a cliché-spouting grandfather, and have an FBI agent father? I don't think so. And amusement park rides aren't designed so they can be stopped upside-down and remotely release the passengers, which is the so-called terrorists plan. It's called safety engineering, meaning, there is no situation where you would WANT to be able to do that, so you don't design your system to BE ABLE TO DO THAT! Of course, then you don't have a movie, if you can't do that. Of course, you would have to GET CLEVERER WRITERS! There's a few good lines from Loni Anderson and Jim Varney, although they both come across as somewhat incompetent. Can't have real, know-your-stuff terrorists around to scare the kiddies, now, can we? Guess not.
As it happened, this movie came to North Carolina Cable TV around the same time I saw my first episode of the Middleman TV series, which happened to be the one about aliens hiding on earth disguised as people addicted to plastic surgery. When I first saw Loni Anderson, with her artificially plumped lips, probable-cheek-implants, probable-face-lift, probable-Botox, probable-etc., I first thought she had the same makeup as the aliens did in the Middleman episode. Then I realized that this was how she really looked. Scary. Probably too scary for a kids' movie. I know it was for me and I'm near 50.
Summary: For a good karate movie, see the first "3 Ninjas" movie, or possibly the next two. Skip this bomb. Also the "Karate Kid" is good, esp. the first one (see a pattern here?) Someone tried to squeeze the last dime out of the "3 Ninjas" franchise; hopefully it is completely dead now. You know how these things can come back to life in Hollywood... (cue scary music...)
By contrast, in this last abomination, you can see in the fight scenes that there is no contact, and frequently there is cheap, obvious, camera speeding up to make it look like a real fight, not choreography. The littlest one, who is even younger than he was in any of the other movies, (there are all new actors for the kids in this movie, a big mistake, and what's up with the mullet/ponytail on Colt? Even knowing karate he's going to get his ass kicked with that haircut! I'm gay but that look's too faggy for me. I mean, really! Butch it up a little, will ya?) In a good kids' movie there is something for the adults, too. But this movie doesn't really have much for the kids. Bad acting by Hulk Hogan and the kids, bad, bad, bad writing and directing, the earlier mentioned fake fight scenes (maybe these kids could take on an adult who didn't know karate, but for them to beat an adult NINJA, just because they have been trained by a cliché-spouting grandfather, and have an FBI agent father? I don't think so. And amusement park rides aren't designed so they can be stopped upside-down and remotely release the passengers, which is the so-called terrorists plan. It's called safety engineering, meaning, there is no situation where you would WANT to be able to do that, so you don't design your system to BE ABLE TO DO THAT! Of course, then you don't have a movie, if you can't do that. Of course, you would have to GET CLEVERER WRITERS! There's a few good lines from Loni Anderson and Jim Varney, although they both come across as somewhat incompetent. Can't have real, know-your-stuff terrorists around to scare the kiddies, now, can we? Guess not.
As it happened, this movie came to North Carolina Cable TV around the same time I saw my first episode of the Middleman TV series, which happened to be the one about aliens hiding on earth disguised as people addicted to plastic surgery. When I first saw Loni Anderson, with her artificially plumped lips, probable-cheek-implants, probable-face-lift, probable-Botox, probable-etc., I first thought she had the same makeup as the aliens did in the Middleman episode. Then I realized that this was how she really looked. Scary. Probably too scary for a kids' movie. I know it was for me and I'm near 50.
Summary: For a good karate movie, see the first "3 Ninjas" movie, or possibly the next two. Skip this bomb. Also the "Karate Kid" is good, esp. the first one (see a pattern here?) Someone tried to squeeze the last dime out of the "3 Ninjas" franchise; hopefully it is completely dead now. You know how these things can come back to life in Hollywood... (cue scary music...)