William Norman First of all, yes it seemed to be one of the knock off attempts, of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but The Warriors of Virtue was not the first to take from TMNT, anyone remember Street Sharks? Also I seen other reviews all over the web mention clichés...... what kids action movie does not have cliché lines? It comes with the territory. Yes it gives a lot of reference to Taoist (Daoist) philosophy, that could be confusing to a foreign ethnicity and youth. Yet, would you rather them give a detailed account of the Tao belief system or just reference? How much reference was made to Asian martial arts philosophy in TMNT? The script was lacking, but the scenery, costumes, martial arts, cinematography and ideology of the film carried the story where the script failed. Not many children's movies with bad scripting can come close. It is obvious where the money went, when you actually look at the action scenes, costume and set design. Imagine how many "roo" costume repairs and adjustments were made because of the action scenes.So lets take a closer look at the screenplay writers, shall we? Michael Vickerman and Hugh Kelley, both of them never wrote a screenplay before Warriors of Virtue and none of the films they are known for on IMDb have ratings that even go above 6.0 and most are below a 5.0, the lowest being Michael Vickerman's The Wicked with a 3.7/10. I think that may answer the issues with the script. So I give it a 9, I would give a ten had the script not been written by inexperienced and dull writers, who still have not improved much, with very little under their belt even today, 17 years later.

RichardKleiner I stumbled upon this one basically by accident. While channel surfing at midnight, this came on, and saw an ordinary world kid in some pretty ancient looking forest, exploring it with a "where am I?" face, so I pretty much could tell this was some outsider boy who lives adventures in a fantasy world.If you haven't noticed from the mere cover of the movie, this is no Lord of the Rings. Even worse, it doesn't live up to cult classic fantasies like Krull, Willow or Dark Crystal.I'm a big fan of fantasy movies that deal with what I like to call "the outsider myth": some kid magically travels to a distant land and lives adventures (who wouldn't like to?), so I was left hypnotized with the potentially entertaining story and, (forgive me) the Elysia character.However, one of many flaws with this movie are the Warriors of Virtue themselves. They're kinda rat or kangaroo-looking people with great martial arts knowledge. Rather out of place for this type of fantasy, and when you see them in action, it just doesn't work. It's like watching sports mascots practicing kung fu. Much more laughable than exciting.This can be a turn off if you expected classic sword and sorcery swashbuckling, for instead, it delivers martial arts in flurry costumes.The sets are awful, with no variety. No exploration of this fantastic (sarcasm) land is ever done, and all you see is a forest, an evil palace lair, the same forest and huts on trees in (you guessed it) the forest.The main villain, one girly, over-the-top emperor, is both campy and not so evil. There appears to be a major battle to occur between his soldiers and the good guys, but no real sword fight ever occurs. Instead, you see more fluffy karate. The Evil Emperor inexplicably splits into five guys and fights all five warriors. If you thought that would be boring, they even show it in blurry vision, just another sign of the movie's inappropriately low budget. And by the end, the bad guy somehow has amnesia, forgets he was so cruel and joins the good guys (to make things even more yawn inducing). Like you could actually care. An underrated score by Don Davis helps the movie from falling completely into oblivion, but not an entirely new sound.The mythology might sound good, so maybe a remake some decades later could squeeze some more juice to the premise. But, until that happens, you can keep "Warriors of Virtue" on the shelf and pass it on.

catc16783_20 So many people are saying that this movie is not worth their time. I am a movie fanatic, and this movie is a perfect movie for people of all ages. It is similar to the Dark Crystal, and many others like it. But what makes this one different is that actual little kids or people with disabilities that have never fit in with the crowd can watch this movie and get some confidence from it. I sure that we all need something or other to show us that we're all right for who we are and maybe that the real message this movie was sending. Go on and think that this movie is horrible, but no matter what I'll show it to my kid and my grandkids, because I enjoyed this movie.

La Gremlin Alright, let's get the joke out of the way first of all:"Crouching Glam Guy, Hidden Wallaby", anyone?Seriously, I rented this movie expecting your typical late-80's fantasy with cheesey dialogue and bad special effects and annoying child actors. Well, to that end I got my money's worth. However, while this is nowhere nearly as good as, say, "the Neverending Story" or "Labyrinth", it's not nearly as bad as I expected.Curiously, this is one of the few movies I've seen that might have been a *lot* better animated. Kung-fu kangaroos isn't exactly a concept best realized in live action. However, the crappy effects belie the clever premis. Give it a look.