Power Rangers is a film which comes directed by Dean Israelite who some may know as the director that brought us Project Almanac (2015). The film stars Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott, RJ Cyler, Ludi Lin, Becky G., Elizabeth Banks and Bryan Cranston. This film is cinematic reboot of the once popular Power Rangers franchise of the 1990’s. It’s an origin story film about a group of teenagers who through some strange circumstances gain superpowers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XzfcxFED1I&t=9s
As a person who reviews almost 1 or 2 movies a week on this site, there comes a time every once in a while when a movie to me seems to sort of just fail and is not really that great at all. It can happen on any week, any time of the month or inside even the biggest or smallest of franchises for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately Power Rangers is one of those films and it’s awful because I kind of wish it wasn’t.
There is a slight issue in that while I knew of and watched the Power Rangers when I was a kid in the 90’s, I’m now a lot older and find myself outside of the franchises’ chosen target demographic. It’s odd though because I was about 6 years old when I used to watch Power Rangers. But I feel that this film is probably more suited to people who are around 12 years of age. In many ways this film’s demographic is similar to that of the recent Monster Trucks and I didn’t think I would say this in 2017, but Monster Trucks is the better film to go and see.
The pacing of this film is the largest problem, it’s super fast and for an origin story film, that’s not great at all. You barely get the feel for the characters and if they weren’t all coloured in very memorable and bright colours, I would be struggling to remember who was who. What is even worse is that at one point in the film, there’s a scene where the characters all stop and try to get to know each other, it makes you feel slightly more for the characters, but it feels sort of like a forced scene. The whole film seems rushed, like it was made incredibly fast and needed much more time to be thought through. The franchise has some potential, but it seems all lost now.
In terms of the special effects, there was some nostalgia to be had when watching Power Rangers. I loved seeing everything on the big screen and with modern special effects. I do love the new look for the armor and when the characters first become Power Rangers, things look pretty cool. But the problem is the film is really for 12 year old’s, so everything turns out really lame, cheesy and unnecessarily dramatic, even for small action scenes.
Overall watching Power Rangers was an odd experience. Sure it has certain nostalgia elements, but many who watched the series when they were younger are way out of the demographic for this film. It’s hard to say whether or not those in the demographic will love this experience, but there’s certainly better things out there for them to watch at the moment. It’s very hard to recommend seeing this film to a non Power Rangers fan and maybe even harder to recommend to fans themselves because I’m not so sure it will satisfy them either. It does have though, some really cheesy lines that may make you laugh and the film experience is not intense at all which may be just what someone may need this weekend, but so do so many other movies out this week.
