When I found out that
they were making a Power Rangers
movie, I was a bit skeptical. I wasn’t surprised at all that it was happening,
though. Since Hollywood has been mining my generation’s nostalgia for script
material for years, it was only a matter of time before they got their turn.
The thing that had me worried, though, was how exactly they were going to
attack this subject. I was a huge Power
Rangers fan back in the day, but I’ll be the first to tell you that it hasn’t
aged well at all. The inconsistencies with the American footage and the
Japanese Super Sentai footage are
glaringly obvious in retrospect, and it’s a perfect distillation of the vapid
focus testing that dominated children’s television in the 90’s. There were two
ways this could’ve gone about: they could keep the goofy, cheesy aesthetic and
make the experience a groan inducing nightmare for anyone above the age of 10,
or they could take the grim and gritty route and risk pissing off the legions
of jaded fans who’ve had their hearts broken by Michael Bay and Zack Snyder too
many times. In their attempt to find a happy middle ground, this movie just
ended up killing both tones with one stone.
Our story follows five
teenagers from the small town of Angel Grove. Jason (Dacre Montgomery) is a
high school football star whose reputation is ruined after a failed attempt to
prank a rival school, Billy (RJ Cyler) is a misfit on the autism spectrum with
a savant understanding of science and technology, Kimberly (Naomi Scott) is a popular
mean girl with a tendency to take things too far, Zack (Ludi Lin) is a cool guy
from the wrong side of the tracks who takes care of his sick mother, and Trini
(Becky G.) is a new girl that never really got along with anyone. While
exploring an old rock quarry, our band of misfits come across five medallions
that bestow them with the abilities of the Power Rangers, a group of ancient
warriors tasked with protecting the world from evil. Sworn in by the original
Red Ranger Zordon (Bryan Cranston), these teens must hone their new-found
skills to defeat Rita Repulsa (Elizabeth Banks), an ex-Ranger turned evil
sorceress hellbent on finding a powerful crystal and using it to destroy the
planet.
If I had to boil down
what was wrong with this movie, it would be these two words: tonal
inconsistency. While it doesn’t truly become a Power Rangers movie until the
last 25 minutes or so. In the meantime, we have to spend the rest of those 90
minutes sitting through a Degrassi-esque
teen melodrama where each of our five protagonists deal with their own
emotional baggage, wrestle with their past deeds and personal issues, figure
out how to balance their personal lives with their new identities as heroes and
mostly just use their powers to goof around and score popularity points. (It’s
basically Chronicle is what I’m
saying, which is ironic since Max Landis wrote a Power Rangers script that I think would’ve been an interesting movie.)
There’s even a scene where they all have a big heart-to-heart conversation
around a campfire. To be fair, one advantage the movie has over the show is
that the actors here are genuinely good at what they do (RJ Cyler and Ludi Lin
being the big standouts), and they have good chemistry with each other even
when the dialogue becomes cringe-worthy at times. I also have to give the
writers credit for being upfront with the fact that Billy has autism and Trini
is gay without making those their defining characteristics.
When the movie is being a
pseudo-John Hughes teen fantasy, it’s somewhat passable. The real conundrum is
that when it’s time for the Rangers to suit up and face their nemesis, that’s
when things start to fall apart. Up to this point the movie has been taking
itself pretty seriously, but then it remembers it’s supposed to be a Power Rangers movie, which means they
have to shift gears, and the tonal dissonance is incredibly jarring. A perfect
example of this is Elizabeth Banks as Rita Repulsa, who’s easily having the
most fun out of the entire cast. There are moments when she’s scary and creepy,
but when she fully reveals herself she starts hamming it up. It doesn’t help
that the CG that dominates the final battle is ugly as all sin. The CGI effects
themselves kind of decent, but the designs are all hideous. The Ranger suits
look like something out of The Guyver, the
Zords look like plastic have some of the most blatantly toyetic designs I’ve
seen in a long time (shocking, I know), and Goldar, the big baddy they have to
fight with the Megazord, is supposed to be made out of molten gold, but just
looks like melted Velveeta instead. There are also a few moments when the movie
stops dead in its tracks to become a shameless advertisement for Krispy Kreme
Doughnuts. It’s even a vital plot point. There was even a moment I recognized as just a clip from the actual commercials! I guess someone had to pick up the check.
I walked into this movie
expecting the worst. I was expecting this to be Transformers levels of awful. While it wasn't good by any measure, it could've been a hell of a lot worse. In the end, we got something that
didn’t know what it wanted to be and couldn’t settle on a tone. It wants to have its Krispy Kreme doughnut and eat it too.If it wanted to
be a grim and gritty reboot, it should’ve been a grim and gritty reboot. If it
wanted to be a sendoff to the original, it should’ve been a sendoff to the
original. If you plan on bringing your kids, they’ll probably get a lot more out
of the experience. The theater I was at was filled with them and they all seemed
to enjoy the hell out of it. Aside from that, this one is worth sitting out.
6/10
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