MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS (1995)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical*


Like many films built around continuing teleserials, the two POWER RANGERS movies always seem hard-pressed to put across why audiences should care about the characters or their situations.  The elements that usually seem to vanish from movie adaptations include (1) the ability to work well with an ensemble of characters (see also most of the STAR TREK feature-films), and (b) a strong central conflict.  In a serial television show, it's a given that every episode, whether directly linked or not, gives the viewer a cumulative sense of the characters' world.  Thus it doesn't matter so much to many viewers if a given episode sports a weak villain or central conflict; the teleseries' charm is its "continuing adventures."

The 1993-96 POWER RANGERS teleseries, which was the main influence on these two movies, had two things that lifted it above the ranks of the usual juvenile live-action cheese.  One element was contributed by the makers of SUPER SENTAI, the original Japanese series from which RANGERS was derived, for the design-work for the series' bizarre / goofy villains was far superior to similar work in American live-action juvenile TV entertainment. The other element was what the American producers brought to the table.  As most fans know, the American producers of POWER RANGERS edited out everything in SUPER SENTAI that denoted Japanese culture or the Japanese identities of the heroes and shot new scenes of the heroes' secret identities as potrayed by English-speaking actors.  I don't know to what extent SENTAI included scenes of the heroes' alter egos holding martial-arts battles with various villains' henchmen, but in any case the American version did a bang-up job in terms of choreographing the new fight-scenes, making them imaginative yet keeping the violence fairly "clean" and antiseptic (though the series was roundly criticized by parental-watch groups anyway).

The first film, whose full title is MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS: THE MOVIE, proves a lackluster take on the teleseries.  The Rangers barely get a chance to have a lackluster battle before their new nemesis "Ivan Ooze" deprives them of their powers and almost destroys their co-ordinator/mentor Zordon.  Zordon survives and sends the heroes on a quest to another planet to find new empowering weapons.  They find them, fight a few more demonic henchmen in an even more forgettable battle, return to Earth and kick Ooze's butt. The end.

Director Bryan Spicer can't do much with this lackluster script, produced by two guys with no previous association with the teleseries.  As the villain Paul Freeman is given numerous attempts to camp things up, possibly because the producers were just so thrilled to get the guy who played Indiana Jones' best villain.  Like the villains in the teleseries Ooze is meant to be slightly comic at times, but in contrast to the frustrated villains of the regular series, he lacks any particular charm or vocal peculiarity.  Said regulars, Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd, make a glorified cameo in the story, and outclass Ooze in terms of costumes alone.