Mighty Morphin Power Rangers:

The Movie

THE STORY: Why this movie? Well, I had a dream last night...well, a nightmare really. My nights are usually full of them (Suprised?) In my dream the earth was being invaded by monsters from another dimension....now, the only thing I did in this dream was flee the city with my wife and cat (I have two cats, but for some reason I was only carrying "Banshee", the youngest*) When I woke up I started thinking about the pandemonium that would occur if monsters did invade us....and lo and behold as I turned the TV on  and poured my first cup of java what movie was playing on AFN?** "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie". A movie in which monsters are trying to take over the Earth! I must be psychic! Of course my dream was more realistic.

The Power Rangers, I'm sure most of you know, were a pretty popular thing for kids in the nineties. I'm not all that familiar with the exact origin of the show, but what I've heard is that it was taken from a Japanese show. The action sequences were at least. The rest of the show was done by American actors. The premise was that this evil witch/ space dictator lady named "Rita Repulsa" was obsessed with conquering the Earth. To this end she sent legions of giant monsters to the planet from her base on the moon to defeat a group of teenagers called The Power Rangers. The Rangers got their powers from some all-wise floating head in a jar guy called Zordon. They also had giant battle vehicles called Zords that they used to fight the monsters. The rangers distinguishable from one another by the colors of their uniforms. There are (at least in this movie) a white ranger, a pink ranger, a yellow ranger, a black ranger a blue ranger and a red ranger. I also should note that in the TV series and movie Rita teamed up with some other evil overlord guy named Lord Zedd. Methinks because the original Japanese footage was getting used up. Also Zordon, the benefactor of the rangers has done what other shows and movies had tried to do...come up with the most annoying robot sidekick in history, Alpha.

I don't know much more about the show, except that its changed from just the Power Rangers to Power Rangers Zeo and to turbo Power Rangers in Space. I only know this because I've seen the freaking commercials before I left the US. To be honest this movie was only made to sell new Zord toys to kids. < /begin: RANT MODE >Am I being hard on the Power Rangers? Uh, hell Yeah. It used to come on TV at a time when military duties had me separated from my wife by about 3000 miles. I used to come home from work and catch about twenty minutes of the show before the news came on...and it was a pretty stupid show. Now, I'm not going to tell you that I thought it was too violent for kids....I didn't. I thought it was just stupid. Kids shows are always going to be a little far fetched, but come the [unwrite] on. When I was a kid we used to watch shows like Ultra Man, Captain Scarlet, Space Giants and 8th Man. Silly shows? You betcha. But not as bad as the Power Rangers. Ultra Man and Space Giants were both live action shows with giant monsters trashing cities. But the violence wasn't of the cartoony variety. People died on those shows. Heck, even on Johnny Sokko and his flying robot (which was another live-action Japanese import...poorly dubbed, but interesting) the heroes used to shoot the bad guys with revolvers! The Power rangers fought ridiculous and obviously cheesy costumed guys in monster suits. No one ever got hurt. The fight scenes were pretty much like watching a gymnastics show. I won't even get into the dialogue. So yes, I do think that the Power Ranger TV show sucked. It wasn't the worst kids action show in the 90's and that's because it kicked off a few cheap imitations that were remarkably bad, like Masked Rider, Teenage something or other monster fighters from Beverly Hills, and a few others. </end RANT MODE>

The problem in this movie begins when some construction workers in the City of Angel Grove uncover a vault that contains a giant weird looking egg. As soon as this happens Zordon contacts the Power Rangers, who in their normal teenager identities are roller blading through the park. They teleport to their HQ and Zordon explains to them that the egg is a "hyperlock chamber", one that contains the most evil being in the galaxy...Ivan Ooze. (Yeah, Ivan Ooze...gee, I'm terrified.) Zordon imprisoned Ivan 6000 years ago and warns the Rangers that they must reinter the egg before its opened. Also Ivan has some robot monsters buried near the egg and they must not be reactivated.

The Rangers are too late. Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa journey to earth and free Ivan. Zedd wants Ivan to destroy the Power Rangers for him. Ivan is more than happy to do that. He has the ability to create monster like warriors from his own bodily ooze and sets them at the rangers. Then he leaves and goes to Zordon's command center. For an all-wise super being, Zordon is pretty weak. Also Alpha is less able to defend himself than Buck Rogers' robot "Twiki". Ivan easily defeats them both (Well, they don't really put up a fight) and destroys the Command Center.

Since the rangers get their power from Zordon as soon as this happens they unwillingly change back to their normal selves. Now, I don't know exactly how far they are from the Command Center, but they rush to get back there to find out what happened. (I'd say pretty damn far...the command Center looks like its on top of a mountain in a desert and the rangers are in the middle of a big city....incidentally Angel Grove looks a lot bigger of a city in this movie than it did on TV) The Rangers find alpha still functioning, but the center is in ruins. Zordon lies dying on his pedestal. For some reason, if he's outside of his little floating head force field (One ranger says its his "time-warp") he'll begin to age and die. The only chance the rangers have is to travel to the distant planet Thetos (sp?) and recover "The Great Power" so they can morph again and restore Zordon. Alpha manages to teleport them there with the last bit of power in the Command Center, but unless they get "The Great Power" they'll be unable to return. (The last bit of power is enough to teleport the rangers a few light-years in an instant? Holy Mackerel, how much energy does Zordon freakin' need?) Ivan travels to Lord Zedd's HQ on the moon and takes over. Using his powers he imprisons both Zedd and Rita in a snow globe. (oh, the villainy!) Then he sends some bird like monsters to Thetos to destroy the rangers before they can find the power they need. Ivan then travels back to Angel Grove and turns the adults into mindless slaves and has them start digging up his robot monsters.

On the planet the rangers come under attack by the bird men that Ivan sent. Without their super powers they're almost helpless against them, but a warrior woman named Dulcea shows up. She quickly dispatches the bird men. When the rangers explain that they need to find the "Great Power" to save Zordon, Dulcea helps them. (She knows Zordon...don't ask me how or from where) Dulcea goes through some ritual that summons the animal spirits inside the rangers and gives them cool little Ninja suits. (yeah, right). Then the rangers set off into the jungle to the temple where the "Great Power" is kept. Of course they run into monsters to fight, but as we all know they win, and without so much as a bloody lip. Once they get to the "Great Power" they are once again transformed back into their Power Ranger forms and teleport back to Earth to stop Ivan.

Ivan has sent his robots to destroy the city. He's also given the adults one final command...leap off of the edge of the construction site and kill themselves. Fred, a young friend of the rangers has been spying on Ivan's activities and he rallies the other kids to try and save their parents. The kids then race to the construction site (on a monorail) to do this. The rangers arrive and seeing Ivan's two robots smashing things call on their brand new "Zords". (Read: New robot toys replacing the old "Zords" for kids to buy) The Rangers are only able to destroy one of the robots before Ivan acts. Ivan somehow becomes one with the final robot and starts kicking ass. The rangers then combine their robots to form the "Ninja Megazord" and attack. Ivan still kicks their asses so they formulate a plan. The Megazord flies into space with Ivan chasing it. The Rangers lure Ivan into the path of a comet and....I'm not kidding...kick him in the balls. (Why a robot monster would feel pain when kicked in the happy-sacks is beyond me) The comet hits Ivan and he is destroyed.

At the same time the adults are freed from Ivan's control. With the threat over the Rangers return to the command Center and use their combined powers to restore it and Zordon. The end of the movie shows our heroes in their normal identities enjoying a night out as fireworks light up the sky and a big neon sign says "Thank You Power Rangers".

Okay, I trashed the Rangers earlier, so now I'll admit something. The TV show and to a lesser extent the movie do have positive sides. The show at least tried to display a good message to kids at the end, like stay in school, pick up litter, etc. The movie was mostly just eye candy, but it wasn't a complete suck fest. Its a guilty pleasure to be sure, but its not boring.

Best Lines: "You spent 2000 years looking for a tub of snot?"-Julie and Pete argue.

"Oh, the things that I have missed...the Black Plague! The Spanish Inquisition!...The Brady Bunch Reunion!"-Ivan laments over the things that he missed during his imprisonment.

1.) The Clark Kent/ Superman rule is in effect for the Power Rangers. Consider this...the six of them are always together. As "normal" teenagers they seem to have superlative skills in ANYTHING they do. Sky diving, martial arts, sciences, etc. They even dress individually in whatever color their Power ranger identity wears (ie, Tommy the White Ranger is always wearing white clothes, Kimberly, the pink Ranger wears pink civilian outfits) and I won't mention the fact that they are never around when the Power Rangers are in action...and no one notices this? Not one person suspects that they might be the Power Rangers?

2.) How long did it take the Power Rangers to get to the construction site? Its mid afternoon when Zordon tells them they need to find Ivan Ooze's Egg before the villain escapes his imprisonment, yet its night when they arrive at the site. Seemingly hours have passed. Are they so confident that they figure 'why rush'? Also, even though this is a kid's movie I have to say it..."Ivan Ooze"? This terrible evil being is named Ivan Ooze? Even for a kids movie that's WEAK! C'mon...it would be better if they dropped the Ivan part, but still couldn't they think of a better name?

3.) Doesn't Zordon have any kind of Personal defenses? Ivan just walked into his Command center and smashed it.

4.) Zordon says that Ivan Ooze was imprisoned deep within the earth. Well, it wasn't that deep and wasn't it too hard to free him. A construction crew just lifted a manhole cover and there's the prison! But even dumber is the fact that his robot monsters were buried near him.  Isn't that kind of like leaving a set of carving knives right outside of Hannibal Lecter's cell?

5.) What the hell? Is every single Adult in the city under Ivan's control? Ivan has ordered them all to leap to their deaths at the construction site and the kids go to stop them by taking the monorail. Theres no one there to stop them, they just hop in it and Fred...who can't be more than about 12 years old, starts it up and drives it. So there are no cops or adults working in the monorail station? The kids have free access to everything? How does Fred know how to even drive a monorail? Its gotta be more complicated than pushing one or two buttons.

6.) I get the idea that the scriptwriters ran out of words to show excitement. "Yeehah" is said about  5 times by various characters during the battle royal at the end.

NUDITY AND SEX: None. But I always thought that Kimberly, the Pink Ranger, was a real cutie.

HUH? : Bulk and Skull accidentally parachute down into a construction site. As soon as they land the parachute is gone! Now, admittedly its a tight shot, but its kind of obvious that there's no parachute on them when the foreman confronts them.

Don't the Power Rangers have any parents? For that matter if Ivan took over "All of the parents minds" then Angel Grove is a big city with only about one hundred people in it. If there are more people then where are they?

I almost fell out of my chair laughing when Dulcea gave the Rangers their Animal Spirits. Adam is the reason and he even said it when Dulcea asked him what was wrong..."I'm a frog." Yeesh. They couldn't come up with a better animal for him than a frog? What's he gonna do, Budweiser his foes to death? They could have at least given him "snake-power" or even "spider power"....I don't find anything too frightening about a frog! "Look out! He's got Frog powers!"!

What [unwrite]ing comet was it that the rangers used to destroy Ivan? Comets don't just appear from nowhere and this one came really close to the moon! What is this, "Thundarr the Barbarian"?***

THE TALLY: For a silly kids movie its okay. If you have kids this might be something for them to watch and if you just like simplistic science fiction superhero type flicks this movie is an okay deal...for a guilty pleasure. Just try not to let too many people see you rent it.

*That's how I knew it was a dream! Banshee doesn't like to be picked up and she would most likely claw my face off if I tried to carry her out of the house.

**AFN= The Armed Forces Network.

***Thundarr the Barbarian was a Saturday morning cartoon in the 80's. It was supposed to have taken part in the future after Earth was ravaged because a comet flew between it and the moon, causing all kinds of earthquakes and stuff.