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I grew up a huge Power Ranger fan, even when it was nothing but re-purposed Japanese footage of giant monster fights. However, all that (including the infamous catchy theme song) contributed to it’s charm. Saban’s new POWER RANGERS movie is the same thing in name alone. This new version takes bland superhero movies and CW-esque beautiful actors and places a $100 dollar budget on it. It morphs into a BREAKFAST CLUB hero movie that doesn’t show its action until the final act.
Getting to those last exciting moments is a slog though. First, there’s the laboriousness of another superhero origin story, which director Dean Israelite (PROJECT ALMANAC) and screenwriter John Gatins stage as a nod to THE BREAKFAST CLUB. Three of the five teenagers that eventually form a mighty morphin’ unit meet at Saturday detention, including disgraced quarterback Jason (Dacre Montgomery), autistic brainiac Billy (RJ Cyler), and exiled cheerleader Kimberly (Naomi Scott). They are joined eventually by two loners, Zack (Ludi Lin) and Trini (Becky G). The original three map to their John Hughes-ian counterparts to a tee of the jock, the nerd, and the cheerleader. The bad boy and the basket case aren’t too far off for the other two as well.
The quartet comes together after an explosion at the local gold mine unearths a series of colorful gems that had been buried in the earth for 60 million years. The gems give them extraordinary superpowers, but the incident also revives an Earth-threatening battle between Zordon (Bryan Cranston) and the evil Rita Repulsa (Elizabeth Banks), who unleashes stone monsters called Putties and a golden, winged giant called Goldar. Rita comes seeking the Zeo Crystal that’s buried beneath the local Krispy Kreme, and unless our young heroes can activate their full morphing power, they’ll be unable to stop Rita from destroying their hometown and everybody in it.
Bill Hader and Elizabeth Banks make a strong impression, but not enough to save the movie. Still that last act is fun, and it is impossible to not smile with a sense of fake nostalgia when the “Go Go Power Rangers!” theme kicks in… that music is as infectious as ever, there really is something magnetic about that theme that brings a smile to your face. Just like everything else in this film, the action only shines in the last moments where it seems all the money went. The choreography of the fight scenes is surprisingly good as is the humor. The film really gets its charm back here.
Director Dean Israelite wastes too much of the two hour plus running time before putting the Rangers in action. They have this mammoth learning curve, but suddenly become experts at all forms of warfare when it’s time for the big battle. While the humor is there, with today’s standard of jump cut action, it’s weird that the 1993 series had more fluid fight scenes. This will be true of most movies not choreographed by martial artists, but it’s all fairly disorienting. They only get more chaotic when the Rangers hop into their Zoids, which resemble Transformers and move on screen just as stiffly. Still, those giant robots are fun and will make you whoop in excitement.
But it’s too little too late. Overall the film succumbs to cliches and 80s characters that no longer hold the same power to draw in an audience. The characters never really work as archetypal characters and no longer feel as real. They have become too predictable and more depth is needed. And even though the film picks up later, it’s simply not the same type of fun we all remember.
