3 Ninjas (1992)
Take The Karate Kid and Home Alone. Blend them together. Now, bash the results in the head a dozen times to properly reduce its I.Q. Now you've got 3 Ninjas. This martial arts action comedy has no stakes, flat characters and a sense of humor that might entertain the littlest children but will drive every adults in the audience insane.
Every year, twelve-year-old Samuel “Rocky” (Michael Treanor), eleven-year-old Jeffrey “Colt” (Max Elliott Slade) and eight-year-old Michael “Tum-Tum” Douglas (Chad Power) visit their grandfather (Victor Wong) so he can train them in the art of ninjutsu. When the boy’s father, Sam (Alan McRae), runs afoul of crime lord Hugo Snyder (Rand Kingsley), the three pint-sized ninjas become targets but Snyder has no idea what he’s getting into.
It took me a while to realize Grandpa Mori Tanaka was not played by Pat Morita. I just thought his face might’ve changed a bit in the eight years since The Karate Kid. I was fooled. The film’s target audience would’ve been too. What makes them different? Aside from the 1984 film being all about the buildup to the big tournament and this wannabee starting with the three kids already fully-trained? The hijinks. This movie is all about the hijinks; the kind who require the adults involved to be so stupid they would’ve all starved to death. At one point, the three kidnappers Snyder's sent after the tiny ninjas are locked into the same room as just one of their targets and they fail to overcome him. It’s dark, but come on. How are we supposed to feel any tension when the kids effortlessly defeat the villains after them?
I want to throw extra tomatoes (or ninja stars, whichever hurts more) at writers Kenny Kim and Edward Emanuel. In one scene, Rocky and Colt go up against two schoolyard bullies who’ve stolen their neighbor Emily’s bike. They agree to settle things with a game of basketball. If Rocky and Colt win, the bullies will return the bike. If the bullies win, our heroes are humiliated in front of the whole school and have to forfeit their wheels as well. It shouldn’t even be any kind of contest. When Colt and Rocky get the ball, they easily score baskets from their side of the court and make dunks without any effort. They’re practically flying through the air like superheroes. They score nine baskets in a row while the entire schoolyard explodes in cheers. Except they spotted the bullies nine points and one false move later, they’ve lost everything. It’ll make you so angry you’ll want to tear the TV off the wall and throw it out the window. So what if the bullies won “fair and square”? They scored ONE POINT. Their adversaries scored NINE! The miniature thugs should be rushing towards the bathroom to change their underwear, not celebrating. The Douglas brother should be legends whose reputation would have all the female teachers trying to seduce them. It’s bullshit of the purest form.
Everything in 3 Ninjas is so preposterous it actually becomes hilarious for a while. Unintentionally hilarious but I won’t complain about being entertained. Unfortunately, the movie hears you laughing and then switches mode, becoming a straight-up "comedy". Oh, the fat kid is eating again. He’s ALWAYS eating. because he’s fat. Get it? Fat kids get fat because they’re always eating! The three Wayne’s World wannabees sent to their house all drink laxatives. Can you guess what’s next? Even the entertaining “spot the stunt double” game you’ll be playing whenever grandpa comes around can't make up for a comedy that isn't funny. The international version lasts 96 minutes and feels like 96 kicks to the head.
Most of 3 Ninjas is so forgettable and poorly written I’ll likely forget about it, leaving me with only memories of the funniest parts of the film. There’s a scene where a bully rides in all proud and tough-looking while riding a pink girl’s bike. I dare you not to burst out laughing. The best thing I can say about this movie by Jon Turteltaub (who made a lot of bad Disney Movies, along with The Meg and While You Were Sleeping) is that while I hated it, I’m also not upset to have seen it. Hopefully I can say the same about the sequels… (International Version, September 10, 2021)
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watching justin learn how dming works is so fucking hysterical
justin, in character: it’s like a bakery if you got a little dough you’re welcome to come right in
griffin, half in character: that is not how a bakery works,,
justin, realising he’s the one painting the word picture and he can do whatever he wants: YES IT IS
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is obito the only uchiha who does not experience eye-sight deterioration from the mangekyou? like ... it just occured to me that he first of all does not ever seem to shut off his sharingan. and. he does not get his eyes fucked up even tho he does use mangekyou techniques all the time?? his kamui. he uses it All The Time. does he not need to activate his mangekyou for this? since we also dont see the mangekyou thru the mask .. we only ever see his base sharingan which i guess duh, since it otherwise wouldve immediately given away his identity (to the reader) cuz its the same as kakashi's .. but. in-universe? how does this work. lol
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the comedy of zoya trying to take the gunsaber away from nikolai...followed by the horror scenario of zoya now having the gunsaber
you thought she was bad when she became the summoner avatar? she is about to get 200x worse
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something I’ve been thinking abt is how many people think Makoto is immune to despair. I don’t think he is. I think becoming the ultimate Hope was BECAUSE he felt despair. He wouldn’t have fully reached that point without Junko. Makoto becoming such a beacon was his last attempt to avoid completely falling and it wasn’t because he didn’t feel despair, it was because he was too damn stubborn to allow everything to go to waste and he refused to sacrifice his beliefs for someone else’s. His inner monologue tells me he DID experience the same new low the other suvivors did in the final trial, but at the point where he had the choice to give up and die, he looked at the others and he looked at Junko and he couldn’t allow it to happen, not out of self preservation, but because the idea that Junko would have control over their lives made him FURIOUS. and that utter refusal to die kicked in, wether luck or otherwise, and he made the concious effort for one last push while something in him was breaking. He had to be broken in order for the Ultimate Hope to come through so aggressively, bc it could only exist in the face of the Ultimate Despair. He snapped the same way she did, but in the other direction. In what could have been his final moments he chose to embody everything Junko wasn’t, and every single optimistic and luck fueled ideal in him suddenly charged forward and pushed him. It was a combination of the final straw and a choice. Makoto isn’t immune to feeling despair, he’s just too stubborn to fall into it of his own volition. I think that’s why I like that scene in DR3 so much. People were SO SHOCKED Makoto actually fell for the tape, that he actually became despair for a moment. I saw people getting mad or disappointed, saying it was pathetic and Makoto seemed to fall from some sort of pedestal for them. Honestly part of me wonders if that sort of mentality, which clearly people had in universe, affected Makoto a bit. Like he started to see himself as less of a person, subconsciously. Prompting him to take more risks, less self preservation, act way more bold. It seems he has to be reminded a lot not to put himself in danger by his friends, to not do something too reckless. All over the place I would see in regards to that scene either this frivolous ‘oh this was just angst drama with no meaning behind it’ or ‘he can do better than that. he’s so weak’ or ‘come on, there’s no way he’d fall into despair, he’s the Ultimate Hope!’ This kind of mentality, which was kind of ironic considering Ryota was there the entire time saying the same thing and treating Makoto the same way. Like Makoto was superhuman. Like Makoto didn’t feel despair the same way ‘normal people’ did. In a way that was also how Munakata saw Makoto. Makoto stopped being a PERSON to the world when he became Ultimate Hope, he became a concept, a belief system, much the same way Junko ascended beyond herself. But the difference is that treating Makoto that way is the opposite of the reason Makoto became such a representative for hope. He wasn’t doing something no one else could. He was doing something everyone had the chance to, he just… was a little more optimistic, a little more stubborn, a little more ‘gung-ho’ about things. He just took the lead where no one else did, where no one else knew they even COULD in the face of Junko’s unstoppable force. She had overcome the biggest threats and obstacles in the world, what could one person do? And the answer Makoto found was, anything. Everything. It doesn’t all rest on Makoto, he’s just the one that was inspired to try to do what seemed like the impossible. But as evidenced by the change in his friends after that trial, it’s clearly not something only Makoto is capable of. The others pulled out of despair thanks to Makoto, but it was their choice to do so.
“But… this world is so huge, and we’re so small. What can we do…? No, we can probably do anything. Yeah! We can do anything!”
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Maybe taylor finally will come out when gaylor articles start to pop up in media without referencing karlie kloss and DA (but especially KK), i have the feeling she doesn’t want to drag karlie into her coming out story. And it is finally happening, suddenly articles are appearing without mentioning karlie which it’s probably tree’s work
so anon i take it you didnt see this 😆
also i think (or i hope it’s just that) you’re not noticing the chicken and egg situation here. more so-called museless articles are coming out because gaylors have been working to normalize and popularize speaking about taylor’s gayness and the gayness of her music in a museless way. and reporters get their info from these people and their tone is also informed from these trends.
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We love a booked and busy Glen!
Bring on the Hit Man promotion, the Twisters promotion, filming Huntington, the Texas Film Hall of Fame and now this!
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Johnny Ramone, Johnny Thunders, and Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols hanging out after the new year's eve show at the Rainbow in London in 1977. picture taken by Danny Fields, the manager of the Ramones
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