Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie: Retro Review

I remember loving this movie as a child. I didn’t realize how bold it was at the time, but I can see why I loved it so much now. If you’re not familiar with the original “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” show, I understand. It was over twenty years ago, but I assure you it left enough impressions on the kids of the time to last just as long as it has, albeit in different versions. Personally I remember watching the first episode as it aired for the first time on Fox. It came on right after “X-Men” and I didn’t change the cassette fast enough to tape the entire episode. My brother was furious with me for at least a week.

Transdimensional being Zordon tasks his robotic servant, Alpha 5, to bring him five teenagers with attitude. Alpha is apparently smarter than Zordon, because he also found some with fighting skills. This group was really close knit during the first two seasons and even picked up a sixth member who started off as evil, became good, lost his powers, got new powers and then somehow became the leader. One of the more interesting things is the fact that they lost a few teammates. The circumstances were somewhat less than painful (they left to be ambassadors in Switzerland or something), but it was interesting to see replacements. Of course they had to go on the quest to transfer the powers, but whatever, it’s that kind of show.

This movie comes in around the beginning of the third season of the show. It continues where the show left off, but in the episodes after its release, it is revealed that the movie is not from the same timeline as the show. They receive special ninja powers in the movie, but the “Ninja Quest” storyline from the series shows them getting them in a different way. The biggest difference is in the villains. The show has Rito Revolto (villain Rita Repulsa’s brother), while the movie has the spectacular and unique Ivan Ooze.

Ivan Ooze is very possibly the best PR villain of all time (I’m not sure though, because I stopped watching when they started changing the theme every season). He has a much more interesting personality than Rita or the actually pretty scary looking Lord Zed. He also has much more tangible motivations and plans that actually work pretty well. He actually succeeds in murdering Zordon, regardless of whether or not the rangers bring him back. Ivan Ooze is by far the best part of this movie.

What’s crazy is the fact that the rangers actually killed him. I mean they killed monsters all the time in the show, but they never managed to permanently off any of the central villains. It would have been pretty cool for Ooze to somehow make his way back at some point. I think they switched themes too quickly for that to happen and like I said, according to the show, he never appeared. However, permanent character death does earn them some credibility with me. Ivan was just so much fun. He was so charismatic that Goldar and Mordant jumped ship and allied with him pretty fast, despite having been with Rita an Zed for years. Even his Ooze Men and Tengu (who he destroyed when they failed him) were far more dangerous than the Putty Patrol and their strange turkey noises.

The story here is actually kind of interesting. Ivan Ooze gets the people of Angel Grove to do his bidding and excavate his giant engines of destruction while the rangers are off finding a power to replace the ones he took from them. They manage to make it through the obstacles on the hostile planet and come back to defeat him and resurrect Zordon, but it was still a much better plan than anything that had come before. They even involve the kids from the fictional town and even Bulk and Skull pitching in to save the day. The threat is too big for the rangers to handle alone and the stakes are very high, so you actually feel invested in their success.

The biggest problem here is that the movie has not aged well at all. On a budget of $15 million, twenty years ago, they were working with some pretty state of the art stuff, but it looks very unsophisticated nowadays. The villains of the show were always in very crude costumes, but the movie went full CG for the Zords and the giant monster. It was a young technology at the time and it was bold for them to use, but it worked really well at the time. Unfortunately, it looks like complete crap in a time with movies like Avatar or any of the Marvel movies and video game characters that look like they can step out of your television and sit next to you.

I can excuse the dated effects and I can even excuse the extreme corniness, because it was meant for kids and I loved it when I was one oh so long ago. There are a few inconsistencies in the story though. The biggest I noticed was the repeated costumes. The fancy colorful ninja suits they wear on the planet Phaedos and the ranger colored sky diving suits at the beginning are a nice touch. They even greatly enhance the look of the power suits to match the more modern look of the movie.

The weird thing is the fact that they all receive new powers and new zords that represent their new animal powers, but their uniforms stay the same, minus the new animal emblems on their chests. When they were calling to their new zords, it was strange to see a white tiger on Tommy’s head while he was summoning a falcon. The same goes for the rest of the rangers. They could’ve changed the helmets to the new animals, but I suppose they were out of budget at that point. The whole killing Ivan Ooze with a meteor thing looked like it was pretty expensive. All things considered though, I’m glad I revisited this point in my childhood. I may have to actually dust off the old Sega Genesis and play the awesome side-scrolling beat-em-up game that followed the movie.

Jonathan Jones

Jonathan Thomas Jones is a speculative fiction author and founder of geekhavenreviews.com. He has been passionate about all things geek for his entire life. See more about him at jonathanthomasjones.com and follow him on twitter @jtgloryjones.