Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie

Release Date: June 30, 1995

Watch Date: January 20, 2024

“Join forces with six amazing teens capable of defeating evil everywhere as the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers! But a frighteningly sinister monster, Ivan Ooze, who’s freed after six thousand years of imprisonment, has stripped the Power Rangers and their leader Zordon of power! The only hope of the Power Rangers is to learn the secrets of the ancient Ninjetti – on a far-away planet!”

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They’ve got a power and force
That you’ve never seen before
They’ve got the ability to morph
And to even up the score

   They’ve also got a super bizarre movie, not bizarre in that the movie is in anyway strange, but bizarre in that looking back it’s surprising that the Power Rangers ever had a movie that had a theatrical release. It’s basically just a slightly longer episode with a more fleshed out villain. And by fleshed out I mean he has a bit more of backstory than the traditional Power Rangers villains, and he actually manages to hit the Rangers where it hurts, their old floating head.

   Now I love the OG American Power Rangers, because my brother loved them. I’ve been watching this movie, and the sequel, since I was a kid. I’ve watch multiple seasons of the different shows, I’ve had the toys lying around my house. Power Rangers, at least in my home, was where it was at. And so, when it came time for me to get to pick the first movie for our 10 day free for all, there felt like no better option. Plus, I was hoping the kids might like it just as much as I did in my youth. It didn’t work. Our son was barely interested and our daughter found Ivan Ooze to be incredibly terrifying. Oh well, you can’t win them all.

   Bob was convinced that this was just a weird rewrite of ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’, with a man who gives directions with a giant floating head, a robot, an evil person of an odd color, and characters who must go on a journey to discover a secret power to get them back home. Partly I think that’s a side effect of living in Kansas for so long, but if I squint I can kind of see it.

   The soundtrack to this movie has no business being as kickass as it is. But the normal theme song for the Power Rangers also goes unnecessarily, and unexpectedly hard, so it’s actually kind of fitting that the sound track manages to capture that same energy.

   Honestly, it’s just a longer episode, and not really a movie, but when your episodes hit the exact same beat every single time, it would have been almost a let down if the movie didn’t. The rangers fight some minions of a bad guy, and they do so in their normal clothes. Then they upgrade to Ranger. Then they upgrade to separate Zords when the bad guy becomes giant. Then they merge their Zords into their own giant form, and then they defeat the giant bad guy and Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd are left alone to plot once more. But because there’s a lot more moments and build up between the notes that this movie had to hit, it does at least hide that’s just an episode a little bit.

   If you’re looking for a movie that’s going to be deep, that’s going to hit interesting and thought provoking topics, that’s going to have characters with flaws and who feel real…that’s not ever going to be this movie and you should have known better. If you’re looking for a movie that feels incredibly 90s, that’s campy, and that feels exactly like an old Power Rangers episode? Then this is the movie for you, and you’re going to have blast.

   I know I did.