For some, Halloween is a time for monsters and horror, but for others it’s a time for costumed heroics; that was the case this week when Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995) was selected for movie club. And who says Power Rangers don’t have a Halloween vibe? They’re right at home in a Spirit Halloween store! When the evil Ivan Ooze tries to take over the world, only one super hero team can leap into their Megazord to save the day: the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers! Do the legendary heroes of 1995 still stack up today? Read on to find out!

The following contains spoilers for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995)
Up front, I should say I have almost zero nostalgia for the Power Rangers. I have hazy memories of playing in cheap Halloween costumes when I was very small (I liked it because my brother did), but it’s a series that just sort of missed me growing up. When I watch Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, I feel I can only really appreciate it on a production and performance level. That said, it can’t be denied that Power Rangers was a huge franchise, and an icon of many childhoods in the 90’s. There’s clearly a lot of context I lack, which, luckily some members of the club were able to offer some insight on during our watch. I understand that Tommy, the White Ranger, was formerly the Red Ranger, but whatever drama may have fallen out as a result of that seems to be confined to the TV show.

Villainous regulars Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd awaken an ancient evil, Ivan Ooze, who quickly overpowers and eclipses them in their quest for world domination. The Power Rangers confront Ivan, but his seemingly endless tide of ooze-warriors is too much for them, and he lays waste to the Rangers’ command center, dealing a near-fatal blow to Zordon, the famous Oz-like head-in-a-tube who directs the Rangers for most of the series. Alpha 5, a clerical robot voiced by Richard Horvitz states that Zordon is dying, and that the Rangers will need to discover a new power if they have any hope of defeating Ivan Ooze and saving the world, let alone their friend. The robot musters just enough energy for a one-way trip, transporting the Rangers to a distant land where they can discover this new power.

Ivan Ooze traps Rita and Lord Zedd in a snow globe, and coerces Goldar and the other mooks to be the goons for his plot. After sending a murder of tengu warriors to chase after the Rangers, Ivan dresses as a wizard and goes into town to sell his ooze to children so he can brainwash their parents to help him unearth the giant robots he left parked inside the planet (no, you read that sentence correctly). Meanwhile, the six Rangers meet a mysterious woman named Dulcea, who guides them to their animal spirits. Each Ranger gets a new outfit, a new Zord, and, for a good three to four minute transformation sequence, it is painfully clear that this media was created to sell toys. There’s a fight with the tengu warriors, and the Power Rangers return to earth, just in time for Ivan to finish fueling up his two giant robots with ooze.

The Rangers fight both of Ivan’s mechs in their independent animal Zords, and after a difficult struggle manage to defeat one of them. Ivan assumes direct control of his remaining mech, and the Power Rangers combine, forming their new ninja Megazord. The Rangers take the fight to space, and, after fighting for a bit longer, manage to defeat Ivan Ooze by knocking him into the path of a comet. The Rangers return home to their headquarters, where they find Zordon has died, but using their new ninja powers, they magically restore the command station, and resurrect their leader. Outside, the Power Rangers are celebrated by the world as heroes.

If it isn’t obvious from my summary, I don’t feel there is much to appreciate about the plot here, as an outsider. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie is the feature-length installment of a serialized children’s show, a la Pokémon: The First Movie; it’s a product designed to sell toys and refresh a catalogue, and this movie doesn’t spend enough time with its characters to make me think otherwise. The Rangers are almost one monolithic character, but they’re six toys, you see, and each one gets a new robot. It isn’t constructive to dwell on that though; this story probably is someone’s jam, but as it stands this doesn’t feel like a stand-alone outing; I felt I needed to have come as an initiated Ranger if I wanted to fully connect with it. Similarly, the fight choreography was totally lacking. Most fights involved two rangers staving off two to four attackers while the other four scrambled to high ground so they could leap down on top of their enemies. It’s like watching someone play Batman: Arkham Asylum with only takedown techniques; it’s exciting at first, but it stops being impressive after the second time.

That doesn’t mean, however, that I didn’t have any fun watching this movie. On the contrary, the actors seemed to relish the campiness of the costumes and the silliness of the situations; Paul Freeman’s Ivan Ooze dressed as a wizard to appeal to the children is a hilarious performance both in and out of context, and the prop department must have had some fun making props like the ooze bottles and the snow globe prison, in addition to the Power Rangers’ gear. The practical effects were particularly impressive, and although some of the CGI has aged poorly, some of the effects surprisingly held up; many of the Rangers’ teleportation effects are hand drawn animation that still look pretty good, ooze warriors exploded into piles of purple slime upon impact, and the second act featured a fight with a large dinosaur skeleton that had me impressed with both the puppeteering and the quality of the puppet.

I would be remiss in my movie trivia as an anime fan if I didn’t call out the anime history adjacent to this movie. Of course, the Power Rangers are an adaptation of Japan’s sentai genre, but beyond that, this movie was produced as a coproduction between Toei Co Ltd., the parent of Toei Animation of One Piece, and Dragon Ball Super fame, and Saban Entertainment, known for the English localization of the Digimon anime. Johnny Yong Bosch, the Black Ranger, is a musician and prolific anime voice actor (Bleach, Trigun, One Piece), and behind the scenes scuttlebutt tells us that he was responsible for the joke in the film about being unhappy with his spirit animal (I guess they aren’t so combat focused, but come on frogs are cool!).

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie was fun with friends, but it doesn’t surprise me that it wasn’t critically well received in its day, and it doesn’t stand any stronger with over 25 years of age. The plot is a slog, and the characters are flat. If nothing else, the miniatures and effects are well made and fun to see, but “how did they make this” features like that aren’t going to be enough to carry the average audience member’s interest through to the end. If you’re a true-blue Ranger, this movie might satisfy, but most viewers will find themselves wishing they had heeded the warnings on Ivan’s Ooze bottles.