You gotta hand it to the mid-90's sometimes. This movie is most definitely a product of its time - dated "Seinfeld" references, dated Buzz Lightyear references, and that particular moment in history when Loni Anderson, Jim Varney, and Hulk Hogan's careers intersected. I counted at least a dozen kids with bowl cuts in this movie; some of them even had rattails. The 3 ninjas are aided by their new neighbor Amanda, a gadget-obsessed sidekick (think Penny from "Inspector Gadget" with a Wonderswan) who amazingly doesn't materialize as a love interest for the randy Colt or take off her glasses and instantly become totally smokin'. Who does share a chaste kiss with the 15-year-old Rocky is his high-maintenance girlfriend Jennifer, who's one of those girlfriends who always calls you by your full name ("Samuel," in this case). Girls like that are underrated.
Anderson herself teeters in spike heels and a leather dress that does little to disguise the ravages of time, hooker-thick makeup "giving the dads something to do" while they accompany their awful children to this miserable debacle. It's unclear why her character's nickname is Medusa or how she managed to assemble a crack team of criminal masterminds a month after escaping from maximum-security prison, but assemble and bemoniker she did. Jim Varney - Jim Varney Jim Varney - plays Anderson's henchman Lothar Zogg, who somehow manages to simultaneously possess a thick Appalachian accent, a name ripped off James Earl Jones' character in "Dr. Strangelove," and a thin enough mustache and thick enough eyeliner to resemble Ron Mael in bondage pants. Zogg's high point in the movie comes when he fights a child atop a roller coaster. At least it's supposed to be a child. I can't help thinking that this movie's stunt coordinator deserved higher billing; it's thankless work sending out casting calls that can be summarized as "Find me a jockey who can do backflips!"
In a nice twist, another of Anderson's henchmen is a guy named Zed, played by an actor named Brendan O'Brien who looks alarmingly like G'n'R-era Tommy Stinson. Zed isn't merely content to fight children atop roller coasters. He fights children on Ferris wheels, in carnival midways, aboard the teacups, and in the bowels of factories that seemingly make nothing but steam. Although you'd think he could easily deliver one more dose of thunder to a boy half his size, Zed's ninja skills are no match for the awesome power of Tum-Tum's crotch kicks. (To my dismay, it isn't the same Brendan O'Brien who produced all those Pearl Jam records - although the fact that he also produced a couple of crappy Paul Westerberg solo albums can't be dismissed as a total coincidence.)
As for Hogan, he plays the host of a children's show that seems to combine the best parts of "Thundercats," "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers," cable-access backyard wrestling shows, and the oeuvre of Nick Nolte. Hogan's making his "final public appearance" at the amusement park this fateful day, his shitty kids' show having been given the hook; after his performance he stares wistfully at his blond wig, his sagging, cellulitic chest creased and pockmarked like Seal's face, knowing something deep and meaningful about old age that we haven't learned yet. He always looks like he really needs a good night's sleep for some reason; I understand there isn't much in terms of hooks in "High Noon at Mega Mountain's" script, but where's the je ne sais quoi that made "Suburban Commando" such a rollicking farce?
Numerous questions are left unanswered. Was video phone technology this advanced in 1998? Why do so many of the henchmen, even those employed as snipers, carry nunchucks? Why is Loni Anderson holding an amusement park for $10 million ransom, when her criminal syndicate seemingly had no trouble raising funds for an armada of jet skis, Oakleys, Jim Varney's bondage pants, her own Barbarella-esque pleather ensemble, and an entire "Ninja B-Team" that sort of stands around in the amusement park's submarine entrance for half the movie before being defeated by a couple of children? Who builds an undersea loading dock leading up to an amusement park? Why does so much of Hogan's offensive arsenal rely on easy access to a zipline?
At one point one of the 3 ninjas makes a reference to a (presumably sought-after) "Barry Bonds glove"; hindsight being 20/200 on Barry Bonds references pre-BALCO, it's safe to say the screenwriter wishes he could take that one back. The movie's packaging, on-disc title, and DVD menu couldn't agree whether it was called "3 Ninjas: High Noon on Mega Mountain" or "3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain." Somehow this seems prophetic, or at least metaphorical; I'm not totally sure why. This is the kind of movie where rich men literally kiss bundles of money goodbye before dropping them out of helicopters, where terrorists suspend people from upside-down roller coasters, where you can hack into the amusement park's mainframe via Wonderswan/video phone technology if you know that the password is "God." Of course it is.
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