Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Movie Review: "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie" (1995)

Director: Bryan Spicer
Year: 2016
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 1 hour, 56 minutes

The Power Rangers face off against a new villain named Ivan Ooze, who has a plan to destroy the Rangers and the world. 

"Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie" is directed by Bryan Spicer and is written by Arne Olsen and John Kamps. It is a spinoff of the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" television show that was airing at the time, I show I personally watched quite frequently as a kid. It stars Jason David Frank as Tommy the white ranger, Amy Jo Johnson as Kimberly the pink ranger, David Yost as Billy the blue ranger, Karan Ashley as Aisha the yellow ranger, Johnny Yonh Bosch as Adam the black ranger, and Steve Cardenas as Rocky the red ranger. All of these actors are reprising their roles from the Power Rangers television show circa season two (1994-1995). This time around, the Rangers face a new villain known as Ivan Ooze, played by Paul Freeman, who you may remember as Dr. René Belloq in "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Ooze has managed to be awoken from the giant egg where he was hibernating to destroy the command center and injure Zordon, played by Nicholas Bell, the Rangers' sage elder who gave them their abilities as well as all of the information on saving the world, to the point where his injuries may be fatal. The Rangers have now also lost their powers and must travel to a distant planet named Phaedos to gain new powers in order to save Zordon, defeat Ooze, and save the planet from destruction.

"Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie" is certainly a film for fans of the television show. In fact, it's little more than an extended episode with a higher budget and some upgraded but still really bad 90's CGI. Much like 1966's "Batman: The Movie," the film is made under the assumption that you have already seen the show, are a regular viewer, and are versed in all things Power Rangers. It doesn't bother to develop the characters because it just assumes you already know each one of the people involved in this group, as well as their individual personalities and abilities as Rangers inside and out. If you are not already a fan, you will be completely lost. Of course, if you are not a fan of the show, you probably won't be watching this movie in the first place.

In this feature length film, we get the same over-the-top martial arts action fights as the Rangers battle various new creatures, get some spiffy and flashy new ninja costumes (which they apparently only use once?), get to use a few new droids, and eventually get new "spirit animals." Unfortunately, these new droids and spirit animals come to life in a horrible, tacky way, created with CGI that was already outdated when it was released in 1995. Every computer generated element is dreadful at best, and they get progressively worse as time rolls on. The technology simply wasn't there in the mid-90's to pull this kind of stuff off, especially with a meager $15 million budget. In addition, several of the old standby characters are back, like Bulk and Skull, played by Paul Schrier and Jason Narvy, though they get very little to do here and disappear as quickly as they show up on screen. Finally, all of the dialogue spoken in this movie consists of cheesy teenager-uttered one-liners, horrible puns, and a lot of talk about mystic powers, strange planets, and new creatures like ecto-morphs

Much like the show, there is some campy fun to be had in "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie," but mostly, it's a poorly acted goofy affair with a lack of frame of reference for the unseasoned audience. I loved the Power Rangers television show when I was growing up, so this movie holds a place in my heart as the dopey movie that spoke to me as a kid. Still, just because we liked something as kids doesn't make it good.


My Rating: 4.5/10
BigJ's Rating: 4.5/10
IMDB's Rating: 5.1/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 50%
Do we recommend this movie: No.

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