When the five year old me wasn’t busy chasing the dog around the house or falling down a flight of stairs, you could usually find him sat in front of the TV, watching MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS. Or POWER RANGERS IN SPACE. Or POWER RANGERS TIME FORCE! Or… OK, you get it. I loved POWER RANGERS. And I still do!
Yes, it was a low budget cheese-fest, put together using recycled footage from the popular Japanese SUPER SENTAI series. But hey, it had giant robots punching monsters and blowing s**t up – what more could a kid want, besides a mountain load of Mars bars and a super intelligent talking dog?!
In 1995, MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS THE MOVIE was released. Millions of POWER RANGER fans like myself rejoiced! Sadly though, I only saw it years later, when I was eight or nine. But it was totally worth the wait. It was great. After that, I didn’t see it again for years and years, as more important things like girls, DOCTOR WHO, and girls filled my life. But years later, I chanced upon the DVD in HMV, and took it straight home to relive my childhood. Would it stand up after all these years? Hell yes, it would!!
Watching the film again now, over fifteen years since it first came out, what grabs and excites me most is that this is POWER RANGERS – but with a budget! The FX work is brilliant, especially in the case of the new, suped-up Ranger costumes, which look awesome! The fight scenes are beautifully choreographed, as they should be, and the film delivers spectacle after spectacle after spectacle, starting with a breath-taking opening sequence featuring our six heroes sky-diving, and ending with a spectacular Megazord battle that puts TRANSFORMERS to shame (at least in this movie, you can see whatever the hells going on).
But rewatching the film as an adult, I can finally appreciate the performances – Paul Freeman (who you’ll probably best know as the villainous Belloq in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and as Reverend Shooter in HOT FUZZ) is on top form as the film’s central villain, the disgustingly evil Ivan Ooze. Freeman manages to keep a strong balance between campy and menacing, creating a POWER RANGERS villain who actually feels like a proper threat to our heroes (he also destroys Zordon in the space of 20 minutes, something Lord Zedd couldn’t even do in 150 episodes). Regular comic foils Paul Schrier and Jason Narvey as Bulk & Skull entertain as they always did in the show, and the six Rangers each get some great moments too, especially in the films emotional climax.
Oh, and the villain is defeated with a kick to the nuts! Nuff said.
It has its flaws, sure. The female Rangers scream and become damsels in distress once too often, and there’s a fair few continuity errors in terms of characterization that distances the film from the TV Show. But these are just minor niggles. Did I mention that the villain gets kicked in the gonads?! Classic.
MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS THE MOVIE, to me, stands up so well. It’s action packed, it’s fun, and it’s got a kick-ass soundtrack, including that bloody amazing theme tune that taught kids to rock out before they knew what rocking out even meant! It’s one of the best kids movies to hit the 1990s, and one of the best episodes of POWER RANGERS ever made!
Go, go Power Rangers!!
You can see the rest of our guilty pleasures here.
Rick
Sep 11, 2012 at 11:10 pm
I still sing the song that the Green Ranger used to play with his dagger flute thing to summon his Zord. Almost 20 years later from that Green Ranger mini series.