YMMV / 3 Ninjas

• Accidental Aesop:
  • "Kids, if you get into trouble with an armed assailant, don't bother calling the police. You can dispatch him on your own."
  • Considering they were successfully kidnapped and put Emily in danger, another one could be "Support your kids so they don't feel like they have to prove themselves by getting into dangerous situations".
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Sam has notable distaste for martial arts in itself, but was this really the reason he wanted his sons to stop seeing their grandfather, or was he concerned about Mori's connections to Snyder, whom Sam is trying to capture.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Despite being picked up by Disney, there was not much hope for the success of the movie and at best producers were hoping for a good VHS sales and rental market run, but it turned out to be a theatrical hit and became popular in 90s kids culture.
• Anti-Climax Boss: In the third movie the brothers beat their way past JJ and several other goons with practically no difficulty in the film's final fight scene outside the courthouse, which probably lasts less than a minute. These are goons they have already beaten up several times over the last couple days (demonstrating both the boys' superior skills and leaving those thugs sore all over and not at their best) and the suspense is less about the fight than getting into the courthouse in time to let the witness on the stands know his kidnapped daughter is safe and he can tell the truth. It is further justified due to being the only movie in the series were none of their opponents are trained martial artists, with the possible exception of a random biker (a short guy in a bandanna) who matches Colt move for move briefly in the middle of the ghost town fight. They're just thugs with fists, baseball bats, rifle buts and the like (although there are a lot of those thugs).
• Critical Backlash: There are those who don't find the sequels (or at least not all of them) as bad as they are said to be.
• Ending Fatigue: 3 Ninjas Kick Back. Instead of ending after the main plot wraps up, the film goes on another while to resolve the baseball subplot from the beginning.
• First Installment Wins: The first film is usually considered to be the best compared to its subsequent sequels.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the original film, when the titular ninjas were returning home from their summer break with their grandfather, they joked about murdering their teacher, though they never made any indication that they would actually do it. Long after the release of this movie, there have been several high-profile school shootings, Columbine being the most famous. No, this movie was not the impetus for the killings.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • This is a film series about Ninjas, the fourth film had a Power Rangers expy, and one of the villains (specifically the Dragon-in-Chief) was named Lothar. Is this where Disney got the idea for Power Rangers Ninja Storm? It's even more funnier when you consider that Colt's actor in the fourth film, Michael O'Laskey II, played a young version of Rocky DeSantos in the second and third seasons of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
  • In 3 Ninjas Kick Back, Colt defeats Koga by throwing a ball into his gun, causing it to explode. In Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, you defeat Kaptain K. Rool by throwing cannonballs into his gun.
• Hollywood Pudgy: Michael from the first movie is meant to be the Token-Fat Kid typically found in family films like this, always seen stuffing his face with junk-food and is even given the nickname "Tum-Tum" by his grandfather. With that said, he is no more fat than his brothers. In fact, he's the smallest one.
• Memetic Mutation: "Rocky loves Emily, Rocky loves Emily..."
• Never Live It Down: The third movie is often viewed as having good fight scenes and somewhat interesting characters (for the genre, anyway) but a lot of criticism or ridicule comes from how a long break in filming caused the actors playing the boys to grow taller between scenes (although it's easy to overlook considering the almost non-stop action scenes in the second half of the movie).
• Sequelitis: Three sequels, and each one did worse than the last at the box office and in critical reception. The last one, High Noon at Mega Mountain, tanked the franchise completely.
• Signature Scene:
  • The "Home Alone" Antics in the first movie.
  • In the second movie, escaping to the hang gliders.
  • The fight with the biker gang in the ghost town and the pizza parlor fight from the third movie.
• Tempting Fate: In the first movie one of the kidnappers said that the boys were probably nice kids. Several butt-kickings later, however...
  Fester: [Still out of breath from his earlier garroting] I say we kill those little boogers!
  Hammer: But, like, I thought we wanted them alive?
  Fester: I want us alive, dude!
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The crazy ninja in face paint in the first film. The guy is an Axe-Crazy Screaming Warrior, and unlike his goofier ninja brethren, is legitimately threatening towards the kids. Yet the boys quickly dispatch him with a blast of steam and pulling his pants down, without even a temporary fight.
• Values Dissonance: In the first movie, Rocky calls his brothers "retarded" when they keep saying he loves Emily. While it was still an insult in The '90s, the word hadn't yet gained its modern-day reputation as an offensive slur against the mentally handicapped.

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