Filming took place in and around Bombo Quarry, Sydney, and Queensland in Australia.[4] This film was released June 30, 1995 and grossed $66.43 million worldwide,[3] but received mixed reviews from critics. The critics praised its action sequences and performances, but felt that the film was nothing more than a longer episode of the series with better special effects, pointing to the plot and screenplay as the main faults.
Plot
The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers participate with Bulk and Skull 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 at a construction site where a giant purple egg has been unearthed. Zordon then summons the Rangers, and tells them of Ivan Ooze, an evil morphological being who ruled Earth 6,000 years ago, before he was lured into a hyper-lock chamber and buried deep underground by Zordon and a group of young warriors. Zordon sends the Rangers to the construction site to return the egg to its chamber, before it is opened. However, Lord Zedd, Rita Repulsa, Goldar and Mordant arrive at the construction site first, and crack open the egg, releasing Ivan Ooze. The Rangers confront Ivan, who unleashes Oozemen on them. While the Rangers defeat the Oozemen, Ivan escapes and lays siege to the Command Center, incapacitating Zordon, and robbing the Rangers of their powers. At the destroyed Command Center, Zordon, being outside his time warp, starts aging and dying.
Zordon's assistant Alpha 5 sends the Rangers on a quest to the planet Phaedos to obtain the Great Power and save Zordon. On the Moon, Rita is initially dismayed that the Rangers escaped Ivan unharmed. However, Ivan usurps her and Zedd, shrinking and trapping them in a snow globe, and forces Goldar and Mordant to be his servants. He 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-Morphicons, twin war machines built during his reign. After finding his father working at the construction site, Fred Kelman, a friend of the Rangers, figures out Ivan's plans.
On Phaedos, the Rangers are almost killed by the Tengu but are rescued by Dulcea, the planet's Master Warrior. Dulcea initially tells the Rangers to leave for their safety, but after hearing of Zordon's plight, she agrees to help and takes them to an ancient temple where they will have to overcome obstacles to acquire the power of the Ninjetti. Dulcea awakens each Rangers' animal spirit; Aisha is the bear, Rocky is the ape, Billy is the wolf, Kimberly is the crane, Adam is the frog, and Tommy is the falcon. Upon being asked if she could join them, Dulcea reveals that she would begin to age as rapidly as Zordon is if she leaves the temple. She then shapeshifts into an owl to preserve her age. The Rangers make their way to the Monolith housing the Great Power, using their wits to defeat a live fossilized dinosaur skeleton and the temple's Stone Gargoyle guardians. They retrieve the Great Power, restoring their Ranger suits.
On Earth, Ivan's Ecto-Morphicons are completely unearthed, and he unleashes them on Angel Grove, ordering the parents to walk off a cliff at the construction site. Fred recruits Bulk, Skull, and the other kids, who head to the construction site to save their parents. The Rangers return with their new animal-themed Ninja Zords and, after a struggle, destroy one of Ivan's Ecto-Morphicons, Scorpitron. Ivan takes control of Hornitor and battles the Rangers, who combine their Zords to form the Ninja Megazord and later the Ninja Mega Falconzord. Meanwhile, the kids push the parents back while Fred, with help from Bulk and Skull, sprays them with water. The Rangers lure Ivan into space and knock him into the path of Ryan's Comet, which destroys him. Ivan's death breaks his spell on the parents, who are reunited with their children. At the Command Center, the Rangers are distraught to find Zordon has died. Without giving up hope, they use the Great Power to restore the Command Center and resurrect Zordon, returning him to his time warp. Everything returns to normal as a celebration is held at Angel Grove's Harbor in honor of the Power Rangers.
In a mid-credits scene, Goldar lounges on Zedd's throne, being served by Mordant, only to panic when Zedd and Rita appear, having been released after Ivan's death.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie: Original Soundtrack Album is the licensed soundtrack to the film. It was released by Fox Records and Saban Records on June 8, 1995, on Audio CD and Compact Cassette.[6]
Despite several of the songs heard in the movie being well known and older, the album featured the highest profile musical talent the series had been associated with up until that point. The music of Van Halen, They Might Be Giants, Devo, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Roxette, Dan Hartman, and Buckethead was used throughout the film. The single released to promote the soundtrack was Shampoo's Trouble, although the commercials for the film used both this and Snap's hit "The Power".
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie: Original Motion Picture Score is the soundtrack of the score to the movie, released by Varèse Sarabande on June 6, 1995, on Audio CD and Compact Cassette. This release features most of the film score by composer Graeme Revell, except for the track called Firebird which he performed along with guitarists Carl Verheyen and Buckethead; this was included in the film's previous soundtrack. The score was performed by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra with orchestrator Tim Simonec conducting.
Family entertainment center chain Discovery Zone promoted the release of the film by giving away Power Rangers Wrist Activators (with 33 messages) to customers who bought a Discovery Zone Summer Power Pass. Discovery Zone also gave away one of six Power Rangers Movie Challenge cards for free during each visit. This promotion lasted the entire summer.[8]
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.
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 steelbook box set of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers TV series.[9] Shout! Factory released a stand-alone Blu-ray Disc on June 4, 2019.[10]
Reception
Box office
In its opening weekend, the film earned $17 million, coming in fourth behind Apollo 13, Pocahontas, and Batman Forever.[11] It ultimately grossed $66.4 million against a $15 million budget,[citation needed] making it a financial success.[3]
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 32% of 37 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 4.4/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "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."[12]Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 40 out of 100, based on reviews from 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[13] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.[14]
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.[15]
Caryn James of The New York Times thought that story-wise, it resembles multiple episodes of the television series strung 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.[16]Roger Ebert gave 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 ("curious that, 6 thousand years ago, he would have had an English name"), lacked personalities, and that the scenes of monsters rampaging through the city hearkened back to the worst Japanese monster films.[17] 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.[18]
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.
