* Directed by Dean Israelite
* Starring Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott, RJ Cyler, Ludi Lin, Becky G, Bryan Cranston, Bill Hader, and Elizabeth Banks
The Plot: A group of teenagers discover a variety of different colored stones that genetically alter themselves and give them abilities of super strength and agility. They then come across a cavern in a mountain where buried beneath is an ancient spacecraft containing the consciousness of an alien named Zordon (Bryan Cranston) with a robot sidekick named Alpha 5 (Bill Hader). There they discover that with their new abilities and advanced suits and weaponry they must form a team known as the Power Rangers to battle the return of an ancient villain named Rita Repulsa (Elizabeth Banks).
Now one word to describe my background with the Power Rangers franchise is...nothing! I know absolutely nothing about the lore of this franchise and haven't seen a single episode of any of the shows. I've seen none of the movies, so going into this movie I wasn't expecting much at all. I'm not nostalgic towards it and I know a lot of people are. I just was never interested when I was a child and I never cared. Going into this movie it was probably a good thing to not have a bias or any fan connection to this franchise because I could focus on just this movie and maybe from there see if I'm interested in this lore. I'm surprised with the Marvel movies I go into not having read a single comic book and coming out wanting more out of that universe, so this should be no different, right?
The good things this film has going for it is its cast. You do get the vibe that they have this camaraderie and they care about one another forming this team. I did like that the film made the effort to make you care about the characters and not have an overabundance on ridiculous fan service. I also thought the performances and voice acting talents in Bryan Cranston and Bill Hader were pretty decent with what they had to work with. Elizabeth Banks as Rita Repulsa gave the character decent screen presence and was a very entertaining villain. Performance wise, it had its strengths.
Surprisingly, the film also looked very good in terms of its filmmaking. There were quite a few shots in this movie that were very well done artistically and I was quite impressed for how they handled executing certain scenes in that way. The filmmaking was solid for what it had to offer and I commend this crew for that because some big budget movies can overdue it with the filmmaking and make it look like this horrible, flashy mess. My other worry was that I thought the visual effects were really going to stand out as seen in the last trailer and I must say that the CGI work done in this film was exceptional. Everything blended well with realistic environments and to go along with it the action scenes were very easy to follow. There was definitely effort with how the characters were handled and that visual look wasn't too in your face. It was reserved in its own right, but not too reserved to still be an exciting sci-fi action film.
From there I knew there was effort in this film in regards to the development of how the film should look and feel and how these actors should go about their place in the story. However, even though there was effort, there could've been more potential of this experience treated more like an actual film. My biggest issue with Power Rangers is that even though the vision behind it feels like a complete movie, it has trouble keeping a balance of being its own movie than an episode of the TV show. Like I said earlier I haven't watched a complete episode of the show and I haven't even bothered, but I've seen enough and know enough to have an understanding of the style of the original show. It's stupid and silly and just by witnessing some of the acting and listening to the dialogue and line delivery, it sadly shows in this movie. It's really hard for me to take something seriously when the writing makes the film tonally inconsistent feeling childish while also having humor appealing to younger teens. I'm surprised how something silly like X-Men, Avengers, and even Star Wars could be, but the talented writing that's involved in making these characters and scenarios feel more real says a whole lot more rather than appealing to a specific youth demographic when it should be a universal audience.
One could make the argument that this movie is what Power Rangers generally is. It's supposed to come off as being silly and over the top. I get it, but that's my least favorite aspect of this franchise. If franchises like Marvel can have a shift in quality and try different styles in terms of directing and writing that add to the cinematic experience, then I'll be all for it. I want there to be a change in this franchise so that I can actually be invested in the lore and I'm sure there is wonderful potential for better films out there. This specific movie wasn't able to be more than what it was and it should've been more than just a silly episode of the show. The first act of this film I could acknowledge wasn't very good in its writing, but I could still have fun with it because of its high energy. The film after that just loses steam and the horrific dialogue and subpar line delivery became more and more apparent.
Like I said earlier it's tonally inconsistent with reaching out to different demographics, but it tries to be more mature reaching out to older audiences when having more serious moments than light-hearted moments. The film tries to be emotionally compelling in parts, but the silliness from early doesn't mesh well for what later on proceeds. Also, the soundtrack was quite lacking as well with 90s pop background music and even some hip-hop and rap in the mix of it. It just felt very out of left field and I would've much preferred the talent of a score composer for the more pivotal scenes. The score was there and it was great for the exciting scenes, but it felt rather absent in the majority of the film's runtime. Bryan Tyler orchestrated it for this film and he's a great composer, so this movie should've taken advantage of that. I got the impression that the first act could've at least been a fun guilty pleasure movie, but the flaws in its writing were highly noticeable. There was effort in its use of characters, acting, visual effects, and filmmaking. You could still watch this film as any other big budget blockbuster, but there's really not a whole lot there to latch on to.
Verdict: C
Unless you really love the show and can't get enough of the cheese and fun energy, you'll probably have the time of your life with this film. I had fans in my audience laughing and having a great time with this movie and that's awesome. I'm happy for those fans and just because I didn't get joy out of this film doesn't mean others didn't. I'm glad it made others happy, but if you're a casual film fan like myself I think there are more worthy things to see. Instead, I highly recommend seeing films like Logan, Lego Batman, and John Wick 2 since they're still hanging around. Or if you've seen them already just see them again instead of this movie. Stay tuned this weekend because I have other reviews coming for Life and Beauty and the Beast since I missed it last weekend. For more updates follow me on the links below:
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Thank you all so much for taking the time to read my review! I wish you all well and as always be sure to see some movies and all that good stuff.
Take care. :-)
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