3 Ninjas (1992)

3/5

3 Ninjas is a movie I loved as a kid. I would watch and rewatch it--much like I would Austin Powers--and reenact scenes with my brother. Watching it again, I was amazed to realize how many sequences and jokes I remembered. (The boingy sound effects add so much replay value, especially with alcohol.) The plot follows three young kids (Treanor, Slade, Power) who are trained by their grandfather (Wong) in ninja martial arts. Their father (McRae) is an FBI agent who is trying to catch a nuclear weapons transporter (Kingsley). The bad guy has three surfer doofuses try to kidnap them, but they fight back like a cooler version of Home Alone. This is a movie with plot holes, shallow characters, and ridiculous improbabilities. But it's a fun, silly movie that's worth a quick 90 minutes if you used to watch it and wanted to reminisce on your childhood.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103596/

Big Touble in Little China (1986)

2/5

John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China is a popcorn flick with non-stop action and cheesy acting. The plot follows truck driver Jack Burton (Russell) and Chinese gambler Wang (Dun). Burton falls in love with lawyer Gracie Law (Cattrall) and Wang is set to marry Miao Yin (Pai). When Miao Yin gets kidnapped by a gang and brought to Lo Pan (Hong), an ancient spirit who wants to marry her in order to become flesh and blood again, the other three set off to rescue her.

The story is unnecessarily convoluted and bites off more than it can chew. With every explanation of some supernatural event comes more questions and loose ends. In fact, it's not even worth listening to their explanations, because it doesn't affect the movie in any way, shape, or form. The problem is that it spends over 30 minutes trying and trying and trying to explain everything, which ends up being 30 minutes of wasted time. Even if they weren't wasted on dialogue, however, those 30 minutes would be wasted on the same ludicrous action, horrendous special effects, and hollow acting that fill up the other 60 minutes. The way Kurt Russell speaks reminds me of Private Joker's fake John Wayne parody in Full Metal Jacket. Pretty much nothing about this movie is good. But at least it's fast-paced crap. It isn't mind-numbingly boring or too terribly offensive to my senses. Still, avoid it if you can.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090728/