Entertainment
Forgotten ‘90s Superhero Film Is The Perfect Tribute To Your Favorite Childhood Hero
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Even though adult me realized that the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers were a gestalt of many existing pop culture ideas (most especially Voltron), they seemed like a revelation of innovation to my childhood self. After all, what could be cooler than a bunch of high school superheroes who got to kick butt and take names in their own iconic mechs before merging into a super-robot and putting the villain in his place? As it turns out, the only thing cooler than our original crop of heroes was the Green Ranger, and you can now stream Green With Evil (which collects the five-episode miniseries that introduced this mysterious character) for free on Tubi.
The premise of Green With Evil is that when a cool new kid (Tommy Oliver) with mad martial arts skills shows up, Rita Repulsa does the unthinkable: she transforms him into the Green Ranger, making him her ultimate emissary of evil. He quickly proves himself more than equal to the task of defeating the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, utilizing both the Sword of Darkness and his own iconic Dragonzord. Still, the other rangers sense the good in him, and the story soon turns into a race against the clock to save the Green Ranger’s soul before he destroys everything and everyone the Rangers hold dear.
When Evil Goes Green
While there’s a lot to love here for anyone hoping for a serious dose of ‘90s nostalgia, Green With Evil will resonate particularly well for longtime fans of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. For example, this is the first and only multi-episode story in the entire series, which helps to give it a kind of epic grandeur not found anywhere else in the show. This is also the first story to introduce the notion of new Rangers joining the team in the middle of a season, something that would later become a staple of the original Power Rangers and its many fan-favorite spinoffs.
Speaking of fan-favorites, the most notable thing about Green With Evil is that it introduced Jason David Frank, the Green Ranger, to the Power Rangers canon. He quickly established himself as the bad boy of these otherwise squeaky-clean heroes, giving him the cachet needed to headline multiple different spinoffs. In this way, he became a kind of franchise spokesman, and he continued in this capacity until his tragic death in 2022.
Have Zord, Will Travel
For me, returning to these classic Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episodes (in a convenient movie format, no less) unlocked a nostalgia that had been lying dormant nearly as long as Rita Repulsa herself. The show really is the opposite of modern superhero media in almost every way: it’s bright instead of murky, it’s heartfelt instead of ironic, and it’s gloriously self-contained instead of shoehorning itself into a cinematic universe. Streaming Green With Evil made me feel like a kid again, and before the credits rolled, I found myself trawling through eBay, hoping to buy the Dragonzord toy I coveted as a youngster.
Of course, the simplicity of the Power Rangers is a double-edged sword: the story is nice and straightforward, but that also means it offers no real layers for fans hoping for anything deeper. You’re either all-in on the show’s campy glory (which includes goofy rubber-suited baddies and laughable special effects) or you’re not, and if you don’t love the endless “masks vs. monsters” fights, you may quickly run out of patience. Conversely, if these kinds of goofy action/comedy shenanigans are your jam, you’ll likely find Green With Evil to be a veritable feast of early ‘90s awesomeness.
Looking Your Childhood Hero In The Eyes
Back in the day, I aged out of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers fandom fairly quickly, so I never really checked out the spinoffs, many of which were headlined by the late, great Jason David Frank (one of my childhood heroes). But this first show was a huge part of my childhood, and I remember entire classrooms full of sugar-laden children who couldn’t wait to re-enact their favorite episodes on the playground. Rewatching Green With Evil, it’s easy to see why everyone was so hyped: with its blend of monsters, mechs, and martial arts, the Power Rangers had everything anyone could want from a superhero show.
Will you agree that Green With Evil is a perfect tribute to Jason David Frank and the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, or would you rather fight an army of Putties than watch the whole thing? The only way to find out is by grabbing your remote and streaming it for free on Tubi. Just be prepared for the nostalgia overdose, and do your best not to wake the family when (not if) you end up shouting, “It’s Morphin time!”
