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‘Tis the Season

I don’t think you’re merry enough. I’ll TEACH you to be Merry. I’ll teach your grandmother to suck eggs!

Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers presents

I’m Dreaming of a White Ranger

We open at Ernies Juice Bar and Gym, with a great many precocious children alternatively singing Christmas carols and Hanukkah songs, even School Bullies-turned-Civic Defenders, Bulk and Skull have shown up to play Santa for the wee chill’rens and it’s all as merry as HELL, except for the one sad little girl who has nothing to be happy about because her father is working on Christmas and nothing, not even topping the official Juice-Bar Christmas Tree can snap her out of her funk. It’s as tragic as the dickens, and a tragedy that Pink Ranger Kimberly can relate to, since her parents are also out of the country in Paris or some such.

But having the WORST TIME of all on this Christmas Eve is Lord Zedd, within his evil Moon Base. But unlike SAD CHILD and the Pink Ranger, Lord Zedd is planning on DOING something about his holiday blues; specifically, he is going to STEAL CHRISTMAS!

“This year, I am going to take over Santas workshop and force those good-for-nothing elves to make some REAL toys” he snarls, producing an evil hypnotic Dreidel.

Less then five minutes in and we have a Best Line of Dialogue.

Zedd sendsRitas Evil Skeleton Brother, Rito to the North Pole to begin Ruining Christmas.

“Next year, Santa, you won’t have to check your list even once, because all the worlds children will be naughty!” Zedd laughs, dramatically.

At the North Pole, some of the Elves are worried that they’re a little behind schedule when there is a tap-tap-tapping on the door and in walks an evil Skeleton with a Laser Sword whose introductions are interupted by Santa;

“I know who YOU are, Rito Revolto, you’ve been a very Naughty boy this year!”

The Elves and Santa are initially reluctant to build evil mind-control toys to distribute to children all over the world, but it turns out that when you’re an evil skeleton with a laser sword, it’s really easy to coerce people.

Zordon catches wind of a threat to Santas livliehood and summons the Power Rangers to the Command Center, which gives them a chance to ditch SAD LITTLE GIRL who is still whining about her dad working on Christmas. The Rangers teleport to the Command Center and Zodorn gives them the skinny in the most expediant way possible;

“Rito has taken over the North Pole, he’s captured Santa and is forcing the elves to Mass-Produce Lord Zedds Evil Christmas Toys”

Oh… my God… that is the best line of dialogue ever written. Or it would have been if it wasn’t followed up by this;

“Because of a combination of the North Poles unique polarity and a cross-current of Holiday Magic, you’re Morphing Powers will not work.”

Tommy is unwavering in his conviction to Save Christmas;

“That’s a chance we’ll have to take. Santa is way too important. We have to save him!”

The Rangers are then teleported to the North Pole where it’s… presumably less cold then you might expect, since nobody really takes the time to put on a coat or anything, and see the terrible state of Santas Workshop;

Ritos minions are all forcing the elves to build the Evil Toys while Santa is tied up in boughs of holly and being smacked with a Nerf Bat every time the Elves slow down production.

Upon seeing that the Rangers are involved now, Zedd sends down Goldar to help Ritos Evil Christmas Plan. Because Goldar is not a known dangerous adversary who has been pretty soundly beaten an average of once every episode up to this point, so he would certainly be an asset in a battle with a comic-relief villain.

The Rangers formulate a plan that if Christmas Magic is interfering with their powers, that, logically, it stop Rito from being able to do anything either; their plan works when, after goading Rito outside of Santas Workshop, he utterly fails to shoot any lasers at them.

The Rangers defeat Rito and Goldar by chucking a lot of snowballs at them while the Evles, free of their skeleton overseer take back the Toyshop with Home Alone style traps and tricks, freeing Santa, and destroying all of the Evil Toys. Elliciting a heartfelt “Bah! Humbug!” from Lord Zedd.

It’s… not really the most noble defeat they’ve ever had.

Back at the North Pole, the Rangers help to repair all the damage that Zedds minions, and refill Santas Sleigh with Good Toys;

“I never would have Saved Christmas without the help of the Power Rangers” Santa says, handing over a special sack full of toys for the Sad Children at Ernies Juice Bar.

Santa also makes a special delivery to the moon where he gives Zedd back all the Evil Toys, Rito and Goldar exchange gifts for their Secret Santa exchange, and Zedd grumbles that “Christmas gives me the willies”

Back at the Juice Bar, Sad Little Girls father showed up after all for some reason. Maybe he got fired or Santa Magic or something? I don’t know. He asked her to buy him some Hot chocolate, so probably the former. Also, Kimberlys parents showed up despite being in Paris so… that’s even more confusing?

Then Sad Little Girl (did she ever get named?) and the other Non-Specifically Sad Children all gather round to sing Silent Night.

And THATS how you save Christmas without a Megazord.

Smiling Stans Favorite Son

SWARM!
Written by Dennis Marks

In which the Spider-Friends do not battle the actual Spider-man villain named, Swarm, because an Evil Nazi Scientist made out of Evil Nazi Bees would be straining credibility, even by this shows standards.

The episode opens with Stan “The Man” Lee narrating about how cool outer space is! HELL YES! This is already my favorite episode! While The Smilin’ Man is going on and on about how Outer Space is both COOL AS HELL and full of Incomprehensible Evil, a meteor that the camera is tracking crashes into a farmyard. A farm, that borders the observatory where the Spider-Friends are on a College-approved Field Trip, no less, under the keen tutelage of some Sciencey-joe named Professor Wells.

The rest of Peteres classmates are pretty non-plussed since the meteor hasn’t landed to anywhere within miles of anything, but Firestar opts to change into her costume and save the day from the peril of her not setting anything on fire within the first three minutes of airtime.

She warns a plane away from the impact zone of the meteor by flying up to the pilots and waving them away (the pilots are pretty non-plussed by this, but considering how Firestar is saving a plane this way an average of once an episode, I guess it’s standard training procedure.) and she gets a face full of meteor for her trouble.

At the impact zone, the meteor has hatched into a blue gas that hypnotizes bees from miles around that all join together into a giant Man Made out Of Bees that starts yelling “SWARM!”. This is FAR less silly then the comics version of Swarm.

Upon seeing a ten-foot tall man-shaped Bee swarm rise out of a meteor containing an unearthly glow, the Farmer who owns the land throws his pitch fork at Swarm and yells “Get your Bees out of here, Mister!”. Which works every bit as well as you might expect. Swarm shoots eye-beams at the farmer who promptly turns into a giant bee-man, then shoots eyebeams at the bee-hive that originally spawned Swarm and made it grow huge.

Seeing Swarm appear, then turning a farmer into a Bee-Man, then turning a Bee-Hive into a building while laughing evilly was all the convincing that Firestar needed that she has a supervillain to fight, so, expectedly, she tries to set Swarm on fire. Unexpectedly this plan totally fails and Swarm overpowers her, and she returns to the Observatory knowing that she doesn’t have a chance against Swarm on her own, she’ll need help from Spider-Man and Iceman.

Which I believe qualifies as being this episodes single dumbest decision from any given Spider-Friend, but I digress.

Back at the Observatory, Peter is using his webshooters to screw with Flash Thompson, and, upon hearing that trouble is afoot, he immediately runs home. Iceman was napping.

Since Firestar put more emphasis on finding her useless, useless team mates then warning anybody, at all, about the whole alien bee-monster thing, the rest of their classmates immediately head to the Meteor where Swarm wastes no time in turning the entire class into more Bee-People.

Firestar shows up again to take another shot at fighting Swarm on her own and, again, her fire atttacks prove to be totally ineffective against the bugs. Thus proving Pokemon wrong. Despite the fact that it was winning handily, Swarm decides to call in reinforcements out of regular, common bees. He shoots eye-lasers at the bees which causes them all to grow Gigantic, and Swarm then sends all the Now Giant bees out to kidnap everyone in New York and turn them into YET MORE Bee-people.

Spidey and Iceman fight off a couple of bees before making theirt way to Swarm. Swarm asks that the Spider-Friends join his Hive and let it grow to consume the planet, and SPidey shoots back that Human Beings have individual minds, not like Insects, and Swarm and the Bee-people all start shooting eyelasers at him. Possibly because that was pretty racist from a Space-Bee standpoint.

Anyway, Firestar and Iceman both get hit right away and turn into Bee People (and also adding flight and Bee-centric Eye-lasers to their existing power sets) but Spider-Man does not, because he already has bug-based superpowers. Really, that’s the explanation given. Spider trumps bee.

Realizing that now the entire world is counting on him to save the day, Spider-Man immediately steals a car and runs away, rationalizing that Swarm must be radioactive, and that if he can shield the radioactivity away from him, then everyone will stop being Bees.

Spidey drives to the University Physics Lab to get some Lab but, because he did not bother to STOP driving his stolen car when he go to the building, instead opting to drive THROUGH the hall, he immediately loses control and drives out through the window, where the stolen car crashes into a flaming wreck in the middle of the football field.

Spider-Man is a hero, and he will save us all.

Spidey escapes the flaming wreck and tricks Firestar and Iceman into following him into a lead-lined room and, against all odds, his “I bet Lead cures Space-Bees!” plan works and they go back to being human. Well, Mutant. Whatever.

Back at the Hive, which has now grown to dwarf most of the surrounding area, the Spider-Friends concoct a plan of wearing contact lenses and fake antenna to disguise the fact that they are NOT bee-people any more so they can sneak into the impact site and steal the meteor that created Swarm. This plan works perfectly despite the fact that Spidey wasn’t wearing wings as part of his disguise and he wasn’t chanting Swarms name.

Firestar takes the Meteor back to the observatory while Spidey and Iceman fight Swarm. A fight which consists of them running away and leading Swarm and his… swarm directly to that same observatory. Not without Iceman knocking down a wall for no reason first.

Firestar has loaded the meteor into a rocket that the observatory has for some reason and, after starting a brushfire to distract Swarm, shoots it back into outer space.

With the meteor back in outer space, the energy holding Swarm together dissipates and he resumes just being regular bees, the Hive shrinks back down to being bee-hize sized and all the Bee-People go back to being regular people.

And so, everyone is happy. Except the guy whose car Spider-Man stole and wrecked. And whoever owned the observatory which was demolished by space-Bees and set on fire.

Join us next time as we see a veritable WHO’S WHO of Marvel super heroes.

Movie Time

Okay, I had no idea this movie even existed until it showed up as a Recommended For Your Youtube clip after watching, the Sonic CD opening. But it is real and I spent 54 minutes of a finite lifetime confirming that;

I watched… Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie. Which you can watch here if you feel so inclined. You should perhaps not feel so inclined.

And it coming up as a rec after watching the Sonic CD opening shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the whole movie feels like that two minute video stretched out to fill a 55 minute OAV. Several sequences are carried over almost directly and I’m fairly certain the same animation studio worked on both, too. So, to it’s credit, the movie does at least look pretty good. And I am now out of compliments.

The movie opens at Sonic the Hedgehogs house. As most True Fans know, Sonic the Hedgehog lives on a the beach of a floating island, in a crashed airplane overgrown with vines. And, furthermore, the voice direction chosen for him can be summarized as “What if Frieza was a teenager”. Tails, for his part, sounds almost exactly like Chucky from Rugrats. And Sonics day of fun in the sun is interrupted by The Old Man.

The Old Man is an Owl. Everybody knows him on sight, and are tired of his antics, but nobody ever bothered to learn his name. Or else he is actually named “The Old Man”. And The Old Man has an important message for Sonic the Hedgehog that comes right from the President himself! They have to meet at The Presidents House!

I don’t actually know if he’s talking about the place where the President lives when he isn’t President-ing, or if he means the White House or what. But Sonic isn’t Way Past Cool enough to thumb his nose at civil pride, so he heads off to the Presidents House. Which is also on a floating island. And he finds when he gets there that The President is being held hostage by Dr. Robotnik! And so has his Sexy Catgirl daughter, Sarah!

I genuinely don’t know if The Old Man was aware of this fact or not. In fact, even the hostage taking seems pretty pointless since Robotnik needed to talk to Sonic on a matter of great urgency.

“As you know, The Freedom Planet is made up of two separate dimensions; the outer dimension are the floating islands we all live on in the sky. The inner dimension is a world of Darkness, there I lived peacefully in a city I called Robotroplis, until the evil Metal Robotnik appeared and attacked my peaceful city with demonic robots!”

This movie plays extremely fast and loose with Sonic canon.

Sonic isn’t terribly concerned that Robotnik has been kicked out of his home, even when Robotnik reveals that his giant robot doppelganger has turned his robot factory engine to full power and it will soon explode and crack the planet in half (to be fair, Sonics planet seems to get cracked apart a lot and it never does any lasting damage), but he relents when Sarah asks him to save the planet seductively, adding she really doesn’t care about what happens to Robotniks city or her father.

Sarah is kind of a sociopath.

And so, with the promise of sexy catgirl-smooches in the future, Sonic and Tails head off to the World of Darkness (actually a pretty nice place. Not even overcast) and outrun all the traps and Badniks patrolling around. Meanwhile, Sarah and Robotnik decide to kill time at the Oval Office by playing Sonic the Fighters. She throws a tantrum when she loses and demands to leave. And, conveniently, a giant robot busts down the wall and she climbs inside it, along with Robotnik.

Back in the World of Darkness, Sonic and Tails encounter Metal Robotnik when they wander into a derelict city. Because it turns out that The Freedom Planet is a post-apocalyptic Earth (?!?!?), and the next ten or so minutes are focus on this fight scene. Metal Robotnik looking kind of like a giant version of one of the Hardboiled robots from Sonic Mania.

Metal Robotnik has Sonic and Tails on the ropes when Knuckles shows up right the crap out of nowhere and helps Sonic defeat him by kicking him very hard (as you’d expect a guy named Knuckles, with big, spiked fists, to do). Knuckles, incidentally, sounds almost exactly like Sonic the Hedgehog normally does so this lead to some real cognitive dissonance.

Anyway, Knuckles briefly considers leaving once Metal Robotnik is defeated so he can go loot the ruins of the city, stating “”I’m going back to treasure hunting! As you know, treasure hunting is my #1 favorite Pastime” and then he continues following Sonic and Tails anyway, presumably because this movies script only had the one draft.

They reach the heart of the factory and disable it with a minimum of fuss, except that UH OH Robotnik was lying all along! Not about the reactor being ready to explode and take out half the planet, just about everything else. Turns out that Metal Robotnik was just a mecha-suit that Robotnik and Sarah were piloting (it is NEVER clear how much knowledge of Robotniks plans Sarah is privy to, nor whether or not they’re actually working together). And Robotnik just wanted to trick Sonic into wandering in to the middle of his root factory, which then activates and sucks all the green lightning out of his body and copies it into his newest creation Hyper Metal Sonic. Or just “Metal”, as everyone calls him.

And then Metal Sonic and Flesh Sonic fight. And this is only halfway through the movie, so Metal wins, and flies off, and the next part of Robotniks plan is revealed; he’s going to use Metal to Destroy the Sky! For some reason!

Metal first flies off to Sonics crashed plane beachfront house where The Old Man is currently sunbathing, despite it being night, and Knuckles and Tails chase after him, assuming that Sonic is dead. Later they take it on good faith that Sonic is not dead. And when they arrive, they find that, instead of killing The Old Man, as the scene implied, Metal instead forced him to dress like a Cool Teen;

Friggin’ Magical.

Tails surmises that when Robotnik copied over all of Sonics biological data, that meant that Metal got a copy of his personality as well, so, naturally he would force an elderly man to dress like a cool teen and give him a skateboard, because that is just the Sonic the Hedgehoggiest possible reaction to seeing an elderly man.

Tails comes up with a new plan to hack into Metals brain and reprogram him to be even Sonicier so he’ll stop trying to destroy the Sky, and explains this to the President, who he calls on Skype. And then Knuckles lays out some science saying that if Metal destroys the giant glacier that holds the floating islands up, they’ll all float away into outer space and be blown to pieces (I… question this, but that’s still a lot of astrophysics being laid out by a marsupial, so I’ll let it slide).

And Sonic just happens to have wandered in to the Presidents panic room (for some damn reason) so he overheard everything and heads off to the North Pole to protect the glacier from Metal.

Robotnik, happy that his plan to destroy the sky is proceeding so nicely, decides to celebrate by giving Sarah a wedding dress, explaining that once he finishes his plan they’ll be the only two humans left on Earth so they, therefor, can get married. It’s a very Ice King moment.

So at the North Pole, Sonic and Metal have their rematch, and the intensity of their fight is enough that a volcano spontaneously forms around them (?!?!), so they’re trading punches, Tails is trying to save Sarah from a shotgun wedding, and Knuckles is digging through magma tunnels in order to divert the impending lava flow from melting the glaciers. And, at some point, the President crashes his private one-seat plane into the side of the volcano so he also needs to be rescued and I have no idea why he even showed up. The entire last ten minutes of the movie is a Micheal Bay level of confusing, poorly constructed action scenes.

Eventually, Tails’ hacking works and Metal immediately turns good, and so he jumps into the volcano to keep it from erupting, and Sonic tries to jump into flowing lava to save his new friend who spent the last half hour trying very hard to murder him, only for Metal to shoo him away.

It’s like the finale of Terminator 2, except without the emotional payoff of seeing Arnold give a thumbs up.

And Robotnik accidentally blows up his only copy of Metals programming, so he can’t make another one, and Knuckles punches Sonic in the head and yells “Now we’re even!” and for the life of me I don’t understand why.

And then the credits roll.

Le langage du cinéma est universel

Marvel Mondays

All right, let’s get cracking with their self-titled debut album Issue #1: The Fantastic Four. And I won’t lie, it’s a hell of a solid first issue of any comic, though it has a number of oddities to anyone familiar with present-day Marvel. For instance, Ben Grimm isn’t a lovable grump, he’s just a bitter monster, also way too formal. He talks like Captain Holt. Furthermore, the story doesn’t take place in New York, the FF are based in Central City. Probably not related to the one that Barry Allen lives in and I suppose you could interpret that as being a weirdly-worded description of the Center of New York City, but regardless… Stan and Jack aren’t trying to establish a Marvel Universe just yet (that comes incredibly soon, though), so it’s just A City.

And one day, over the skies of Center City, a huge flare explodes, spelling out The Fantastic Four, which eventually changes into a giant flaming 4. And this is the first issue of the comic, so nobody has ever seen a giant flaming Four appear in the skies, and the Baxter Building is not currently world-famous, so the sight of a giant flaming numeral causes a big of a panic in the city. Except among three people who know what this symbol means, and they converge on the unassuming apartment building it lies under. Naturally, these would be the Fantastic Four, and they decide to show off their powers on their way to the Baxter Building; Ben complains furiously that the world is too small for someone as big as him as he throws off his disguise, flattens a car and smashes his way into the sewer system so he can pass unnoticed (police officers also shoot at him because he is a giant rock man smashing property), Johnny turns into a human rocket and flies over the city, causing such a panic that the mayor calls the National Guard and authorizes a nuclear strike over New York City in order to kill him (!!!!!), Reed uses his super-stretchy powers and brilliant intellect to grab the warhead and defuse it in midair and… Sue freaks out a cab driver by paying her fare while invisible.

It will be years before Sue gets any cool powers, and decades before she’s awesome as opposed to an embarrassment. Though I suspect that’s another thing to lay on Stans feet. Dude did/could not write women well.

As they meet in Reed Richards’ apartment, we’re given the teams origins;

A few other notes that have been retconned away since this issue; Reed was trying to beat the Russians in the Space Race and figured the best way to do that was to sneak on to his rocket in the middle of the night BEFORE those Commies could launch their own rocket, and while Sue would eventually be made a brilliant MIT grad and physics researcher who was an assistant to Reed, here she had no reason to be on the rocket except that she’s his fiance.

No one has ever bothered to explain why Johnny was there.

The reason Reed has called the team together is because a global crisis has emerged that would require the four of them; all around the world mysterious fissures have opened up and buried nuclear power plants deep underground, and Reed has traced all the tremors paths to one place; MONSTER ISLAND.. Honestly unsure if that’s supposed to be related to the Godzilla one.

The FF head to Monster Island in their private jet, and quickly find out how Monster Island got its name; volcanic features make it look like a snarling monster-head.

Also; it’s crawling with Kaiju.

After killing one giant monster (some kind of a Dog-hydra thing), the island is suddenly struck by a tremor and the team is separated; Reed and Johnny are buried deep underground and pass out, while Sue and Ben are left on their own on the surface being menaced by the islands other denizens.

Underground, Reed and Johnny wake up to find themselves wearing protective garments, and in the presense of the underground king, The Moleman! A guy I could never really take seriously as a villain. Not because he doesn’t pose a threat (he does have a trained army of kaiju monsters and is a god-figure to a subterranean race of troglodytes, even if he isn’t physically imposing), but just because he’s just so dang sympathetic. Harvey Elder (not Hans, as I always thought, and keep wanting to write) was a little guy who was constantly mocked and called The Mole Man because of his big nose, tiny eyes and love of spelunking, so, in a fit of depression he decides to travel to the center of the Earth and live in seclusion. Fortunately, he finds an entire underground civilization which quickly reverses him as a God, because hes limited faculties are all so much greater then their own and he finally finds acceptance and respect amongst the Moleoids (as he calls them).

Buuuuuut first he’s going to get some revenge on the surface world real quick. You know, destroy every power plant in the world and then release a Kaiju army on a defenseless population, that sort of thing.

Fortunately, Ben and Sue wind up in the Mole Mans throne room by sheer chance right then, just after Moleman illustrates that he’s adapted so well to underground life that his reflexes have become superhuman (okay…) and a quick fight against one of his guard-creatures breaks out. But before the fight can progress too far, Johnny uses the heat from his Torch-form to burn an escape tunnel from the throne-room to the surface, letting the Four escape with their lives.

Also, either burning a hole through miles of solid rock or a failsafe plan of the Mole Mans when he realizes his plan can’t proceed now that it’s been revealed, the volcano over Monster Island erupts, resealing the entrance to Subterrania forever.

Or until the next time Mole Man shows up, at least.

Movie Time!

Okay…. okay wow…

So I watched Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: The Movie (not to be confused with the reboot from last year that… was honestly pretty good, sexting subplot notwithstanding). And… wow guys…

This is very much an Octo Movie. This is a most extremely Octo movie.

If it didn’t come out when I was eight years old, I would have thought I wrote this movie.

Until Kung Fury came out, this might have been the Most Octo Movie Possible.

It’s like they were going through a dang check-list.

It opens with the teenagers with attitude doing a charity skydive (?!?!?), including Tommy leaping out of the plane on a skateboard (!!!!!) and Bulk and Skull refusing to jump if they weren’t embracing. And as soon as they land, they rollerblade away. Except Bulk and Skull, because they land at a construction site where the works have just unearthed a sarcophagus containing an evil egg full of lightning!

This worries Zordon, who summons the Rangers, to warn them that an evil sorcerer and goo-man (or Morphological Entity) IVAN OOZE was buried alive because he was trying to conquer the universe with the help of his evil robot soldiers, the Ectomorphicon Titans, and some guys from the DWP just up and dug him up.

And just then, Rita Repulsa, Lord Zedd (inarguably the single most terrifying thing to ever grace a childrens television show), Goldar and… some pig man (???) show up to free Ivan so he can join Team Evil. And he’s okay with that exchange.

Then a (honestly very well choreographed) fight breaks out between the Rangers (who just arrived) and Ivans slime-man minions, ending when Tommy throws his sword up to sever a rope holding a suspended platform. His sword hovers in midair in front of the rope for a moment and then shoots a laser to burn through the rope and I was spellbound.

And while the Rangers are busy fighting the henchmen, Ivan breaks into the Command Center and blasts the whole place with FLUTE LIGHTNING (?!?!?!) wrecking the place, robbing the Rangers of their powers, and killing Zordon! Then he bops up to the moon and imprisons Rita and Zedd in a snowglobe and takes over Primary Villain duties, since he’s obviously WAY better at it (he also calls them “dingle-dorks”). Also, they had the budget to build a brand new, much more detailed set for Zedds throne room despite it only appearing for this two minute scene. The movies budget is kind of nuts.

Luckily, the Rangers return to the Command Center just before Zordon can die, and Alpha explains that there’s ANOTHER source of Morphing Energy in the universe and they can just grab that and heal Zordon and restroy their powers; so the Rangers head off to the dinosaur planet of Phaedos. Meanwhile, Ivan sends a bunch of birdmen out to Phaedos to kill ’em while he also outlines his master plan; he’s going to hypnotize all the parents in Angel Grove into being his workforce, then make them dig up the Ectomophic Titans, and then destroy the planet.

On Phaedos, the Rangers immediately get the crap kicked out of them by the Birdmen, until they’re saved at the last minute by a Magical Karate Girl wearing a surprisingly tiny bikini considering how this is a movie intended for tiny babies. And Bikini Girl grants them the power of Ninjitsu which they will need to find the Morphological power.

Back on Earth, Ivan dresses up like a cartoon wizard and heads out to the carnival to sell hypnotic slime. One child asks “What do you do with it?” and Ivan responds “Show it to your parents! The fun never ends!”. And it’s a great sales pitch because he sells it all in moments and every parent in town, when confronted with jars strange, foul-smelling slime opts to take a little nibble and become immediately brainwashed. Can’t argue with the results!

Back in space, the Rangers meet with and overcome various challenges (a team of lizard knights, and a fight against a giant skeleton dinosaur that uses some surprisingly decent practical effects), overcome them and regain their Ranger powers as well as a new set of Zords; Crane, Bear, Wolf, Gorilla, Falcon and also a frog, and they teleport back to Earth.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Ivans finished digging up the Ectomorphicons and is using them to lay waste to the city (they really do not seem any worse than the other giant monsters that lay waste to the city five times a week, but the movie sure wants us ot think they are), and also Ivan is bored with the parents ugly faces, and asks them to politely jump off a cliff.

I kind of friggin’ love Ivan Ooze.

And this is not only the end of the movie, but the end of a Power Rangers story, so that means it’s time to bring out some giant robots for a KAIJU THROWDOWN! And this is where the movie completely falls apart. Up until this point the movie had some genuinely great action choreography (this is what happens when you hire acrobats and martial artists instead of actors) and surprisingly excellent practical effects and set design. For the finale, some awful, AWFUL CG robots bump into one another while the Power Rangers theme plays. It looks so much worse than even the climax of Robot Jox.

Eventually the Rangers win by kneeing Ivan Oozes robot in the nards and throwing him in front of a comet, and the only kid who seemed remotely concerned about the whole zombie-parent thing saves the day by blasting every adult in town with a water cannon to drive them away from a cliffside.

And also there’s enough excess Morphing Energy to revive Zordon so everyone gets a happy ending. Except Ivan Ooze, who has sore nards and also got exploded by a comet. And me, because I wound up loving Ivan Ooze more than I would care to admit.

I give the movie Twenty Billion Thumbs Up