One thing I've noticed when watching this movie again (caught it languishing on the sleepy annals of daytime TV) is that there is an overriding theme of anti-globalization. The whole mass manufacturing of the 'ooze' to brainwash the parents of Angelgrove, seems to be like some grotesque fast food enterprise. Is this the intelligent, political message we've all been trying to find in the movie? Well, hardly, as the whole Power Rangers franchise, in its day, was one of the most wealthiest and popular businesses, and it dominated the television and toy industries.
I remember I was seven years of age when the movie was released. However loathsome you may think of it now, when the movie was launched, prepubescents everywhere were celebrating. It was what the countless hordes of kiddies were waiting for. The irony is, is that I was among those ranks of enthusiasts, who believed that the Power Rangers vehicle was deified or something. But the real irony is that we were all brainwashed, as if we had guzzled our own healthy dosage of ooze. Oh, how naïve.
The script, is of course, utterly abysmal. The movie's entire dialogue seems to be a disgusting volley of clichès. Their purpose was probably to add a touch of humour, but their delivery were so unforgivably corny they were all swallowed by the audience (apart from those too young to know) like lead bullets. They are so dull I can't remember any. There is some unintentional laughs: when Tommy stops the monorail from plummeting from the tracks 'just in time'. Everyone knows that they'll be practically teetering on the edge before they are dramatically saved.
I remember I used to vehemently abhor Bulk and Skull, but now I actually feel sorry for them. They are a duet of desperate low-lives who just seem to get in the way, but we sort of sympathise with them, because they are just so inordinately hopeless.
It is true there is nothing beyond the hammy kung-pow karate theme, but the people who saw it in 1995 (exempting the submitting mothers who promised to send their kids to the cinema as long as they'd just shut up) weren't expecting a Sartre-style treatise on existentialism, but to consume more vacuous action from the Power Rangers. Naturally, its more of the same: its basically an episode agonisingly stretched to feature-length. To my juvenile anger, Lord Zed played a very small role in the movie's plot. Instead you have eccentric despot Ivan Ooze who had been 'woken' (as most movie horrors are resurrected) who does have a sort of shine about him, but he's still terribly drab in parts. You can imagine the parents raising a smile to a couple of his sardonic comments.
To be fair, the acting isn't totally irritating. The Power Rangers were marginally better than they were on the small screen, but for anyone watching the movie today, there is little to get excited about. They are predictable and so therefore of little interest. What I still find interesting today is the costumes, such as the dinosaur fighter statues that emerge from the rocks. They look like overgrown Henson puppets. And Ooze's cloak looks like its made from purple tin foil.
The effects were advanced for their day, I'll give them that. The whole plot is like one behemoth of a computer game, so without special effects, the movie would have been further flawed. But once again, they have painfully dated, and the scene where Ivan Ooze extends and morphs into one of his giant metal insects is hysterical.
Still, its the classic schmultzy 'and they all lived happily ever after' movie, and as long as you ignore the lukewarm script and just prepare yourself for a film that doesn't delve beneath the surface, you'll find it's an alright movie to watch, maybe once, with the children or the family. Its no Citizen Kane, but then what in today's film industry really is?
And no one can deny that the Power Rangers were something almost everybody raved over in the early nineties: they were at their popularity zenith when this film was released in 1995. It WAS a big part of many children's lives, who wished something exciting as this would happen in real life. And lets face it, for many children the watchful eye of the Power Rangers would be something comforting, a protection against the bleakness of the world. Shame it's just so awful today.
I remember I was seven years of age when the movie was released. However loathsome you may think of it now, when the movie was launched, prepubescents everywhere were celebrating. It was what the countless hordes of kiddies were waiting for. The irony is, is that I was among those ranks of enthusiasts, who believed that the Power Rangers vehicle was deified or something. But the real irony is that we were all brainwashed, as if we had guzzled our own healthy dosage of ooze. Oh, how naïve.
The script, is of course, utterly abysmal. The movie's entire dialogue seems to be a disgusting volley of clichès. Their purpose was probably to add a touch of humour, but their delivery were so unforgivably corny they were all swallowed by the audience (apart from those too young to know) like lead bullets. They are so dull I can't remember any. There is some unintentional laughs: when Tommy stops the monorail from plummeting from the tracks 'just in time'. Everyone knows that they'll be practically teetering on the edge before they are dramatically saved.
I remember I used to vehemently abhor Bulk and Skull, but now I actually feel sorry for them. They are a duet of desperate low-lives who just seem to get in the way, but we sort of sympathise with them, because they are just so inordinately hopeless.
It is true there is nothing beyond the hammy kung-pow karate theme, but the people who saw it in 1995 (exempting the submitting mothers who promised to send their kids to the cinema as long as they'd just shut up) weren't expecting a Sartre-style treatise on existentialism, but to consume more vacuous action from the Power Rangers. Naturally, its more of the same: its basically an episode agonisingly stretched to feature-length. To my juvenile anger, Lord Zed played a very small role in the movie's plot. Instead you have eccentric despot Ivan Ooze who had been 'woken' (as most movie horrors are resurrected) who does have a sort of shine about him, but he's still terribly drab in parts. You can imagine the parents raising a smile to a couple of his sardonic comments.
To be fair, the acting isn't totally irritating. The Power Rangers were marginally better than they were on the small screen, but for anyone watching the movie today, there is little to get excited about. They are predictable and so therefore of little interest. What I still find interesting today is the costumes, such as the dinosaur fighter statues that emerge from the rocks. They look like overgrown Henson puppets. And Ooze's cloak looks like its made from purple tin foil.
The effects were advanced for their day, I'll give them that. The whole plot is like one behemoth of a computer game, so without special effects, the movie would have been further flawed. But once again, they have painfully dated, and the scene where Ivan Ooze extends and morphs into one of his giant metal insects is hysterical.
Still, its the classic schmultzy 'and they all lived happily ever after' movie, and as long as you ignore the lukewarm script and just prepare yourself for a film that doesn't delve beneath the surface, you'll find it's an alright movie to watch, maybe once, with the children or the family. Its no Citizen Kane, but then what in today's film industry really is?
And no one can deny that the Power Rangers were something almost everybody raved over in the early nineties: they were at their popularity zenith when this film was released in 1995. It WAS a big part of many children's lives, who wished something exciting as this would happen in real life. And lets face it, for many children the watchful eye of the Power Rangers would be something comforting, a protection against the bleakness of the world. Shame it's just so awful today.