Landon Santini
lbs001@marietta.edu
This week, we’re reviewing the 2017 superhero film Power Rangers. This big screen adaptation of 1993 action series, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers features five young teenagers who are going through a lot of problems in their life when they find five magical rocks. The rocks give them superpowers and they eventually learn that they have to team up to become the Power Rangers, to fight against the evil Rita Repulsa who’s going to destroy the small fishing town of Angel Grove, and then the WORLD!!!
In retrospect, I guess the stakes aren’t really as high as some films. I will admit that I might be a little bit biased going into this review. I’m a massive fan of the Power Rangers franchise. Even now, the series does give me warm feelings of fuzziness.
The movie is incredibly cheesy. That is what I always liked about the television series. It knew what it was, it never tried to be too serious, and it was just a lot of fun. This film on the other hand is definitely going in a much grimmer and grittier direction with the story. I wouldn’t say that it’s dark, but it definitely goes for a more realistic feel, especially with our heroes in terms of what they deal with in their everyday lives. For example, one of my favorite scenes in the film is this campfire sequence where they all have a heart to heart with one another and they connect. The connection that they all shared is what I really enjoyed about this film.
Their group dynamic showed off a real sense of teamwork, and the five surprisingly have really good chemistry. Even more surprisingly, they are actually really good actors. They do a good job in this film, especially RJ Cyler as Billy Cranston the Blue Ranger. He was probably my favorite. Cranston was in danger of becoming annoying in some of the film’s earlier scenes, but that quickly faded into the background and became oddly endearing.
If you are a hardcore Power Rangers fan, I feel like this film will probably give you what you need. However, if you go to this expecting a film of high caliber . . . you might be a little disappointed.
This film has a lot of storytelling flaws, and some really hilariously over-the-top things that do not mesh. For example, I like Elizabeth Banks’ portrayal of the main villain Rita Repulsa.
If you go back to the original show and look at Rita Repulsa, she gives a very hilariously over-the-top and cheesy performance. Elizabeth Banks does so as well, but it’s over the top in a different way. I enjoyed it, but unfortunately, the other actors in this film are actually did a pretty good job at being serious. These two tones just don’t mix well together. I think the problem is that the filmmakers did not really commit to any one of those tones. This mix causes a lot of conflicting emotions. The action sequences were kind of disappointing to me. There is quite a bit of stylization with the directing of these scenes, which I don’t think was quite appealing as the filmmakers clearly wanted it to be. There really is not much of the Power Rangers in their suits fighting crime, and I just did not buy the stuff with their Zords towards the end.
Honestly, leading up to the big climactic action scene, I thought the film was okay. But once they put their suits on, I actually thought the film kind of went downhill, because their over-the-top. You have a serious setup of a story that follows a lot of the superhero origin story clichés that we’ve come to expect.
At the same time, we have Rita Repulsa creating a monster out of gold and doing really crazy and weird things. Also, when the rangers get in their various ships and vehicles, they pilot them perfectly as if they’ve done so for years. Then our characters are shown training and learning how to fight against the fake Putties that they use as sparring partners, but they’ve never piloted these vehicles before.
For a second, there is a shot where something connects to one of their backs, so I thought that they were controlling them through their minds. But then later in the same scene, the Blue Ranger is frantically pressing buttons as if he doesn’t know how to operate the vehicle he is piloting.
Apparently they are controlling these things. I just don’t really buy it. How are they flying jets? How are they controlling these high-tech vehicles that are destroying an entire town and killing lots of people? I feel like I will probably be in the minority with this opinion since everybody wants to see our heroes in their armor. To me, the film kind of departed from what it was. It was a semi-realistic film until Rita Repulsa starts creating things out of gold resulting in a giant Megazord battle with a creature named Goldar. It just kind of lost me all of a sudden. Bryan Cranston’s portrayal of the team’s mentor Zordon is surprisingly good. Interestingly enough, Cranston voiced two different monsters featured in the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers series.
Bill Hader’s portrayal of Alpha 5 was pretty annoying in this film. If you like Alpha 5 the way he is in the show, you will probably like this version. And here is the most ridiculous thing of all about this film, or the most awesome depending on how you look at it. The company Krispy Kreme Doughnuts plays a major character in this film. This was some serious Krispy Kreme bank that this film made. I can’t even actually explain it, because it’s kind of a spoiler. I think that hardcore fans of Power Rangers will probably get their money’s worth here. But whenever a film opens with an inappropriate joke a cow . . . it has me worried. Most important of all, this film did actually try to be good. I think the Power Rangers are silly. But the setup was a lot more grounded, so it was kind of a departure from everything that had happened before that. Still, if you’re not really that worried about watching a “film” in theatres, and you just want to see the Power Rangers do their thing, I think you’ll enjoy this film just fine. So as such, I’m going to give this film a score of 3 out of 5.
