Review of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995) by Harry W — 14 Feb 2014

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was a TV show that I recently fell back into watching, because it was great fun for its camp value and its action. So a big budget film adaptation of the TV series sounded like something I could not miss.

By this point most of the cast have been replaced with the exceptions of David Yost and Amy Jo Johnson, so as a stronger fanatic of the season 1 cast I had slight disappointment. I particularly missed Thuy Trang because Trini Kwan was always the best Power Ranger, but at least David Yost was still there because The Blue Ranger comes second to the original Yellow Ranger. That is the only real flaw I found with the film apart from a few minor ones.

I suppose one other would be that it isn't too powerful at converting many people into being fans of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers if they didn't already like the series. I'm sure there would be a handful but there are no guarantees, because Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie doesn't trigger intelligent thoughts in the minds of the viewers, but rather allows them to kick back and enjoy some well meaning and unserious fun from the camp attitude of the show and the colourful childish qualities it has to entertain the juveniles and fans of the show. And also, as was the slight issue with the original series, when the characters are in costumes their physicality is out of tune with the audio dubbing of the voices.

And lastly, since the pace of the original TV show would be about cramming an entire story into a short period of about 22 minutes, viewers need to prepare for a slightly slower pace since the film is extended to 92 minutes.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie ensures that it stays true to the original series and makes a step up, because it maintains the same fun camp value that the TV series maintained but takes a step up in the visual effects and other visual elements. The costumes and makeup render the villains from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie to be very convincing, and the visual effects make it look all the more awesome and effective as a fun film. And the action sequences feature some excellently well choreographed fight scenes which are shot with great quality cinematography and edited impeccably to be fast paced but never too fast to enjoy. The sound effects are also great and tuned into the film at perfect moments, particularly in the awesome fight scenes, and the musical score is pretty effective too.

And the scenery that Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie is filmed on proves to be great and gives a good setting to the film which is convincing and entertaining.

Really, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie is simple cheap fun which should entertain fans of the Power Rangers universe and supply enough cheesy joy to people looking for camp fun. It's a fun low budget action venture, and all it does is try to be a good one. It succeeds at that and it entertains, so its arguably a great film.