Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie

1997, PG, 99 min. Directed by David Winning, Shuki Levy. Starring Johnny Yong Bosch, Nakia Burrise, Steve Cardenas, Jason David Frank, Austin St. John, Catherine Sutherland, Amy Jo Johnson.

REVIEWED By Nick Barbaro, Fri., March 28, 1997

Being a parent of a four-year-old boy, I am all too familiar with the Power Rangers, and with all of the regular cast of the TV series on board, plus special appearances by a couple of cast graduates, and the now-famous Saban Entertainment aesthetic intact on the big screen (Locations? How about the back yard? Props? Break out the aluminum foil. Special effects? Head for the fireworks stand.), what you might expect is what you get. For me, that low-tech, Fifties, camp charm wore a mite thin by the second half-hour, but then, I'm not the target audience, am I? The aforementioned four-year-old, on the other hand, is broadly proclaiming it the best movie he's ever seen in his life: “I love this movie. Power Rangers are cool. I liked it because the Power Rangers win the fight against the orange-spotted purple dragon by making a Turbo Megazord. That was my favorite part, too, when all the Turbo cars transformed into the Turbo Megazord. I think all kids would like this movie, but not very much girl kids. The pink ranger and the yellow ranger are the only girls in it, besides Rita Repulsa and Divatox and they're bad guys. No dogs are allowed.” How many stars? Zeke insists five (one for the red ranger, one for the green ranger, one for… well, you get the idea), but you might want to knock that down a notch for each year above, say, first grade, leveling off for adults at around…

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