Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (also known as Power Rangers: The Movie) is a 1995 American superhero film based on the television series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. It stars the ensemble cast of Connor McGovern, Johnny Yong Bosch, Steve Cardenas, Jason David Frank, Amy Jo Johnson, and David Yost alongside the villains cast from the original series and Paul Freemanas Ivan Ooze. Much like the television season that followed the release, it used concepts from the Japanese Super Sentai series Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, Gosei Sentai Dairanger and Ninja Sentai Kakuranger. It is the first Power Rangersproduction from Saban Entertainment not to feature any archived footage from Super Sentai.
Filming took place in and around Sydney and Queensland, Australia. It was released by 20th Century Fox on June 30, 1995. The film grossed $66.43 million worldwide,[3] but received middling and polarizing reviews from critics.
== Plot ==
The Power Rangers (Karan Ashley, Johnny Yong Bosch, Steve Cardenas, Jason David Frank, Amy Jo Johnson and David Yost) participate with Bulk (Paul Schrier) and Skull (Jason Narvy) in a charity skydive for the Angel Grove observatory, in anticipation of Ryan's Comet which is scheduled to pass by in two days.
Bulk and Skull miss the target landing zone and accidentally land in a construction site where a giant egg has been unearthed. Lord Zedd (Mark Ginther and voice of Robert Axelrod), Rita Repulsa (Julia Cortez and voice of Barbara Goodson), Goldar (Kerry Casey and voice of Kerrigan Mahan), and Mordant (Jean Paul Bell and voice of Martin G. Metcalf) arrive at the construction site and crack open the egg, releasing Ivan Ooze (Paul Freeman), a morphological being who ruled Earth with an iron fist 6,000 years ago before he was overthrown by Zordon (Nicholas Bell and voice of Robert L. Manahan) and a group of young warriors. The Rangers find and confront him, but Ivan unleashes some ooze monsters on them. While the Rangers battle and successfully defeat them, the fight distracts them long enough to allow Ivan to escape and he lays siege to the Rangers' Command Center and incapacitates Zordon, robbing the Rangers of their powers. As the Rangers return to the Command Center, they find it destroyed and Zordon dying.
Zordon's assistant Alpha 5 (Peta-Maree Rixon and voice of Richard Wood) sends the Rangers to the distant planet Phaedos to obtain the Great Power and save Zordon. On the Moon, Ivan usurps Rita and Zedd, trapping them in a snow globe, then sends his Tengu warriors to Phaedos and begins building an army. He uses children to bring his ooze to their parents, and it hypnotizes them into becoming his workforce to dig up his Ecto-Morphicon Titans, twin war machines built during his reign. When Fred Kelman (Jamie Croft), a friend of the Rangers', discovers his father missing, he finds him working at the construction site and discovers Ivan's plans.
On Phaedos, the Rangers are almost killed by the Tengu, but are rescued by Dulcea (Gabrielle Fitzpatrick), Phaedos' Master Warrior. She initially tells them to leave for their own safety, but after hearing of Zordon's plight, she agrees to help them and takes them to an ancient ruined temple where the Rangers will have to overcome obstacles to acquire the power of the Ninjetti. Dulcea awakens each Rangers' animal spirit: Aisha Campbell is the bear, Rocky DeSantos is the ape, Billy Cranston is the wolf, Kimberly Ann Hart is the crane, Adam Park is the frog and Tommy Oliver is the falcon. The Rangers make their way to the Monolith housing the Great Power, defeating its guardians, and retrieve the Great Power.
On Earth, Ivan's Ecto-Morphicons are completely unearthed, and he unleashes them on Angel Grove, ordering the parents to commit suicide at the construction site. Fred, Bulk, Skull and the other kids head to the construction site to save their parents. The Rangers return with their new animal-themed Ninja Zords and destroy one of Ivan's Ecto-Morphicons. Ivan takes control of the other and battles the Rangers himself. The Rangers lead Ivan into space right into the path of Ryan's Comet, which destroys him. His destruction breaks the hypnosis and the parents are reunited with their children. The Rangers then use the Great Power to restore the Command Center and resurrect Zordon.
In a mid-credits scene, Goldar briefly lounges in Zedd's throne being served by Mordant only to panic when Zedd and Rita appear having been released after Ivan was destroyed.
== Cast ==
* Karan Ashley as Aisha Campbell, The Yellow Ranger
* Johnny Yong Bosch as Adam Park, The Black Ranger
* Steve Cardenas as Rocky DeSantos, The Red Ranger
* Jason David Frank as Tommy Oliver, The White Ranger
* Amy Jo Johnson as Kimberly Hart, The Pink Ranger
* David Yost as Billy Cranston, The Blue Ranger
* Jason Narvy as Eugene "Skull" Skullovitch
* Paul Schrier as Farkas "Bulk" Bulkmeier
* Paul Freeman as Ivan Ooze
* Gabrielle Fitzpatrick as Dulcea
* Nicholas Bell as Zordon
* Peta-Maree Rixon as Alpha 5
* Jean Paul Bell as Mordant
* Kerry Casey as Goldar
* Mark Ginther as Lord Zedd
* Julia Cortez as Rita Repulsa
* Jamie Croft as Fred Kelman
* Paul Goddard and Robert Simper as Construction workers
=== Voices ===
* Kerrigan Mahan as Goldar
* Robert L. Manahan as Zordon
* Robert Axelrod as Lord Zedd
* Barbara Goodson as Rita Repulsa
* Richard Wood as Alpha 5
* Martin G. Metcalf as Mordant
== Music ==
See also: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie: Original Soundtrack Album and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie: Original Motion Picture Score
== Release ==
In its opening weekend, the film earned $13,104,788, coming in fourth behind Apollo 13 and holdovers Pocahontas, Batman Forever and Casper.[5] It ultimately grossed $66,433,194 against a $15 million budget, making it a financial success.[3]
=== Critical reception ===
The film holds a 40% "Rotten" rating with a 4.5 average score based on 35 reviews on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with the site's consensus saying, "For better and for worse -- too often the latter -- Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie captures the thoroughly strange aesthetic of the television series that inspired it".[6] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times thought it was characterized by "a barrage of spectacular special effects, a slew of fantastic monsters, a ferociously funny villain—and, most important, a refreshing lack of pretentiousness." Thomas lauded director Bryan Spicer for raising the quality of production values for a feature film adaptation of the TV series while maintaining a likable "comic-book look and sense of wonder" and wholesome high school characters parents would approve of.[7]
Caryn James of The New York Times thought that story-wise, it resembles multiple episodes of the television series stringed together with slightly better special effects, and that the result was loud, headache-inducing and boring for adults but that children would enjoy it. James further stated that too much of its running time is spent showing the Rangers without their powers.[8] Roger Ebertgave it only half a star out of a possible four stars, saying that it is "as close as you can get to absolute nothing and still have a product to project on the screen," comparing it to synthetic foods in brightly marketed packaging with no nutritional content. He felt that the characters, with the exception of Ivan Ooze, lacked personalities, and that the scenes of monsters rampaging through the city hearkened back to the worst Japanese monster films.[9] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle found the fights "only adequately choreographed," called the battle in the climax "a complete disaster" and stating that it made no sense in timing, that protagonists were not very intelligent, and the actors playing them unremarkable.[10]
== Home media ==
The film was released on VHS and LaserDisc in late 1995 and then as a double feature with 1997's Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie on a double-sided DVD in 2001 by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. Bonus features included a theatrical trailer and a "Making Of" featurette. The film was then released separately on a single-sided DVD in 2003.
The film was re-released with different packaging on DVD in 2011. The film was then re-released in 2017 in a bundled set with Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie(this time as two single-sided DVD discs) to coincide with the reboot film Power Rangers.
With the purchase of the film's original distributor Fox by Disney, the movie rights were later sold on. On May 9, 2018, it was announced that Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie would be released on Blu-ray for the first time by Shout! Factory as an extra disc included in their 25th anniversary DVD steelbookbox set of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers TV series.[11] Shout! Factory will release a standalone Blu-ray Disc on June 4, 2019.[12]
== Adaptations in other media ==
* Four different video game titles based on the film were released for the Super NES, Sega Genesis, Game Boy, and Game Gear.
* Marvel Comics released a comic book adaptation and a photo comic book adaptation of the film in September 1995. The comic book was printed with two different covers: one featuring fully morphed Rangers and the other featuring them in their Ninjetti uniforms.
==References==
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