Power Rangers

Today marks the 20^th anniversary of the Power Rangers, a show about five high school teenagers that become Power Rangers to save the world against the villains, Rita and Zed. I have to admit, I used to watch this show growing up in the 90s. It was my childhood escape, and I really did love it. However, after Wild Force, I lost interest and didn’t want to watch anymore of it, and I don’t get why this show is still airing. Maybe because the kid audiences for this show keeps growing, so there is no need to not take it off the air.

Now with the success of this show, two feature films were released, and boy were they bad. The first film, “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie,” was released in 1995. Before we get to this film, I would like to say that this film is in no way connected with the show. It is not a film that will introduce a new season, but just a standalone film. When the show first started, we had Austin St. John as the Red Ranger (Jason Lee Scott) Walter Emanuel Jones as the Black Ranger (Zack Taylor), and Thuy Trang as the Yellow Ranger (Trini Kwan). Now here’s something that I didn’t really pay attention to until years later. This show was racist. Why would you have a black boy as the Black Ranger, and an Asian girl as the Yellow Ranger? I’m surprised there were no lawsuits filed against them. However, in the second season, these three were replaced with Steve Cardenas, who played Rocky DeSantos, Johnny Yong Bosch, who played Adam Park, and Karan Ashley, who played Aisha Campbell. I heard a lot of speculations that there was a money issue, but who knows?

Now back to the movie. I have to say that this film is really bad. Sure all the rangers are there, Cardenas, Bosch, Ashley, Amy Jo Johnson, Jason David Frank, and David Yost, but that won’t save the film. Paul Schrier and Jason Narvy are also in this film as the bullies, Bulk and Skull. Come to think of it, what kind of threatening bully names are those? They sound like pirate names. Also, if they hate the Power Rangers so much, why do they keep hanging out with them? Maybe because they are the lamest bullies you will ever see. Instead of seeing what kind of trouble Rita, played by Julia Cortez (but voiced by Barbara Goodson), and Zed, played by Mark Ginther (voiced by Robert Axelrod), are doing, they instead decide to go skydiving for a charity drive, and rollerblading. Next thing you know, their leader, Zordon, played by Nicholas Bell (voiced by Robert L. Manahan), contacts the Rangers to tell them that an egg that construction workers dug up that has a sinister shape shifter named Ivan Ooze, played by Paul Freeman, has been found. Zordon explains that he tricked Ooze by trapping him into that egg to prevent him from taking over the universe.

Unfortunately they can’t retrieve the egg in time, as Rita, Zed, and their henchmen, Goldar, played by Kerry Casey (voiced by Kerrigan Mahan), and Mordant, played by Jean Paul Bell, find it. Ooze traps Rita and Zed in a snow globe and, while the Rangers are fighting, comes to the Command Center and destroys Zordon for missing on all the years of torture. It’s kind of funny when Ooze mentions, “The Brady Bunch reunion.” When the Rangers arrive, Kimberly, the Pink Ranger, played by Johnson, says to Zordon that he can't die since he has been like a father figure to them. Where are your parents? Do you not have any parents? If not, is that the reason why you look at Zordon as your father figure? If you do, do they not know anything about what you are doing? Also, Tommy, the White Ranger, played by Frank, says, “We may not have our powers, but we’re still the Power Rangers.” How? Being a Power Ranger means you have to have some sort of Power.

Anyways, the Rangers can’t morph, so Zordon’s assistant, Alpha, played by Peta-Maree Rixon (voiced by Richard Wood), sends them to the planet Phaedos in order to save Zordon and help fight Ooze, who has mind controlled all of the parents. There they meet Dulcea, who I think is an Amazon, played by Gabrielle Fitzpatrick, who shows them how to gain the power of the Ninja Rangers.

My main problem with this film is those awful one-liners they say before they start fighting. One is when Tommy says, “Welcome to my nightmare.” THAT WAS FREDDY KRUEGAR’S LINE; YOU DON’T HAVE COPYRIGHT ON THAT CATCHPHRASE!!! Also, when Rocky has a pale on his foot, he says, “Let’s play kick the can.” That will kill you instantly. Also, unlike the show, which had stock footage, the film instead relies on bad CGI, which sucks. So don’t watch this film.

You would believe that they would have learned from this film, after seeing how bad it was, and wouldn't make another one. Sadly, in 1997, they made a horrendous piece of garbage sequel called “Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie.” This film serves as a gap between “Power Rangers Zeo” and “Power Rangers Turbo.” Like the animated Transformers movie, this film introduced the new series. Now if you remember, Amy Jo Johnson left the series midway through season 3 of "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" so she could pursue other projects. Enter Katherine Hillard as the new Pink Ranger, Catherine Sutherland. Also, around the time of "Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers," Karan Ashley left because like Amy Jo Johnson, she was to be given an exciting story arc but "following time off while her character was reduced to a child for some time in the third season, she would find that she was not asked to return to the set, the official reason given was that her character's recovery would not require her to appear on screen." (Wikipedia) It was also because of the demanding hours that she left. This is the third time they had to replace the Yellow Ranger, which is ridiculous. Now, we have Nakia Burrise, who plays Tanya Sloan, and she stayed until Power Rangers Zeo, so she is in the movie. Finally, David Yost is no longer seen after Zeo. Since he couldn't be one of the Power Rangers during that season, he stayed in the Command Center as the Q for the Rangers. Afterwards, he left the show because of "repeated and ongoing homophobic slurs by the creators, producers, directors, and writers of the series, hence his lack of appearance in them; shortly after, however, producer Scott Page-Pagter denied these allegations and said Yost left over a salary dispute and got along with no one in the crew." (Wikipedia) Yes, you heard right, Yost is gay. He was the last original Power Ranger to leave, however Jason had returned as the Gold Ranger for 17 episodes, but left again.

The villainess in this film is Divatox, played by Hilary Shepard Turner. I know what you’re thinking: that name sounds like a disease that a diva would catch. Well, I do have to admit, she does look and acts very much like a prostitute. Then there are moments where she pouts like a spoiled little brat, and she can act juvenile as well. She wants to get married to a lava creature known as Maligore. Don’t you find it strange that a human character wants to get married to a lava beast? In order to do this, she has to use a wizard named Lerigot, played by Jon Simanton, who looks like a bad Warwick Davis’s Willow puppet. He transports to Africa, where he is weakened by the ultraviolet rays of the sun, and Cat and Jason go find him and bring him back to the Command Center.

Adam, Rocky, and Tommy are training for the upcoming martial arts tournament, but Rocky hurts his back by performing some sort of roundhouse kick and lands on the floor. How was he able to throw himself over the ring when he didn’t jump that high? And later on because he can’t join the other Power Rangers, they instead make a 12-year-old boy named Justin, played by Blake Foster, the Blue Turbo Ranger? And how can he miraculously get taller when he’s in the Ranger suit? AND HOW COME IN THIS FILM ZORDON’S LIPS DON’T MOVE!?!?!? In the previous movie, they had his lips move, but he was out of sync. In this one, they downgraded him and his lips aren’t even moving.

Another moment I don’t get is when Cat falls off of the cliff, she morphs into her Pink Zeo Ranger, but apparently, when she is morphing, she falls in the water and her morphing stops. ARE YOU SAYING THEIR MORPHING ISN’T WATERPROOF YOU MORONS!?!?!?!? THAT MAKES NO SENSE!!!! AND THEY DON’T MORPH AT ALL IN THIS FILM!!! Oh sure, they do morph 35 minutes in when they first become the Turbo Rangers, BUT THEY IMMEDIATELY CHANGE BACK!!!! IT’S CALLED “A POWER RANGERS MOVIE” FOR A REASON YOU NUMBSKULLS!!! WHY WOULD YOU PUT THAT IN THE TITLE WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE THEM MORPH INTO THE POWER RANGERS!?!?!? Oh, they do eventually morph, like 75 MINUTES IN!!!

Divatox captures Bulk and Skull, who are not even worthy of being kidnapped, but who cares about them anyway? Then we get a pleasant surprise from Jason and Kimberly, and they get kidnapped. They try to do the exchange with Lerigot for Kimberly and Jason, but it ends up being a trick. When they get possessed, Kimberly does look very attractive. Especially when she says, “Friends?” and laughs like Pattie and Selma from “The Simpsons.” Also, Rita and Zed make a brief cameo when Divatox calls them on how to stop the Power Rangers.

Bottom line: these film adaptations of the Power Rangers blow. They are just god-awful, make no sense, and thankfully they never made another Power Rangers movie in almost 20 years. But to be fair, this was my childhood escape. I had gotten into this show a lot, and in all honesty, a lot of the film adaptations of very famous cartoons are not all good. Whether it is Transformers, G.I. Joe, Ninja Turtles, He-Man, Alvin & the Chipmunks, or even The Smurfs, it may have been stupid, but think fondly of those years when you used to watch those shows. Anyways, Happy Anniversary Power Rangers! You may be a campy, silly show, but you must be doing something right after being around all this time.

Thanks for reading this review everyone. Stay tuned for more of my reviews coming soon.