Movie Reaction: Power Rangers

Formula: (The Breakfast Club + Chronicle) * Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie

Power Rangers was never good. Not really. I'm just the right age to have loved Power Rangers at exactly the right time. I started first grade when the series began and I kept up with it through middle school. I was the biggest fan of anyone I knew (Don't you always feel that way when you're that young?). I dragged my parents to the original movie. I had as many flip-head action figures and megazords as I could get. Except for an ill-timed grounding in the 3rd or 4th grade, I didn't to miss an episode. However, I accept now that the show was never very good. It was a Frankenstein series, meshing the Japanese fighting clips with the American stuff. The writing was pretty cheesy (especially in the 1995 film, which I found hilarious at the time).

So, when word came out that Lionsgate was making a new movie for Power Rangers, I started thinking about what was worth bringing back from that show. The actors? No. Too old. The villains? Of course. The story? To some extent. The zords and the suits? Essential. I went into the theater with a rough checklist that left plenty of room to break from the "canon".

The basic story is the same: five teenagers, through chance or fate, gain alien powers that turn them into Power Rangers, so they can stop the evil alien, Rita Repulsa (Elizabeth Banks) from destroying the Earth. The movie puts in a lot of work to get the 5 teens together and at the right time. Jason (Dacre Montgomery) is a disgraced former football star who gets roped into helping Billy (RJ Cyler), a nerd on the autism spectrum, research something at the mines outside the small town of Angel Grove. Kimberly (Naomi Scott), a former cool girl at school who is now a loner, Zach (Ludi Lin), a loner with a sick mother, and Trini (Becky G.), a loner who might be some category of LGBT, all happen to be hanging out near the mines at the same time. After an explosion, they all pick up colored rocks and stumble onto a hidden base where Zordon (Bryan Cranston), a former Ranger who is now trapped in his ship's computer and his robot aid Alpha 5 (Bill Hader) inform them that they are Power Rangers. He promises them cool armor and teases them with zords in order to get them to train so that they can morph. Oh, and when they pick up those colored rocks, they all get super strength, even without the armor on. Coincidentally, at the same time, Rita Repulsa becomes reanimated and starts collecting gold in order to create a monster to help her find the widget that is in Angel Grove that will help her destroy the Earth.

The movie bends over backwards to pretend that the Power Rangers idea isn't loony as hell. My One Big Leap meter was going crazy with all the narrative contortions. Whether it was big things like getting the kids together in the same place and Rita coming back at the exact right time or small things like Billy being able to seemingly permanently hack Jason's ankle monitor (because, reasons), the story takes a lot of shortcuts. And, even with the shortcuts, it takes an eternity to delivery the goods.

The goods, of course, are the suits and the zords. In that respect, this movie was a massive let down. The majority of the movie was spent trying to get the rangers 'morphin'. Once they finally do morph, there's a brief fight (half of it underwater for some reason), then they move onto the zords. The zords are fine, although it was hard to not form unfavorable comparisons to Transformers*. The megazord, similar to the 1995 movie, doesn't really looks like the five zords combined to make it, which takes away some of the fun. Maybe now that all the groundwork has been laid, future installments can be more fun, because this first part was just dull. Say whatever you will about the 1995 movie, but it by no means felt this small. It's hard for me to believe that $100 million went into this movie. Or maybe $100 million just doesn't go as far as it used to.

*They do have the good sense to reference Transformers so we don't have to.

The cast is good, all things considered. They are all playing characters ripped out of after-school specials and do what they can with that. The movie pats itself on the back for having a diverse cast, but I couldn't help but notice that the white guy was still the leader by default. RJ Cyler does a decent job playing someone on the spectrum without becoming Rain Man. Hopefully Lidi Lin and Becky G. get a little more time to flesh out their characters in future movies. Banks doesn't hold back as Rita Repulsa. Most of her scenes are, appropriately enough, shot like a villain from the 90s, full of jumps cuts and off-screen violence. I liked seeing Cranston and Hader show up, even though it did feel like they were cast to prove that Lionsgate was trying to make a big studio feature (Similar to what they did with the Divergent Series).

I don't know who Power Rangers is for. The story is too silly in nature for the serious tone to work. It isn't fun enough to engage general audiences. It doesn't play much into the nostalgia to attract old fans and doesn't have enough of the colorful action to pull in new fans. I don't mean to be a grouch about this movie. I am though. It's not very good and doesn't leverage the built-in goodwill to do anything of note. If all you need is to hear someone say "Goldar" or "It's morphin time", then this movie is a resounding success. If you need anything more than that, I struggle to see how you won't be disappointed.

 Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend