Film If only...
I'm old enough to remember the premiere of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, and the series has not aged well. It was extremely episodic, which I could recognize and comment on even as a pre-teen; the Token Minorities were appreciated but a little on-the-nose; and the show's Camp elements were a YMMV affair. There was nothing like it on TV at the time, but its flaws were still apparent.
Therefore I wasn't excited about this reboot. And, therefore, I was surprised when, upon watching it in a fit of boredom, I found the version of Power Rangers I'd always wanted.
Let's get the bad stuff out of the way: The Ranger costumes are awful, and the Zords are worse. I know that director Dean Israelite was trying to emphasize the alien nature of the Rangers' provenance, and I don't disagree with his decision; I just don't like it either. Similarly, Rita... Look, Elizabeth Banks has a ton of fun Chewing the Scenery, and she's a great villain, but she might as well have played someone else: Rita Repulsa is defined by banter with her Cast Herd of Minions with an F in Evil, both of which were Adapted Out. Even worse, nothing replaced them: Banks is a good enough actor to turn shit into gold, but that's the only reason her performance is compelling. The CGI slug-fest at the end is completely forgettable. And I have to admit that Banks' delivery of the iconic "Make My Monster Grow!!" Catchphrase just missed the mark for me.
So why do I like this adaptation? The Rangers themselves are dynamite.
The "Gritty The New '10s Reboot" is played out by now, but this film nails it. Not only do we have the Five-Token Band we should have had from the start, but the way things are mixed up — the Asian guy as the Black Ranger; the neurodivergent guy as the Blue Ranger — is a lot of fun. The acting is much, much stronger than it needs to be, and it doesn't surprise me that some of these actors are finding success in Hollywood. And their personalities aren't just The Cape; for the first time, "Recruit Teenagers with Attitude" is accurate, and each of them has flaws and disadvantages. It feels reasonable that these alienated, frustrated people would want the escape of their superpowers and would become True Companions. There's a twist near the end that relies on you actually caring about these characters, and it works. That's how good these characters, how strong these performances, are.
I'm sad there won't be a sequel. I wanted to see Tommi Oliver. I wanted to spend more time with (this version of) these characters. This is Jason, Kimberly, Trini, Zach and Billy as they always should have been. And if the coming re-reboot fixes the visual muddle but keeps the focus on Character Development, it's be something to behold.
Film A great throwback to the old TV series while still being original
Power Rangers is a good film overall. While it helps having grown up with the original, I think it's still enjoyable for everyone else.
Characterization is probably this film's strong suit. The characters are all new, so even old fans will have to get to know them. First and foremost, they all start off as delinquents - literally outcasts from society, which is weird because they are supposed to be role models. In the original, they were great friends and model students.
What I thought at first was an odd flaw in writing proved to be a strength. All the characters start off dysfunctional, but this means they have a lot of room to grow. And we see that development slowly build, at a realistic pace, through the course of the film.
And the pace is something else I want to praise. It manages to give us little hints and glimpses of their potential, but they have to work to achieve it. Super-strength is something they get early on, yet it's not nearly enough. The film doesn't blow its load early for the sake of spectacle or fanservice. When you finally see the team assemble as the Power Rangers, it feels well-earned.
That said, it's not a perfect film. The action is good, but not great. If you have any nostalgia for the cheesy spandex fights from the original, this film is a treat. If not... well, it might seem a little lame along with some obvious wire-fu, but still fun.
There are plot holes here and there, but very little to detract from the main themes of teamwork, friendship, and trust. While no masterpiece of writing - after all, the main plot is the villain is just evil and wants to kill everything - it also doesn't clutter itself too much or shoehorn in unnecessary plotlines.
It's a simple, fun film. That's all.
Film Great focus on characterization, only let down a bit by the combat-based finale
Basically in my opinion, great first 3/4, okay final 1/4.
It's an origin story, and very much so. I had a lot of fun watching these characters get to meet each other, end up with superhuman strength and agility, and eventually come into their role as essentially superheroes. I loved the movie when it was character-focused, as I really liked the characters.
Which is the last thing you'd expect me to say, considering how frigging cheesy the original TV shows were! They had lame characterization, being aimed squarely at elementary schoolers. But this movie feels like it's saying to an older audience, "Remember that show you liked as a kid? Would you like to see a more grown-up version of it?" This is basically that. Instead of "teens with attitude", we get actual convincing teens with actual attitude problems. They're flawed, and they even meet at a special school for at-risk youth.
It's a PG-13 movie, so the characters drop their share of S-bombs and "douchebag" and the like. Certain things are implied rather than shown, such as the implication that Kimberly bullied another student by showing a sexually revealing photo of her (we don't see the photo, but a savvy audience can piece together the implications).
While the first Power Rangers series had a lot of racial diversity in the cast, this movie oddly does a lot of race-swapping - Billy is now black (and mildly autistic), Trini is now Hispanic and Zack is now Asian. The personalities are changed too, so it makes me wonder, why keep the same names? Why not make them new characters?
The original show was full of Ham and Cheese, and this movie, despite taking itself much more seriously, does have some of that. The new Rita Repulsa is far more threatening than before and less hammy, but she still comes off as a bit campy. And the scenes where the Rangers are in their costumes and especially in their Zords felt like the cheesy action of the original show, with characters yelling out strategy and insults at the enemies. They were less hammy, with clear attempts to be serious and to try to portray both how the Rangers handled the heat of battle, and how they had difficulty controlling their Zords... at least at first, before they conveniently got the hang of it. Oh, and there's an absurd amount of Krispy Kreme Product Placement that's handled comedically, but it's still totally there.
That final 1/4 of the movie is where it got less fun for me. I enjoyed seeing the characterization still being visible in the battle, but the main appeal for me was everything that led up to that. Getting to know the characters, see their drama, see them struggle with their new power, that was the main appeal, and the movie handled that really well. When it got full-on Power Rangers, it went from "great" to "decent". Still enjoyable, but there probably was no really good way to top off the rest of the movie. Still, I'm very glad I saw it.
Film It's a dog.
It's too bad this film flopped at the box office, because it did have some good ideas going for it. It just gets lost in a sea of trend-chasing antics that drag the rest of the film down.
There were high hopes for another Power Rangers film after the severe underperformance of Turbo in the late 90s — a film I'm old enough to remember seeing in the theatres. The problem is that Power Rangers, especially in its heyday, were an event — it was like nothing else on U.S. TV at the time, and it felt like every episode (and eventually, the 1995 film) were appointment viewing. I can't say the same about the 2017 reboot.
The sole high point is the casting — the producers did a great job of finding a mix of actors who have good chemistry and feel like they were a natural group of outcasts who are forced together by fate and share similar goals. The problem is that everything else around them falls flat.
Much has been said about the film's tendency to feel like it's chasing trends from other, better franchises being released around this time. Robot designs heavily inspired by the Transformers Film Series. A dash of the "let's all die together, and come back even stronger than ever" ending from Guardians of the Galaxy. The third act all-CGI-beat-em-up that plagued so many films being released in this era.
Cranston's performance as Zordon and some of the additional lore/backstory given to Rita are interesting, but I feel like this reboot was made solely to capitalize more on trends than craft a long-term vision that was compelling. You watch this once, and it's disposable popcorn filler. The stuff you really want — Tommy, more characters, better villains — are held off for a sequel that will never come, while the film is essentially an ersatz adaptation of the original show's pilot without much of the Totally Radical attitude and novelty of the Sentai footage that set it apart from other shows at the time.
(And I will never forgive the filmmakers for ruining this film's Signature Scene — the first shot of the Zords running together through the quarry, with the 1995 theme music — with a dumb sight gag of the Triceratops Zord running backwards.)
Here's hoping they try again with another reboot that leans more heavily into what made the original work so well.