Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers - The Movie

Review by Heckler King

The fiendish Ivan Ooze is freed from confinement and wrecks the rangers’ Mighty Morphin Power, forcing them to travel to a distant planet in search of new toys to sell a new power source before Ivan’s evil Ectomorphicons can destroy the world!

Aisha Campbell/The Yellow Ranger (Karan Ashley)
Adam Park/The Black Ranger (Johnny Yong Bosch)
Rocky DeSantos/The Red Ranger (Steve Cardenas)
Tommy Oliver/The White Ranger (Jason David Frank)
Kimberly Hart/The Pink Ranger (Amy Jo Johnson)
Billy Cranston/The Blue Ranger (David Yost)
Bulk (Paul Schrier)
Skull (Jason Narvy)
Ivan Ooze (Paul Freeman)
Dulcea (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick)
Zordon (Nicholas Bell)
Alpha 5 (Peta-Maree Rixon)
Mordant (Jean Paul Bell)
Goldar (Kerry Casey)
Lord Zedd (Mark Ginther)
Rita Repulsa (Julia Cortez)
Fred (Jamie Croft)
Zombie Parent Dancer (Robyn Gol)

Year: 1995
Censorship Rating: PG

When the 90’s were still young, there was a fellow named Haim Saban with a vision. He figured he could create a whole new kind of kid’s show by adapting one of from Japan, that of the super sentai series, which revolve around a team of costumed heroes who use martial arts and silly giant robots to fight an evil organization bent on world domination with the help of its army of monsters each year. For one reason or another, though, he decided to keep just the action footage from the Japanese series and use his own footage of American actors to provide the background for the series. Some hate it, some love it, many feared what it was doing to their children, but you have to respect something about a show that has the staying power to still be churning out new seasons after almost a decade and a half straight.

The basic structure for an episode is that the villains create a monster to cause havoc in the city where the Power Rangers live, the Power Rangers fight it and eventually defeat it, then villains resurrect their monster enlarged some ten times its original size and the rangers call their “zords,” giant combat machines that can be anything from rescue vehicles to robotic simulacrums of animals or dinosaurs, to battle it again. The zords can combine into more powerful humanoid configurations called megazords, which inevitably send the monster to bad costume heaven with an overblown special attack of which no one ever thinks to just out of the way.

The story of the portion of the show extant when the movie came out is thus: Immortal witch Rita Repulsa and her monstrous henchmen are unwittingly freed from captivity on the moon by astronauts. Knowing Rita desires nothing less than the destruction of Earth itself, her ancient enemy Zordon, a giant holographic head, has his robotic assistant Alpha Five “recruit a team of teenagers with attitude.” Instead, Alpha selects five goody-two-shoes, ethnically diverse teens who Zordon gives the power to “morph,” tapping ancient energies to transform into a fighting force known as the Power Rangers. A second season brought some cosmetic changes to the show--new rangers, new villains, robot footage stolen from a different series--but the setting was little changed by the time of the movie.

The team roster had a tendency to change as actors grew tired of the roles and the show moved into new seasons, but at the time of the movie the Power Rangers consisted of Tommy, the white ranger and leader (Jason Frank, who was so popular he was brought back to mentor a new team during the Dino Thunder season), Billy, the all-purpose genius and blue ranger (David Yost), Kimberly, the pink ranger (Amy Jo Johnson, who you may also remember as “Julie” from TV‘s Felicity), Rocky, the red ranger (Steve Cardenas), Adam, the black ranger (John Yong Bosch, who’s gone on to a career of dubbing Japanese animation), and Aisha, the yellow ranger (Karan Ashley).

The movie opens to the teens participating in a sky diving fundraiser to prevent an observatory from being shut down. They’re wearing jumpsuits and use parachutes whose colors match those of their costumes, just like when they‘re hanging out their clothes match their costumes. Frankly, it’s downright stupefying nobody’s ever figured them out. It’s like the rangers are daring people to put it all together (being fair for a second, the rangers matching their wardrobes to their costumes is really so kids could tell who was who at a glance, and not everybody has the kind of memory for useless information that I do). There’s a bit of foreshadowing when they mention that Ryan’s Comet will be passing overhead in a few day. This doesn’t work too well, since by the time the comet came into play I had completely forgotten that it had been mentioned.

The rangers jump out and perform some XTREM3!!!11 (yes I’m a dork) sky diving stunts, like Tommy gliding around with a snowboard strapped to his feet for some reason. Comic relief characters Bulk and Skull (Paul Schrier and Jason Narvy) were bragging about how cool they’d look when they jumped, but when they actually see how high up they are they choke. So much so they almost forgot their parachutes! Ha! After some minutes of the rangers doing their thang, they all coast down on this giant bullseye pattern and we wonder if they’ll all hit it dead center and of course they all do. Many episodes of Power Rangers featured some kid the rangers would save or help out of an emotional crisis, and for this movie it’s a kid named Fred (Jamie Croft), who we meet here with his loveable schlub of a dad (Peter Mochrie).

Bulk and Skull finally jump out of the plane, and are komically all scared and have no idea what they’re doing. In the next scene the rangers are suddenly roller blading through the streets of Angel Grove, wearing vests or shorts that match their costumes. What is this, some kind of triathlon? Apparently not, but I don’t remember the Power Rangers being so extreme that they’d do something like have somebody bring their roller blades to the landing site so they could all go skating right after going skydiving. Guess the brains behind this movie thought nobody would come see if there weren’t non-stop action and stunts held together by a paper-thin plot. Guys, Power Rangers is about superheroes and giant robots vs. monsters kind of action, ESPN and Mountain Dew commercials are about extreme sports.

“Let’s take a shortcut!” Tommy says. Shortcut to where? Wherever they’re going, it takes them through a construction site, where none of the workers seem to notice them. What the hell? This part is just a segue for when Bulk and Skull land in the site a minute later, but am I crazy or is it telling kids that skating through an industrial area is fun?

Bulk and Skull drift down, komically berating each other for missing the landing zone. “Hey! You guys, what do you think you’re doin’?” demands one worker. So this bothers him, but not a bunch of kids using the site as a skate park. Oh-kay. The two doofi pretend to be from the building inspector’s office, but the comedy is sadly cut short when several crewmen unearth what looks like a manhole cover with an evil face carved into it. Being idiots in a superhero movie, they make to remove it, and with the seal removed, an enormous metal hand clutching an enormous purple egg rises up. Personally, if I lived in a city that was attacked by monsters from outer space twice a week, I’d be hesitant to remove any ancient seals I came across. Seriously, if I ever start a construction company, "would you ever remove an ominous and ancient seal that you've just dug up?" would be the first question in the interview.

Clearly this discovery is something bad, because Alpha calls the Power Rangers and tells them to get to base right away. You’d think if it was so urgent he could just brief them right there and then have them go straight to the trouble spot, instead of spending precious time going to the base to get briefed and then going to the construction site, but then we wouldn’t get to see the nifty command center set done for the movie. The rangers teleport, transforming into six streaks of costume-colored light that fly off to their base in the mountains.

Alpha the midget robot (Peta-Maree Rixon, voice of Richard Wood) is running around saying random sciency kind of words while he does…something important, I‘m sure, to the various blinking consoles around the room. “Ai-yi-yi-yi! (Alpha says that whenever he gets flustered, which is often) The subtronic interphasers are short circuiting! I must find a way to alternate the frequency modulators!”

[UnSub: I used to watch "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers" for a while. Given the opportunity, I would have taken to Alpha with a sledgehammer if it would have stopped those stupid “Ai-yi-yi-yi!"-ing that went on every time something bad happened. Given that Angel Grove was under constant bombardment by monsters from outer space, you would have thought that Alpha would have either gotten used to the stress or found herself a different job.]

The rangers appear and Zordon (Nicholas Bell, voice of Robert Manahan) drops an exposition bomb on them. Thousands of years ago, a villain called Ivan Ooze was bent on conquering the universe and had created a pair of “Ectomorphican titans, twin machines capable of enslaving the universe.” This will turn out to be complete bunk when we see them, but that’s for then. Zordon adds that Ivan was eventually beaten and trapped in a “hyper lock chamber” by a group of young warriors like the rangers, and was “accidentally uncovered.” I think he means when the construction crew accidentally brought in a crane and accidentally used it to lift off the seal. “His Ectomorphicons were buried nearby. If Ivan escapes, he’s sure to find them!” worries Alpha. Yeah, great idea putting the guy’s ultimate weapons near where you buried him, too. Zordon tells the rangers they need to get there toot sweet and bury the chamber before Ivan can get free.

[UnSub: If Zordon knew about Ivan Ooze and where he was buried, wouldn't it have been a good idea to, I don't know, protect the area so he isn't unleashed again? It makes me wonder what other supervillains Zordon knows about but doesn't inform the Rangers about until some half-wit has dug them up and they again threaten the universe.]

Cut back to the construction site with the egg, and it’s pitch black out. Dang, when Zordon called the rangers and told them about Ivan it looked like the middle of the afternoon, and they’re nowhere in sight. Yeah, Power Rangers, it’d be nice if you could get down there and prevent an all-powerful evil from escaping captivity, but don’t rush. Not surprisingly, it’s the villains who make the scene first.

Fans will recognize Rita Repulsa (Julia Cortez, voice of Barbara Goodson), a witch with twin towers of hair and a bullet bra I can’t believe ever made it past censors, Lord Zedd (Mark Ginther, voice of Robert Axelrod), the new villain of the second season who banished Rita into space for failing to beat the Power Rangers, then for some reason brought her back and married her, Goldar (voice of Kerrigan Mahan), and a new face, who they won’t recognize. Goldar was a warrior who often fought alongside the monster du jour on the show, but here he doesn’t get to do anything besides give the movie’s main villain someone to explain his plans to. Same goes for the other guy, Mordant (Jean Paul Bell), a pig mutant who is never seen anywhere else in Power Ranger history (this movie does not seem to count as Power Ranger canon. See Comments at the end). He’s mostly just set dressing and provides some kid-pleasing gross noises from time to time.

Zedd puts the two security guards watching the egg to sleep, then cracks open the egg to see what the Easter Bunny left him this year. It’s full of purple slime, and Rita dresses him down for producing an egg full of gunk, but the slime quickly congeals itself into a demonic figure, the perilous, the pustulating, the purple… Ivan Ooze! (Paul Freeman, who you might remember from such good movies as Raiders of the Lost Ark)

Asking how he can ever repay Zedd for freeing him, Ivan’s help is requested in wiping out Zordon. The Ooze happily complies, stating that “It will be as if Zordon of Eltar never existed!” “Finally, a real man!” Rita snorts at Zedd. Kind of gutsy for her to say that to the guy who stripped her of her magic and shrank her to the size of an action figure one time. Zedd leaves the job in Ivan’s oh so capable hands and he and the other villains disappear, because if they all ganged up on the Power Rangers, there wouldn’t be enough of the teens left to fill a thimble.

Ivan detects a peculiar fragrance in the air right about then. “What is that odious stench? Smells like… teenagers!” Which of course means the Power Rangers are about to finally make the scene. As they’re looking around (how hard can it be to find a giant purple egg in a rock quarry?), a security guard asks what the heck a bunch of kids are doing on a construction site. So it bothers them now, huh? Of course, Zedd knocked out the security guards, so we know he’s not what he appears to be. Kim asks if he’s seen a “morphological being” around, and he replies, “Did it look like this?” before morphing into Ivan.

“Eww, gross!” Kim moans. “You’re too kind,” Ivan of course responds. “Allow me to introduce myself, I’m the galactically feared, globally reviled, universally despised… they call me Ivan Ooze.” “Well pack your bags, ‘cuz we’re sending you right back where you came from!” Rocky threatens. “A teenager with a big mouth! Not much has changed in six thousand years!” an unfazed Ivan replies. And he would know how long he’s been in there how exactly? I didn’t see any hash marks on the inside of the egg or anything.

“Obviously you don’t know who you’re dealing with, Mr. Raisin Head!” Kimberly puts in. “Really?” “Yeah, we’re the Power Rangers!” Tommy informs him. “Whoo! Where’s my autograph book?” Ivan sings. I gotta say it, I love these snide villains. “Ha, Power Rangers, huh? Zordon’s still using a bunch of kids to do his dirty work. Well, meet my kids!” So saying, beams of energy fly from Ivan’s hands and form into a group of ten or so purple creatures that do indeed look like they‘re related to Ivan with the puckered features, the Oozemen. “Welcome to my nightmare!” Ivan says before teleporting away in a streak of purple light.

“He’s gone!” Rocky exclaims. Why that should be so amazing to a guy who himself can teleport, we’ll probably never know. At least Ivan was nice enough to leave some playmates for them, and suddenly there appear to be about twice as many Oozemen as before. The rangers jump down a slope to a more open area in which to battle the Oozemen. Finally, the crew realize this is the kind of action we paid to see in a movie about a bunch of martial artist superheroes. Tommy grabs the haft of a shovel and yells, “Welcome to MY nightmare!” before he starts whooping purple slimy butt. All in all it’s not a bad action sequence, although the attempts to work comedy into the proceedings have mixed results, like the cartoon sound effects that play during Aisha’s bit (bad), and when Adam runs past the cab of a scoop and says, “Let me get the door!” which he then uses to bash the Oozeman pursuing him (not so bad).

Eventually, the Oozemen’s advantage of numbers and raw strength begins to overwhelm the rangers, who are cornered against a rock wall. Tommy decides it’s time to take off the kid gloves. “It’s morphin time!” Each teen holds up their Power Morpher (yes, Power Morpher) and calls out the name of their prehistoric creature and their emblem engulfs the screen before disappearing to reveal them in uniform.

Kimberly: “Pterodactyl!”
Billy: “Triceratops!”
Rocky: “Tyrannosaurus!”
Adam: “Mastodon!”
Aisha: “Saber-Tooth Tiger!”
Tommy: “White Tiger!”

Let’s forget all about how I distinctly remember Tommy’s call being, “Tigerzord!” on the show…

Their morphing complete, each ranger flips into the air as their gripping theme song is belted out at five hundred decibels: Go, Go Power Rangers! Go, Go Power Rangers, Mighty Morphin Power Ranger-Hers! After their dramatic morphing and flipping into action is over, the rangers look up to find themselves alone in the quarry, making their dramatic reentrance suddenly seem rather comical. “Where’d they go?” asks Kimberly. A good question, since you’d think Ivan created the Oozemen to keep the rangers busy while he trashed their base. Maybe I shouldn’t mock it though, because his plan does work (or actually I should, because it’s still dumb), because evidently figuring that their first priority is not the powerful new arch-villain but his faceless thugs running around an empty construction site, the rangers head out to find the Oozemen.

Zordon, meanwhile, has discovered with his sensors that the rangers were too late and that Ivan is coming to pay them a visit. Well, uh, YEAH. Why the heck did they wait until the middle of the night to do something about Ivan? Alpha assures Zordon that no one without a power coin (which make the Power Morphers work) can enter the command center. Obviously this is wrong, because the rangers were first given their coins after being teleported into the command center, but that’s small fish. Purple slime starts to seep through the cracks of the doors, and Ivan makes the scene.

After zapping Alpha insensate with purple energy, Ivan proceeds to lay a tongue lashing on Zordon. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be locked up in a rotten egg for six thousand years?” Actually I think Zordon might, since he’s been trapped in a bodiless time warp for ten thousand years. “It’s boring! Not to mention I’ve had a Charlie horse since the renaissance!”

Remarking that it’s “time to pay the piper” for locking him up, Ivan produces a flute, plays a few coarse notes, and then starts using the flute to shoot purple energy around, blowing up consoles and making neon pillars fall. “To think of all the things I have missed! The black plague! The Spanish Inquisition!” Nobody expects… nevermind. “The Brady Bunch reunion!” our erstwhile antagonist crows with finality. Ha… um, ha. I think it was supposed to be funny, but I was wondering more how a guy who’s been out of the loop for the last six thousand years and has only been out of the egg for, as he said, ten minutes, would know about any of that stuff.

Meanwhile, the rangers are on the trail of the Oozemen. “This place gives me the creeps,” mutters one, sounds like Adam. Yes, I know. They’ve never faced anything as threatening than an empty parking garage. Tommy suggests they need some light, and in the unveiling of the first of several goofy gadgets we’ve never seen before, Aisha activates her “Power Beam,” there’s a cut and the painted on tiger eyes on her helmet become little headlights that don’t really provide that much illumination. Perhaps realizing this, Rocky activates his “Power Scope,” which turns his visor into an infrared scanner or something. Suddenly he spots one of the Oozemen just as they all show themselves and attack.

We get another big action extravaganza filled with lots of unconvincing wire-fu and see what really makes the Power Rangers such a fearsome combat machine, like when Rocky and Adam perform a maneuver called “up and over” that involves jumping over their opponents. Tactical genius, I tell you. There’s also more cartoony effects like where the two of them kick an Oozeman on both sides of his head, his eyes bug out and his head is squished inward. Are the Oozemen supposed to be a stronger menace than the rangers have faced before or not? Goofy stuff like this takes them down a few notches of menace. Kim uses her “Pterodactyl Thunder Whip,” a weapon she’s never had, to knock down some more Oozemen. “Have a nice trip, see you next fall!” she says in one of the lamest jokes ever.

Suddenly all the surviving Oozeman are all standing in one place. “I’d like you guys to meet Saba!” Tommy says before producing his special weapon. Saba, by the way, was a cutlass with a tiny tiger’s head set into the hilt that could talk to Tommy, an interesting gimmick which was dropped after like two episodes (in Power Rangers, anyway). Saba leaves Tommy’s hand and flies around the Oozemen in circles, forcing them together so it can then fly up and fire a laser that cuts through a crane’s cable conveniently suspending a dumpster or something in mid-air. Let’s ignore that half of Saba is a blade… This large object, whatever it is, falls and removes the Oozemen from the movie.

[UnSub: Because the Oozemen being horribly crushed to death rather than being killed by the Power Rangers' weapons teaches children a valuable lesson about how violence never solves anything. I think.]

“Now to find Ivan,” Tommy says. NOW you think to go after the new villain. Great tactical sense there, Tommy-boy. All of a sudden the rangers’ costumes disintegrate. With the command center in ruins, their powers are too. It was nice of Ivan to break it in such a way that their powers lasted just long enough for them to kill the Oozemen, wasn’t it? Since something is obviously amiss, the rangers run off to the command center. Yes, run, not teleport. To be fair, that may not be available since Ivan busted the command center up, but the command center is a significant distance away from Angel Grove, and on top of a mountain to boot. In the show when they needed to get there and couldn’t teleport, they had to use this flying Volkswagen Billy invented to get there. There’s no evidence of that now, and yet it looks like the same night when they arrive and witness Ivan’s redecorating scheme.

They run up to Zordon’s pedestal, to find him lying there in his physical body, but dying outside of his time warp. He helpfully wastes his energy explaining to the rangers things that “the zords, the weapons, all of it,” are gone, and without them there’s no chance of them standing up to Ivan. Alpha is a bit more optimistic, telling them of a power source on the planet Phaedos that might be able to rejuvenate them and save Zordon. But, of course, all who have sought it have perished.

Now you have to stop and ask, why did we never hear about this power source before now? Obviously Alpha and Zordon knew about it all the time [UnSub; just like they knew about Ivan Ooze], and could’ve sent the rangers to get it at any time during the year and a half or so they’d been battling ever-increasing evil. Like, when they still had access to their morphing powers. I suppose you could say that the danger is so great that they wouldn’t expose the rangers to it unless it was absolutely necessary, but I would say what the hell kind of thinking is that? The rangers knew the job was dangerous when they took it. And frankly, when we see the perils protecting the Great Power (oh brother, must’ve spent a week coming up with that name), they are indeed fearsome, but nothing a group of six Mighty Morphin Power Rangers couldn’t have handled with ease.

Of course, since this is their only chance, the rangers agree to do it, no matter how slim their chances are as virile young black belts, and Alpha teleports them off to Phaedos. They streak past the villains’ base on the moon on their way out of the solar system, which when you think about it means they probably could’ve teleported to the villains’ base any time they felt like it during the two seasons extant when the movie was made (by the way, I‘m ignoring a lot of the “unwritten rules“ of sentai that prohibit things that would be sensible but make for a quick and boring show, which I usually let go). Rita is griping that Ivan let the rangers escape, and is no better than any of the other dorky mutants she hangs out with. Ivan enters the room just then, and announces that circumstances have forced him to institute a change in leadership. Namely, he’s taking over. Zedd blasts him, and Ivan smirks and says it tickles before zapping Zedd and Rita into a snow globe. He gives Goldar and Mordant a chance to either come work for him, or join their “dingle-dork” bosses in the globe. Being toadying sycophants, the two eagerly flock beneath Ivan’s banner.

Deciding to see to the Power Rangers before they can recover their powers, Ivan hocks a loogie that grows into the Tengu, more monstrous flunkies. These ones resemble giant crows, and for whatever it’s worth are named after powerful chaotic beings from Japanese myth. Ivan orders them to fly to Phaedos and tear up the Power Rangers, and somehow they will instinctively know where to go and who to kill even though Ivan provides no specifics in either department (then again, the Power Rangers are about the only guys to rip apart on Phaedos).

The rangers shortly arrive on Phaedos, materializing on a rocky beach. “Guys, over here! Quick!” Aisha calls, having found the skeleton of a horned alien creature. Why did they have to get over there quickly, Aisha? “What is it?” asks Adam. “I think the question is, what was it?” replies Billy. Well, I think the question is, what does this skeleton have to do with anything? Not much, as the rangers set out in search of the Great Power, and the skeleton is never brought up or explained again. A hooded figure observes them from a ledge.

We cut back to Angel Grove, specifically a rusty old factory building that has a sign reading, “Warning: Toxic Chemicals” on the chain link. Just the place for a villain like Ivan to begin his scheme to conquer the universe, huh? He’s come to the realization that he needs more than just Goldar and Mordant by his side to make his diabolical dreams come true, and decides to enslave the adult populace of Angel Grove. “No offense boss, but they might find you a little disgusting,” Goldar says, with Mordant belching for emphasis. “You forget, I’m a master of disguise!” Ivan replies. I would say they never established this, but Mordant says that for me, “How could I forget? I never knew.” Ivan takes a second to say that “little do they know” that he buried his Ectomorphicons beneath Angel Grove. Um, they do know. Alpha told the rangers about the Ectomorphicons being buried near where Ivan was trapped.

Back on Phaedos, Tommy and Kim have a little heart to heart what a blow this has all been to them (they were a couple on the show, by the way), which is thankfully interrupted when the Tengu choose that moment to attack. Forced to fight this battle powerless, the rangers are quickly overwhelmed. When the Tengu finally get it into their tiny brains to stop swooping at the rangers and start attacking, that is.

“You know what the funny thing about morphing is?” Billy asks Rocky. “What?” “You don’t appreciate it until you can’t do it--” the brainiac is in the process of saying when a Tengu tackles him. And you know what the funny thing about talking is? You shouldn’t waste your attention doing it when there’s a horde of monsters trying to kill you.

Fat chance the rangers might actually die, so the hooded figure suddenly enters the fray, casting off its robe to reveal a lady clad in one of those Frank Frazetta barbarian queen outfits. She begins waving a pair of sticks through the air that produces a whistling noise that drives the Tengu away. Rocky tries to thank their rescuer, who smacks his hand with her staff and tells the rangers to get out of Dodge. Billy asks after the Great Power, and the lady replies that it’s here, that “the ground is littered with the bones of those who have tried for it and failed.” I think she means that one skeleton they found. Tommy says they won’t fail and she dumps on his butt. “Look, we don’t want any trouble,” Aisha intercedes. “But our leader Zordon--”

“Zordon??” the lady asks. “Did you say Zordon??” Well, they did, which automatically makes them the good guys, somehow. If you think this bit is stupid once, I remember seeing it once or twice on the show too, where the rangers were up against some other hero the villains duped into fighting them, and they just happen to drop Zordon’s name in the middle of a fight and right away the duped good guy knows they’re all friends here.

[UnSub: Good thing that Zordon didn't stand this woman up in a bar 10 000 years ago or something like that, because otherwise it would have been a short movie.]

The lady introduces herself as Dulcea (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick), master warrior of Phaedos, and asks what’s happened to Zordon. Learning that Ivan Ooze is on the loose, she hurries them off to prepare for the tests they’ll need to pass to obtain the Great Power. Can anybody say manic-depressive?

Cut back to the command center, where Zordon is fading fast. Alpha tries to rig the viewing globe, which the rangers typically used to see whatever the latest disaster in progress was, so he can observe the rangers on Phaedos. This scene is kind of pointless, since it never makes any difference to anything that Zordon can watch the rangers go through their trials.

Cut to a carnival where Ivan, disguised as a magician, is handing out jars of Ivan’s Ooze, a purple slime product akin to something you used to be able to buy from Nickelodeon. One of the kids in the crowd is Fred. Remember him?

Cut back to Phaedos (I’m getting vertigo from all these scene changes). Dulcea leads them to a plateau surrounded by ruins and shows them the mountain where the Great Power is housed. “The monolith is heavily guarded against intruders. No one has ever survived an attempt to reach it.” Thanks Dulcea, I forgot all about the other four times we heard that exact same pronouncement. But to give them an edge, she promises to call up the sacred animals of the ancient Ninjetti tribe. Oh brother. And in case you're wondering, we never get any background on the Ninjetti. Not who they were, where they came from, or how Dulcea is calling up their power to help the rangers.

Back to Angel Grove. Fred’s dad comes home and finds Fred’s jar of Ivan’s Ooze. For some reason opening it and dipping his fingers into the contents, his mind is fried by Ivan’s evil power and he stumbles out of the house, joining a processions of other zombified parents that came out of nowhere.

[UnSub: Obviously the people of Angel Grove are too nice to say no to a free sample of something useless, or to take it and dump it in the next trash can they see, unlike people in the real world.]

Back to the command center, where Alpha fixes the viewing globe and turns on a news broadcast about the mounting number of missing parents in Angel Grove. It doesn’t just make the authorities look stupid but everyone in the whole doggone city look stupid if they couldn’t notice that huge column of people marching like zombies through the streets. What a bunch of dummies. They deserve to get enslaved by Ivan.

Back on Phaedos, Dulcea performs a ritual that gives the rangers ninja costumes and new patron beasties: Tommy gets the falcon, Kim gets the crane, Aisha gets the bear, Rocky gets the ape, Billy gets the wolf, and Adam gets the frog [UnSub: Because everyone fears the mad fighting skillz of the frog! It's the equivalent of "Power of... Heart!" from the "Captain Planet" cartoons]. Their ninja outfits are the same colors as their ranger costumes, and I wonder exactly how that works. Are the colors of their superhero duds a product of their inner auras or something? Why do I ask?

Dulcea wishes them luck, but says she can’t go with them to get the Great Power. Well yeah, as the guardian of the power she’s coming dangerously close to violating her duties by giving a group of people seeking it extra power anyway. The reason these ancient power sources have traps and guardians is so only the people with the skill and strength to wield them properly are allowed to get to them. None of the guardians ever say, “You look like a nice guy, I’ll let you have this omnipotent power source I guard.” Besides that, “one step beyond this plateau and I would begin to age as rapidly as Zordon.” Not sure how that works, but you know, IITS. You have to make things happen yourself. She turns into an owl and flies off, leaving the rangers alone with their heavy burden.

Back to Angel Grove, Fred comes home and finds the ooze open and his dad missing. What’s the time frame here? Obviously the parents have been missing long enough for it to make the news, yet Fred seems to have no idea his dad was gone. The adults of Angel Grove are in the construction site digging up the Ectomorphicons while Ivan and Goldar watch one entranced flunky dance for their mild amusement [UnSub: a position listed as "Zombie Parent Dancer" in the credits - hope that's still on your resume, Robyn Gol]. The Tengu fly down (how did they know to find Ivan there?) and report that they were defeated by Dulcea. In a fit of pique Ivan blows them to smithereens and orders that the excavation be sped up, so that if the rangers do get the Great Power he’ll be ready.

Back to Phaedos, and the rangers head out into the wilderness. Back to Angel Grove, and Fred finds his dad in the excavation site but is unable to get him to pay attention to anything but the digging. My God, why didn’t I remember this movie changing scenes do much?

Back to Phaedos, again, and the rangers encounter a clearing filled with giant dinosaur-like skeletons. One invariably comes to life, and corners Kimberly, who does nothing but scream and look scared (Ha! You girl!) until Tommy jumps onto the thing’s neck and pulls out the piece that holds its skull on, which causes the whole thing to become inert again. What the hell was up with that? Everyone but Tommy just stood and watched while the thing tried to eat their friend. Great initiative, Power Rangers.

Back to Angel Grove (x_x), specifically Ivan’s factory hideout. People are carrying around the pieces of the Ectomorphicons and more jars of Ivan’s Ooze are being spat out on a conveyer belt (what does he need those for now?). Goldar tells Ivan that construction of his Ectomorphicons is complete. Funny, just a second ago we saw that pieces were still being carried around. Those are pretty efficient zombies. Having no further need of the parents of Angel Grove, Ivan orders them all to go to the construction site and jump off a cliff. Fred, seeing this from his hiding place, runs off to warn their kids. Ivan activates his reassembled fighting machines.

The rangers meanwhile come across the door of a stone temple, and the four gargoyle-like creatures that are the final guardians of the Great Power. Another fight breaks out, but since the rangers have their nifty new ninja suits, and besides that have to get back to stop the villains ASAP now, they easily win, although not, naturally, without a protracted action scene. Tommy has to save Kimberly again during the course of things. Man, what did they have against her?

Having overcome this last challenge, the wall opens up and a pyramid is revealed, and little animal shapes begin floating around the rangers, and their gazes don’t follow the animals’ paths. This fills them with the Great Power or something, as they are magically garbed in their ranger costumes again. What's kind of funny is that the golden emblems on the chests of their uniforms are now those of their new Ninjetti animals, but their helmets still show the old dinosaurs they used to tap for power. Too much work mocking up new ones, I reckon. Anyway, empowered once again, the rangers teleport back to Earth. Dulcea’s voiceover wishes them luck as they head for home.

[UnSub: Offscreen, Dulcea joins the unemployment queue, having just lost her Guardian of Great Power job when said Great Power was handed over to five teenagers.]

Back on Earth, all is not well. The Ectomorphicons, the Hornetar (a two-legged robot based on a hornet) and Scorpitron (based on - surprise! - a scorpion), are running amok. Before, we were told that these things had such awesome power that they could enslave the universe. I admit, they do a pretty good job on Angel Grove, but that’s just one city. As you might or might not know, the universe is a lot bigger than a city. And frankly, the forces the Power Rangers bring to bear to stop them don’t seem much greater than what the Army could roll out too. Oh, and all of the people who are menaced by the Ectomorphicons are adults who are free of Ivan’s control. I guess that means most of the residents of Angel Grove don’t have families.

Ivan gloats at his handiwork from a metal tower he’s apparently built for just this purpose. Alpha watches another news report about the monsters running amok, asking where the Power Rangers are. Just to stave off any worries among the audience, we cut to space and see six streaks of light speeding around the globe. Or, five. I don’t have a master’s in physics by any means, but how can there be black light? Ivan detects a peculiar fragrance in the air, and says to the uncaring night sky, “Inconceivable! The Power Rangers?!” Let’s not take any remembrance of how he decided had to hasten the completion of the Ectomorphicons when the Tengu told him that Dulcea was leading the rangers to the Great Power, so that he’d be ready for them when they came back. Oh, and it’s night again, whereas just a second before it appeared to be afternoon. Sure gets dark fast in these dumb superhero movies.

The rangers arrive to find the downtown in ruins. Adam suggests they get to the command center. Why wouldn’t they just go there in the first place then? Besides, I’m sure Zordon would have wanted them to deal with Ivan and the Ectomorphicons before worrying about him. It’s that kind of series. Scorpitron approaches the rangers and blows up a car, which makes them go “whoa!” And makes me go, “big deal.” Any of the normal-sized monsters they’ve fought could’ve done the same thing. Hornetar comes up from behind, so they decide to try out their brand-new Ninja Zords, one of the benefits of the Great Power (handy, that), which, along with the Ectomorphicons, are realized by some of the absolute cheesiest CGI I have ever seen. There were times during Daredevil when I wondered if it was a stuntman or a computer generated cartoon, but this here is really bottom of the barrel stuff. Hadn’t Reboot come out by or soon after the time this movie was released?

Fred comes to the outdoor picnic area where all the other kids in the city are playing with ooze, dancing to music, wearing purple, and other stuff meant to show how they’re enjoying being free of their parents. Fred whistles and somehow manages to get all of their attention at once and warns them that their parents are all about to leap to their doom. I think they could’ve established this a lot better. I mean, if the kids are really enjoying having no parents around as much as I think this scene was meant to convey, why would they drop everything to look into one kid’s claims that the adult populace is all about to jump off a cliff? Why are they all wearing purple and playing with ooze? If Ivan can turn their parents into zombies with ooze, why hasn’t he done it to them? And none of them have noticed the giant monsters running around their city blowing it to pieces? Why ask why?

Back to the exciting zord battle, Tommy shoots some missiles at Scorpitron’s unprotected backside from his Falcon Zord, but only succeeds in hitting the ground at its feet and getting its attention. Nice aim, Tommy-boy. Scorpitron is a much better shot and nails his zord in the wing, and he pulls out to do… I don’t know. But when he comes back, his zord is fixed. Don’t think about this, it isn’t doing me any good.

Some stuff happens. Rocky and Aisha get their butts kicked by Hornetar, the kids all pile into a monorail (oooh, how futuristic!) to head off their parents, and Tommy with his all better zord blows up Scorpitron with a missile barrage. That was pretty easy for a machine that could enslave the universe.

The zords all converge on Hornetar, with Tommy saying that it’s trapped because the street is a dead end. I don’t know what he’s talking about; in the shot where it was wrasslin’ with Rocky’s zord immediately before this we saw that the street behind Hornetar went back a long ways. Anyhow, Ivan has had it up to here with the rangers and merges with Hornetar, reshaping its face to look like his own and wrenching the tower out of its foundations to use as a weapon. As he stomps toward the zords, he crushes the monorail track.

Time to cap off tonight’s mecha battle, so the rangers combine their new machines into the Ninja Megazord. The individual zords fold and reconfigure themselves into gigantic body parts; the wolf and ape become arms, the bear becomes the torso, the frog is the pelvis and legs, and the crane forms the head. [UnSub: Wait a sec - so Adam gets to have the Frog power AND be the pelvis of a giant robot? Someone really didn't like this guy!] With hilarity I see that when the arms attach to the torso, the head is already attached, but a second later we see the head forming and linking despite it having been there already. Tommy can’t join up yet, since Ivan busted the monorail track, and as you may recall, all the kids in the city are riding on the monorail right now, so he has to go save them. “Activating Ninja Megazord battle mode!” Billy announces to the others. Why would this thing have any other modes? Anyway, the Ninja Megazord whips out a sword (which looks like the one their OTHER robot from the third season had) and the Megazord spars with Ivan.

Tommy lands his zord in the gap on the monorail track, and handily fits the gap exactly, and the monorail travels across its back without so much as a bump. The kids safe, he joins up with the Ninja Megazord now, attaching to the back to form the Ninja Megafalconzord. With this mighty new combination, the rangers valiantly… fly away from the scene of battle. Actually I guess it was a ploy to get Ivan to follow them away from the city, because that’s what he does.

The kids intercept their parents at the cliff of the construction site and push them back from the brink of doom, which I guess is to show us how much they really love the adults in their lives. If this was supposed to be a subplot, they sure forgot to flesh it out.

In space, the rangers grapple with Ivan. Apparently they’ve judged that even the Ninja Megazord is no match for his power, and decide to throw him into the path of Ryan’s Comet. Remember hearing about that? I didn’t either until just now. Aisha breaks a panel that says “For Emergency Use Only” and hits the button underneath (although it looked like she had hit the button already when she broke the panel covering it). This activates the Ninja Megazord’s ultimate #1 super-secret weapon: it knees Ivan in the groin and sends gales of laughter erupting from the seven year olds in the audience. I don’t know why this would work; giant robots generally don’t have genitalia, but it was good for a laugh at the expense of our galaxy-gobbling menace, so why quibble. [UnSub: So remember kids, if all else fails, a good knee to the groin is the thing to do!] This sends him spiraling into the path of a giant fireball which apparently is Ryan’s Comet. Funny, I always thought comets were giant balls of ice or something. Guess that shows what I know. Should I complain that there’s no such thing as flames in a vacuum? It rams into him and Ivan is no more.

At the construction site, Ivan’s demise has broken his hold over the parents. Fred and his dad have a heart-warming hug. The rangers make it back to the command center and find it may *gasp* be too late to save Zordon! Tommy reminds them that anything is possible for those who hold the Great Power, although I don’t remember where they heard that, and raise their arms to the heavens. Their power fixes the command center and saves Zordon. Phew. That was too close.

Time to wrap things up. We see tons of people at some kind of outdoor event. I’d guess a celebration to recognize the rangers’ efforts in saving the city from Ivan, but it’s never said and they’re there out of costume. Bulk and Skull (remember them? I almost didn’t) are comically trying to take credit for beating Ivan. The rangers have heard about Fred’s contribution to saving the day and congratulate him, and he fantasizes about being a Power Ranger someday, and I wonder where the armed forces were during Ivan’s rampage. A fireworks show begins to close the evening in style [UnSub: and from memory, it's obviously the Sydney City skyline used in the shot].

And in case you care, Zedd and Rita got out of the snow globe, and walk in on Goldar just when he’s settling in as the new leader of the evil outfit. Hilarity!

Most things work best in a particular medium. For instance, a formula that involves two martial arts battles, a fight between a giant robot and a giant monster and perhaps a bit of learning something about ourselves generally works better in a format where they only have to kill five minutes or so between action sequences instead of twenty or thirty.

I came away from this movie with the same taste in my mouth left by “Jesus Our Savior”; the heroes are supposedly up against a menace far beyond anything they’ve ever faced, and overcome it in a battle of epic proportions, but all that’s really different is that the story lasts longer than usual. Perhaps even more damningly, both teams get into their fix by mixing up their priorities: the rangers by thinking that the Oozemen need to be taken care of before their creator, and Bibleman by forgetting he’s an advocate of teamwork. Both also show a poor idea of what to do with their extended runtime, as in “Jesus Our Savior” where, even when they’ve given themselves twice the space to work, they‘re content to merely tell us how powerful and evil the new villain is, never bothering to actually show it. I noted during the review there appeared to be a subplot about the children of Angel Grove partying hearty with no adults around to spoil their fun and realizing just in time how much family means to them, but it seems like most of it was left on the editing room floor. Let’s just say it’s not surprising that the Power Ranger movie franchise only survived to make two entries.

As I mentioned above, and unlike the vastly suckier "Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie", this little offering doesn’t count as Power Ranger canon. Instead, the third season begins with the rangers losing their powers when Rita’s brother, Rito, joins the show, forcing them to enjoin the aid of a fellow named Ninjor to give them new ninja powers. What with how much more extravagant the headquarters sets were in the movie I’m not all that surprised, but they still tried to rework some of their investments from the movie into the series. The Tengu (renamed the Tengas for some reason) became the villains’ new army of low-powered grunt troops in the third season, and the Ninjetti outfits briefly became an intermediary step between human and full-fledged Power Ranger. What it all comes down to is that "MMPR: The Movie" is just a summer parent trap to suck the price of a movie ticket out of the pockets of the people buying the action figures. As a mindless way to kill an hour and a half, I’ve found worse movies to watch.

Not really based on a comic as such - the original series came about from Saban's "adaption" of Japanese action series as described above.

The only things that really keep "MMPR: The Movie" from meshing with the regular series it sprang from are Mordant and the higher-budgeted headquarters sets. Beyond that, this could easily be taken as part of the television series.

As half-baked as the movie often seems, when it remembers what it’s about - action - it manages to do what it needs to do pretty decently.

Some cheese was to be expected given the source, but MMPR: The Movie is more a mindless popcorn movie than a workout for your suspension of disbelief.

Date of review: 01 March 2006