Mini Review - Power Rangers: The Movie

Owing to a busy week, I haven't had time to form my Editorial on Voltron s3, so here's my review of Power Rangers instead

For all my love of action, I’ve never really gotten into Power Rangers. I was a bit young to get into it during the Mighty Morphin era (I was less than a year old) and whilst I did occasionally see ads for its subsequent, I never really thought about watching it. I’ve since caught a couple of episodes just for research and because I was bored. They’re OK, nothing more than OK.

But the ideas are what intrigue me, incorporating footage from a Japanese show called Super Sentai to drive costs down is a good idea, combined with innovative toy designs has kept Power Rangers afloat for 25 years. But what happens when you take away that element. You get the Power Rangers movies.

I’ll eventually be talking about the 2017 movie, but I felt obligated to do some preliminary reviews so I’ll be doing the first 2 outings first. First off is Power Rangers: The Movie. Released in 1995 on a $15m budget it made back $66m, making it financial success. Critically its reception is more mixed with only a 41% Rotten Tomatoes rating.

Before I begin, I have a complaint. Yeah, already. I got a duo pack containing both the Power Rangers movies. This is the disk menu

 

Yeah, seriously. This isn’t a movie selection screen which then leads to the true disk menu, selecting one of these will start the movie. Wow is that lame! Also, they didn’t even get the goddamn titles right. It’s like the person who made this disk had never seen the movies, which would also explain why Turbo: A Power Rangers movie is made to look like a direct sequel to this movie. It isn’t. This also extends to the movie’s subtitles, there are letters missing from the end of lines.

But the movie itself, and well. It’s cheesy, dumb, not particularly interesting and makes no sense, which about sums up what I’ve seen about Power Rangers so far so… it’s actually pretty good.

OK, let’s do some plot. But before that, they decide to waste 6 minutes of my time by showcasing the Rangers skydiving and rollerblading. Thrilling. They’ve could’ve spent that money making the special effects look not sh*t.

So, a villain named Ivan Ooze is released from a manhole cover after 6000 years of imprisonment, his salvation comes at the hands of series staples Rita and Zed. They want him to end Zordon and his legacy and he’s happy to do so, laying waste to the command chamber and striking a near-fatal blow to Zordon himself whilst the Rangers are out fighting his ooze monsters.

With time against them, the Rangers must seek the 'Great Power' on the Planet Phaedos. They’re aided by a lap-dancer come owl named Dulcea. Who can scare Ooze’s birds (yeah, he has birds now) away with the mighty power of twirling sticks. This is rated PG, kids could be watching, how about you try not to inspire the Halle Berry Catwoman outfit?

Anyway, they unleash their animal spirits. Tommy gets a Falcon, Rocky gets an Ape, Billy gets a wolf, Aisha gets a bear, Kimberly gets a crane, terrifying and Adam gets a frog. Poor “kid.” Anyway, they must head to the mountain and defeat 4 guardians or One guardian and an army of rock monsters, one of the two.

But things aren’t cosy back at home. We have a kid called Fred. He’s in the movie more than mainstay comedic relief characters Bulk and Skull. Why? OK, I kinda get it, they wanted to show a human aspect, someone who has something to lose in the now, someone to give you a sense that the conflict is affecting people. Here’s the problem, this kid knows how to pilot a mono-rail and operate a crane, whilst not even the driver’s seat. Also, this kid has no defined personality and his actor could’ve used a few more lessons, not that the Rangers themselves don’t have this problem too.

Anyway, Ivan Ooze needs monsters for the Rangers to fight so there’s some bullsh*t about him having already made two but they were buried. They’re the size of skyscrapers, not sure how that’s possible. Let’s talk about his plan. He gives a load of kids ooze for free to take home, hoping their parents would wonder what it is, and put their fingers in it. This would hypnotise them into working for him so he can dig up his monsters.

  

Yeah… Oh and once he’s done, he tries to get the parents to commit suicide and the Rangers have no active part in this subplot whatsoever (OK, the Rangers stop the mono-rail from crashing but they have no idea who’s in there and why) Also, there’s a subplot about Zordon wanting to contact and help the Rangers which goes absolutely no-where.

So, the Rangers use their Zords and good god do they look ugly. This was an early outing for CGI Zords and they clearly didn’t have the budget for it. Zordon in the tube looks OK, the Zords, Ivan Ooze in Ooze form, and the monsters all look f*cking terrible. So there’s a generic fight that ends with a crotch shot, seriously, and thanks to some bullsh*t everything’s back to normal except for ninja powers. Good job the show supposedly does this better.

It’s not all terrible, there is some decent action and stuntwork, although Tommy seems to be able to defy gravity with some of his moves. There is some humour that works and… well, that’s about it, but it’s enough to pull this movie out of awful and into average.

Rating 55/100