Ah Boys to Men 3: Frogmen
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 While the first two movies were good, the third on the other hand was a failed experiment.
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Ah Boys to Men 3: Frogmen (新兵正传III：蛙人传 in Simplified Chinese) is a 2015 Singaporean action "comedy" film produced and directed by Jack Neo. It stars Wang Weiliang, Maxi Lim, Joshua Tan, Charlie Goh, Tosh Zhang, Bunz Bao, Jaspers Lai, Hanrey Low, Wesley Wong, and Gadrick Chin in the third installment. It was released in cinemas on 19 February 2015. The film raked in $2.83 million at the box office within four days, making it the first Asian film with the highest ever box office takings in its opening weekend in Singapore.
Plot
The film negates all happenings in the predecessors and explores what might have happened should the boys have been assigned to Singapore's Naval Diving Unit (NDU). The movie offers a peek into the intensive training regime of the NDU, which has never been revealed so far. Together, the boys must survive 40 weeks of hell to become Frogmen, one of Singapore's most fearsome military units.
Why It Should Be Sent To Hell
- This movie, in a nutshell, can be described as violent, abusive, and mean-spirited towards all the naval soldiers. It is also a huge insult towards army sergeants because they are described as human torturers when they actually are not in real life.
- False Advertising: This movie is claimed to be a third sequel in the Ah Boys To Men franchise, when it barely is and is just a retelling of what if the characters in the previous two movies went to NDU instead of basic National Service, making this movie overall unnecessary.
- This also meant that the character development in the previous two movies was gone, as the characters' personalities have been reset to theirs at the beginning of the movie. For example, Ken went back to being a spoilt brat despite being more matured at the end of the second film.
- There is loads of padding, with about nearly 120 minutes of seeing the soldiers getting harassed, abused, and tortured beyond words by the sergeants. It doesn't help that even soldiers who were not involved in offenses had to be involved in punishments. Now that's just cruel!
- Second Warrant Officer BT Lum is the worst character in the entire movie. He is very poorly written and only exists at the huge expense of all the soldiers. He only knows how to abuse them to the point where he could be arrested for such offenses.
- Incredibly cringy dialogue, mostly from Second Warrant Officer BT Lum, whose dialogue mostly consists of sarcastic Singaporean jargon and swear words (especially "s-t").
- New characters were introduced out of nowhere, such as Hei Long Shek,
- Like the previous two movies, the characters (old and new) are very cliched.
- Hei Long Shek is a stereotypical gang member who quits just because "he decided to become a soldier".
- Ken's sub-plot with Amy was really unneeded, and it happens to drag out all the way where he loses his temper in front of the sergeants.
- Some disgusting moments, such as when Hei Long made his spit fall into Lobang's mouth during a CPR exercise.
- Way too over-the-top conflict, especially during the brawl between Hei Long and Aloysius.
- The infamous Hell week scene. No words can describe the pain, suffering, and torture that the soldiers go through. The soldiers are treated like poop and forced to do inhumane things like crawling on the floor, exercise for long hours, have water and sand splashed on their face (which is very dangerous), taking ice spas (which can cause hypothermia), and being unable go back to sleep.
- One questionable scene: One of Hei Long's accomplices sneaks into NDU at night to pass food to him. But Warrant Lum disguises himself as a recruit and takes the food as if he is one of Hei Long's friends. Then, he wakes all the soldiers and forces them to eat the food, resulting in everyone getting punished to exercise until someone tells the truth for violating the "no outside food" rule. He actually made the soldiers break the rules. What kind of action is that?!
Redeeming Qualities
- Very good acting (although there is a lot of yelling), especially from Joshua Tan, Tosh Zhang, and Wesley Wong.
- Justin Dominic Misson also does a decent job playing Warrant Lum, despite wasted talent.
- The concept of NDU training in a movie was pretty interesting but was better executed as a spin-off movie with different characters altogether.
- Great soundtrack, including the song, "Who Else" by Tosh Zhang.
- Some funny moments, like how the soldiers are treated heavenly at mealtimes during the infamous hell week sequence.
- Lobang's sub-plot regarding his mother going insane due to drug abuse was better than the rest of the movie.
- There are a handful of heartwarming scenes, such as Ken redeeming himself from being kicked out of NDU by running laps around the track even when it was raining, and of course, the one scene where Warrant Lum admits his mistake of not understanding Lobang's family situation and punishing himself.
- Speaking of that, Lobang's speech about why he snuck out of NDU is a good message that "Nothing stands in his way".
- Despite being mean-spirited, the scene where Ken loses his cool in front of the army sergeants is somewhat satisfying.
- The prologue and epilogue of the naval soldiers conducting a ship raid were truly exciting.
- This movie can be considered a "so bad its good" movie.
- Some original ABTM fans may like this movie.
Reception
This movie has been received mixed-to-negative reviews by critics and movie viewers, even within Singapore, often calling out the "violence, abuse, torture and misuse of sergeants and soldiers" and "claimed simply unsettling and cringy". For some reason, it has a 6.8/10 rating on IMDb.
Trivia
- This movie is currently available to stream on Disney+ and Hotstar.
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