As a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” fan in the 1990s, “Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers” annoyed me. My younger cousins shifted their allegiance from the suddenly uncool Turtles to the suddenly cool Power Rangers, apparently attracted by the colors and crystals.
Being older and wiser, I recognized the more mature depth of “TMNT” and the fact that the Turtles likewise had color designations.
Holding the cheese
At any rate, I never watched the 1990s TV series and its two films, but I heard the rebooted “Power Rangers” (2017) isn’t terrible, and that’s a fair assessment. It’s a non-cheesy version of the property, but it’s overlong and overly bombastic at the end. Five color-coded teens team up to fight giant rock monsters, an even bigger gold monster and Elizabeth Banks.
But director Dean Israelite’s “Power Rangers” starts quite strong, tapping into “The Breakfast Club” as the teens meet in detention. Jason (Dacre Montgomery), the eventual leader of the group because the red crystal is drawn to him, slaps the detention bully (Wesley MacInnes) and puts him in his place.
It might’ve been neat if the bully was tapped as a future Ranger, too, but he’s not. (The slap comes back in a fun way, though.)
When the quintet learns to work together as Power Rangers after discovering five crystals in a cave, there isn’t serious tension. They are from different walks of life, and have different personalities, but they are all good people so there isn’t much conflict. Still, they seem like real teens in the way they are slow to open up and accept new friends into their lives.
A diverse team
The cast is appealing and works well together. RJ Cyler (“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” “Scream” Season 3) is particularly endearing as the autistic Billy/Blue Ranger.
It’s also a nice twist that Kimberly/Pink Ranger (Naomi Scott), seemingly bullied out of her cheerleading squad for a misunderstanding, actually did share an embarrassing photo of a teammate. So she learns that you don’t have to define yourself by your mistakes.
Jason/Red Ranger has minor leadership troubles, while Zack/Black Ranger (Ludi Lin) is cool throughout. Trini/Yellow Ranger (Becky G) has that usual problem where her parents just don’t get her, man – because, in her case, she’s gay and doesn’t talk much. It’s unclear if Trini and her family time-traveled from a previous decade.
But “Power Rangers’ ” story starts in a previous eon. A rogue Ranger, the unfortunately named Rita Repulsa (Banks), who resembles “Suicide Squad’s” Enchantress, sort of kills teammate Zordon (Bryan Cranston, “Breaking Bad”).
Zordon is now an AI in the wall of an underground Ranger facility. He’s a remote Yoda/Splinter type for the new Rangers, with a “Clone Wars”-style robot (voiced by Bill Hader) assisting him.
Cranston adds gravitas, but “Power Rangers” slows to a crawl during the training segments, and it never translates well when the end goal (getting their magic armor, in this case) is achieved by something vague like believing in yourself and your teammates. There’s one moment of Billy trying really hard that probably has had fart sound effects added on YouTube.
Colorful and cool
“Power Rangers” – filmed around Vancouver — looks cool. I especially like how the teens access Zordon’s HQ by going through an underground lake that has a weird gravity effect where you exit out the bottom. When the five prospective Rangers try out their jumping ability over a canyon, the film briefly achieves a sense of wonder.
And then it’s the Rangers’ driving their Transformer-like Zords against Rita and Goldar. Even though it looks good, this kind of spectacle bores me; but it’s so common in superhero actioners that I guess a lot of people must love it.
Still, the teens and their camaraderie remain enjoyable to the end, even though the 2-hour, 4-minute film is 30 minutes too long. It’s in that weird middle ground where it’s a great kids’ movie except that it doesn’t take into account kids’ attention spans.
I wouldn’t watch “Power Rangers” again, but I admit it achieves its goal of discarding the ’90s corniness and infusing a dash of coolness.