Gatins is an actor/writer who previously wrote Summer Catch, Hardball, Coach Carter, Dreamer: Inspired By A True Story, Real Steel, Flight, Need For Speed and Kong: Skull Island. Hmm. There are actually a couple of decent movies in that list. I guess you can't hit one out of the park every time at bat.
Sazama and Sharpless previously wrote Dracula Untold, The Last Witch Hunter and Gods Of Egypt, which should tell you everything you need to know about the Power Rangers movie. Plus I can't think of a more perfect name for one of the writers of this film than "Sharpless."
Michele and Kieran Mulroney are writing partners, as well as husband and wife. Michele Mulroney wrote Sunny & Share Love You on her own. The two of them co-wrote Paper Man (??) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows.
Dean Israelite only has one previous Hollywood film under his belt— the teen found footage time-traveling sci-fi pic Project Almanac.
Once again, a newbie director is handed the keys to a $100 million dollar plus production. I honestly don't get why studios keep doing this, as it seems like a risky move and rarely turns out well. Why not hire a seasoned director who knows what he's doing to helm your big budget tentpole picture?
This is actually the third Hollywood film version of Power Rangers. Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie hit movie screens in 1995, and Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie premiered in 1997.
Believe it or not, it's been a whopping twenty four years since the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers first graced our TV screens back in 1993. Twenty four years! Can you believe it? That means there are actually college students out there right now who weren't even alive when the show premiered! How the hell is that possible?
I was wayyyyyy past the target demographic when the Power Rangers TV show premiered. Despite this, I watched it occasionally, mostly because I was a fan of kaiju movies and liked the Voltron-like live action scenes (the teen segments, not so much).
The show quickly became a YUGE cultural phenomenon. There was a ton of merchandise based on the show, which quickly sold out nationwide. Chinese manufacturers opened up entire factories dedicated to producing nothing but Power Rangers toys in order to keep up with the demand. The shortage was so bad for a while that the owner of an auto dealership allegedly offered to trade a brand new car for a full set of action figures! It was a Big Deal.
It also generated its share of controversy, mostly due to angry parents protesting the show's violence (insert eye roll here).
Yes, there's nothing more horrific than watching a man in a robot suit stomp around a set full of tiny buildings, as he occasionally punches a guy in a turtle costume with a stop light sticking out of its back!
Actually, most of the no-fun, jittery parents complained that the show caused their kids to punch each other and knock over lamps and such. Hey, at least it got 'em up off the couch!
So what's the verdict on this new take on the Power Rangers? Does it succeed in recapturing the fun and insanity that made the original TV series such a hit? Hardly. This is a Power Rangers film that desperately doesn't want to be a Power Rangers movie. It's dark, dour, joyless and just plain no fun. It's a Power Rangers movie as reimagined by Christopher Nolan.
Worst of all, the film is just plain boring. I checked my watch more than once during the overlong runtime, trying to will it to hurry up and end already. The last thing a Power Rangers movie should ever be is dull.
I kind of had a feeling that something like this would happen. Way back on October 28, 2015, I reported that producer Haim Saban was working on a new, big budget remake of the series. I was skeptical of the project even then, saying:
Long before the movie premiered, director Dean Israelite said in an interview that the film would be "completely playful, and it needs to be really fun and funny. But like Project Almanac, it's going to feel very grounded at the same time, and very contemporary and have a real edge to it, and a real gut to it, it's going to be a fun, joyful, but one that feels completely grounded in a real world, with real characters going through real things."
Ugh... he said the "G" word. "Grounded." Twice! Lately that word's become code for "dull and joyless." Any time you hear a director use that word when describing a movie, you should avoid it at all costs, because I guarantee it's gonna be a flop.
Why do directors insist on taking beloved pop culture properties and then strip them of every element that made them popular in the first place? Are they trying to appeal to the wider general public instead of the fans? Bad idea, as this tactic ends up pleasing nobody.
I'm honestly not sure who this film is aimed at. Kids? They'll be bored to tears by the lack of action and colorful costumes. Is it for nostalgic adults, who remember watching the show when they were younger? They're just gonna be pissed at the lack of anything they recognize from the series they loved. It's a movie without an audience, as the box office results show all too well.
The film clocks in at a whopping 124 minutes, which is wayyyyy too long for a kid's film. A good half hour could have been cut out of this film without hurting it one bit.
The Rangers' costumes, the Zords, the MegaZord and most of all the action—the things the audience came to see—are on screen for twenty minutes, if that. You'd probably see more of the Power Rangers in the average episode of the TV series than you do in this film.
One thing you should know if for some reason you insist on seeing this movie: you are not prepared for the outrageous amount of product placement in Power Rangers. It is for all intents and purposes a two hour commercial for Krispy Kreme donuts, with a few scenes of the Power Rangers tossed in now and then. I am not exaggerating. I'll go into more detail about this in a bit.
Power Rangers was originally scheduled for a July 22, 2016 release. Lionsgate then delayed the film to January 2017 to "allow the film room to grow," whatever the hell that means. It was pushed back yet again to March 24, 2017. As loyal readers of Bob Canada's BlogWorld know all too well, anytime a movie's pushed back multiple times, it's always a bad, bad sign. And so it is with Power Rangers.
Apparently I'm not the only one who's underwhelmed by this take on the material. So far Power Rangers has only managed to rack up a modest $81 million against its $100 million budget. Oddly enough it's done even worse overseas, where its only made $47 million, for a worldwide gross of $128 million. Due to marketing and other costs, these days movies need to gross around twice their production budget just to break even, so Power Rangers has a long, long way to go before it starts turning a profit. If ever.
Lionsgate Studios obviously had high hopes for this movie, hoping to leverage it into a lucrative franchise. In February of this year, producer Haim Saban (who turned Zyuranger into Power Rangers) said that he and Lionsgate already have a SIX movie story arc planned.
Eh, I dunno. I wouldn't hold my breath for Power Rangers 2. If it does come to pass, it'll be a very scaled-down version with a much, much lower budget.
SPOILERS I GUESS, EVEN THOUGH IF YOU'VE EVER WATCHED EVEN ONE EPISODE OF THE POWER RANGERS IN YOUR LIFE, YOU'LL KNOW EXACTLY WHAT TO EXPECT!
The Plot:
We open in Earth's Cenozoic Era, long before there were Krispy Kremes. A fierce battle rages, as we see the wounded Red Ranger, aka Zordon (played by Bryan Cranston, if you can believe that!), crawling along the ground. He's the last survivor of the Power Rangers, and takes his fallen teammates' Power Coins and buries them slightly under the dirt. He then orders his assistant, the robot Alpha 5, to send a giant meteor to his location.
Zordon's confronted by Rita Repulsa (played by Elizabeth Banks), the former Green Ranger who betrayed the team. She's looking for the Zeo Crystal, which she wants in order to rule the world (Which world? Earth? She doesn't look like she's from around here, and even speaks an alien language. Why's she care about this planet?). She offers Zordon the chance to rule by her side, but he refuses. Suddenly the meteor appears and slams into Earth, killing Zordon, along with the dinosaurs. Somehow Rita survives, as she's thrown into the ocean along with her Power Coin.
Cut to the present day, as the town of Angel Grove (and Krispy Kreme!) now stands on the spot where the meteor hit. Star football player Jason Scott gets involved in a teen prank that goes horribly wrong, wrecking his father's car. He's forced to take weekend detention, is placed under house arrest and loses his football scholarship. This greatly disappoints his father Sam (played by David Denman of The Office fame).
Jason reports to Angel Grove High for detention. He sees a bully messing with Billy Cranston, a fellow student "who's on the spectrum." Jason smacks the bully in the face (?) and tells him to leave Billy alone. Cheerleader Kimberly Hart is in detention as well, after sexting a photo of a fellow student (Seriously! I'm not making that up!). While in the restroom, her friends inform her she's been kicked off the cheerleading squad. She stares into the mirror, takes a pair of scissors and cuts her long, luxurious hair. Um... that'll show those old mean girls! I guess?
After detention, Billy thanks Jason for saving him and wants to hang out. Jason says he'd love to, but he's wearing an ankle monitor and can't be out past 7 pm. Billy says it's no problem, as he can deactivate it. Apparently Jason hasn't learned his lesson, as he agrees to go to Billy's house. Billy deactivates the monitor with seconds to spare. He then asks Jason to take his mother's van and drive him to the nearby quarry (I guess Billy's not old enough to drive?).
At the quarry, Billy starts digging around in the side of a cliff wall, saying he's carrying on the project he and his late father started or something. Jason wanders off and sees Kimberly, who's swimming in a strip pit (bad idea!). This quarry's apparently the place to be, because another outcast, Zack Taylor, spies on fellow social pariah Trini Kwan, who's doing yoga. Welcome to Coincidence Theater, as the entire cast is now present and accounted for here in the quarry, so the plot can proceed.
Amazingly Billy's experiment involves drilling a hole in the side of the cliff and filling it with dynamite (!). He sets off a massive explosion, collapsing the cliff face. The others run to see if he's OK. Zack spots several glowing objects (the Power Coins Zordon buried eons ago) embedded in a translucent substance in the side of the cliff. He digs them out and the teens each randomly take one.
Suddenly they hear alarms, and see the quarry's security heading for them. The five teens pile into the van as Billy drives off (So I guess he can drive after all?). They fly down the road, and see an approaching train. Jason says if they can beat the train, the security trucks will be trapped behind it and they'll be home free. Billy floors it and zooms across the track, but the train slams into the back of the van, causing it to spin. It crashes into a gully, as the five teens are knocked unconscious.
Meanwhile, Jason's dad Sam is working on a fishing boat (I guess Angel Grove must be a seaside community?). He pulls up a huge net of fish, and when he dumps it out a petrified body plops onto the deck. Gosh, I wonder who that could be?
The five teens then each wake in their own rooms, unharmed and with no idea how they got there (?). Each of them then realizes they now have super strength. Jason, Kimberly and Billy meet up and decide to investigate the quarry again after school. They arrive there and find Zack trying to break through the cliff. They see Trini, but for some reason she bolts and runs up the side of the cliff when spotted (?). The others chase after her and discover they can now jump huge distances. As Billy tries to jump a wide gully, he falls into a deep chasm.
The others jump into the chasm to save him, and land in a lake far below. They dive down into the lake and emerge in an underground cavern. Inside the cavern is a massive spaceship, filled with advanced tech. They're greeted by Zordon's robot Alpha 5 (voiced by Bill Hader), who's apparently been waiting there since the Cenozoic Era.
I cannot emphasize enough that it's taken the movie over thirty minutes to get to this point, something the TV series did in fifteen seconds.
Alpha activates a display and Zordon's face appears. He explains that his body died eons ago, but his consciousness is alive and well inside the Morphing Grid. Even though the five teens just happened to find the Power Coins, Zordon states that they've been "chosen" to become the new team of Power Rangers. So the fate of the entire world apparently depends completely on random chance here. Got it. Power Rangers, everyone!
Zordon infodumps a ton of exposition to the teens, telling them that Rita Repulsa was originally a Power Ranger, until she betrayed the team. Rita plans to create Goldar, a gigantic monster who will destroy Angel Grove in order to find the Zeo Crystal. If Rita obtains it, she'll destroy the entire world. Wait, now she wants to destroy it? I thought she wanted to rule it? If she blows it up, where's she going to go?
Zordon orders the gang to step onto the Morphing Grid and transform into the Power Rangers. They try, but nothing happens. He realizes they'll need several montages worth of training before they can morph.
Meanwhile, Sam calls the police to come investigate the petrified body in the hold of his ship. In an incredibly awkward and stilted scene, he tells the investigating cop he's going home to bed, conveniently leaving the cop alone with the body. Obviously this body turns out to be Rita, and she absorbs the cop's life force to revive herself. Why she didn't do this to Sam when she was alone with him is left to our imaginations.
Cut to the first of many, many Power Ranger training montages, as the gang fights solid, holographic rock monsters, called "Putties." Once again they try to morph, with no luck. The gang sees a huge cavern filled with giant, mechanical dinosaurs. Alpha causally mentions those are their Zords, huge anthropomorphic vehicles they'll get to control someday when they're ready.
Zack decides he's ready now, and sneaks away, and secretly takes his Zord out for a spin. Naturally he can't control it properly, and nearly destroys the town before returning it to the cave. Well, that was a pointless scene!
When Zack returns, Jason yells at him for recklessly endangering himself and the town. The argument escalates into a fist fight. Billy separates the two, and they're amazed to see he's morphed into his Power Ranger armor. Unfortunately it disappears, and he has no idea how he did it.
That night the Rangers camp out and discuss their morphing situation. Jason believes they can't morph because they don't fully trust one another, and suggests they open up and reveal their darkest secrets. GAWWWWD, can this goddamned movie possibly drag itself out any longer?
So the Rangers rehash all the stuff we already know— Jason blew his big chance at a football scholarship, and Kimberly's an asshole who sexted a friend's photo. Zack says his mom's really sick, and worries about what'll happen to him if she dies. Trini's an outcast because her family moves around a lot, plus she may or may not be a lesbian. And Billy's a dangerous loner who likes to blow things up. Power Rangers, everyone!
Meanwhile, Rita wanders around Angel Grove collecting gold in order to create Goldar. She's confronted by the police, but easily dispatches them. Finally, a tiny bit of action!
Billy then uses his autistic powers to figure out where the Zeo Crystal is. It should come as no surprise that it's located directly below Angel Grove's Krispy Kreme franchise. That night Rita appears in Trini's bedroom and attacks her. She says she killed the previous Yellow Ranger, and demands she tell her where the Zeo Crystal is located. Trini says she has no idea, and for some reason, Rita believes her. She threatens to kill Trini's family unless she lures the other Rangers to the local docks.
Trini texts the others, and they rush to the docks to meet her. Rita easily traps them, and somehow senses the Billy knows where the Crystal is located. Billy finally tells her, and Rita kills him as she heads for Krispy Kreme. The others try to revive him, but he's dead.
Somehow the four teens carry Billy's dead body back through the quarry, into the underground lake and into Zordon's ship. For some reason, the Morphing Grid activates, and Alpha tells Zordon that this is his one and only chance to restore his body and return to the real world. Zordon hesitates, and says only one person may come back through the Grid. He chooses to stay, and uses the energy of the Morphing Grid to bring Billy back to life. I think. It doesn't really matter at this point. The others are so overjoyed that Billy's been resurrected that they're FINALLY able to morph! Hooray! That only took ninety minutes! Power Rangers, everyone!
The Power Rangers head into town to stop Rita. She sends an army of Putties after them, as she puts the finishing touches on Goldar. The Putties soon overwhelm the Rangers. They then summon their Zords, and despite the fact that they've had absolutely ZERO training in operating them, they're able to use them to quickly defeat the Putties. They then set their sights on Goldar.
Billy sees his dad Sam about to get stepped on and rescues him, without letting him know his identity. Sam gives the Red Ranger a long, hard look, apparently sensing something familiar about him.
Goldar easily gets the upper hand, and pushes the five Zords into a fiery pit that's opened in the middle of town. Rita then spots the Krispy Kreme and orders Goldar to destroy it and start digging for the Zeo Crystal. Inside the pit, the Rangers fear they're done for. Suddenly their Zords start to interlock and form the Megazord!
The Megazord begins battling Goldar, demolishing most of Angel Grove in the process. Our heroes! Rita merges with Goldar, combining her power with his. The Megazord somehow manages to defeat him, and Goldar melts into a huge puddle of gold. Jason orders Rita to surrender, but of course she shrieks "Never!" or something like that. She attacks the Megazord, but it simply swats her so hard she flies into outer space and freezes solid (!). Her frozen body then drifts toward the moon, where I'm sure she'll never, ever bother anyone again, unless there's a sequel.
The citizens of Angel Grove then stand in the smoldering ruins of what was once their town and for some reason cheer the Power Rangers. A few days later, we see Sam tape a newspaper article about the Rangers on his fridge, implying he knows his son is one of them. Back in Zordon's ship, he congratulates the team on becoming the new Power Rangers.
In a mid credits scene, we see the detention room at Angel Grove High. The teacher takes roll call, mentioning Tommy Oliver's name several times. We see an empty chair with a green jacket hanging from the back, setting up the Green Ranger saga in the sequel.
Thoughts:
• The film begins with a flashback to the Cenozoic Era, where Rita betrays Zordon and his team.
Sadly, this five minute prologue was far more interesting and exciting than anything in the rest of the movie. In fact I'd have rather seen an entire movie about Zordon and Rita's story than the one we actually got.
By the way, in the prologue, Zordon and Rita speak a subtitled alien language called Eltarian (Eltar being Zordon's home planet). The producers actually hired a linguist to create the Eltarian language. Supposedly Bryan Cranston and Bill Hader had trouble learning and speaking it, but Elizabeth Banks was fluent in it. Wow. What a valuable skill that'll be a year from now.
• In the TV series, Rita Repulsa was an evil alien witch who used her powers to conquer dozens of planets. Hence her name, which is obviously a play on "repulsive."
The movie tries to get clever though, fleshing out her backstory and linking her origin to Zordon's. Here Rita was the Green Ranger, a member of Zordon's team before she went bad and betrayed him.
Due to this retcon, this means her name was REPULSA before she turned evil! Well done, five screenwriters!
• Also in the TV series, the Power Rangers' entire origin story was covered in the opening credits. Rita Repulsa emerges from a "dumpster" on the Moon and says, "Ah! After ten thousand years I'm free! It's time to conquer Earth!" Cut to Zordon, who says, "Alpha, Rita's escaped! Recruit a team of teenagers with attitude!" We then see the five teens as they're beamed from the Angel Grove Youth Center straight into Zordon's Headquarters, where they morph into the Power Rangers.
This entire sequence takes all of TWENTY SECONDS. Seriously! Everything we need to know about how they became the Rangers is covered in less than half a minute. This dreary film stretches their origin into more than two hours!
• I mentioned earlier that it's been a whopping twenty four years since Mighty Morphin Power Rangers premiered on August 28, 1993. How the hell can that be possible? It seems like it came out just yesterday.
It gets worse. Of the five principle cast members, three were born AFTER the series began! Dacre Montgomery (Jason) was born in 1994, RJ Cyler (Billy) in 1995 and Becky G (Trini) in 1997 (!). Ludi Lin (Zack) was born in 1987 and Naomi Scott (Kimberly) was born a couple of months before the show premiered, in May of 1993.
Excuse me while I go take my rheumatiz medicine...
• Max Landis (writer of Chronicle, American Ultra and Victor Frankenstein) was originally hired to write the Power Rangers screenplay. In an early draft of his script, the Rangers' signature colors were assigned randomly, resulting in Kimberly being the Black Ranger, and Zack the Pink. The idea of a male being the Pink Ranger was then played for maximum yuks.
This concept was quickly scrapped, and Landis was fired from the film. Actually I wish they'd used his take on the material. It had to be more interesting than this The CW teen angst snoozefest we got.
By the way, after seeing the trailer, Landis criticized the movie, saying it felt a lot like his Chronicle screenplay. He's not wrong. Power Rangers shares a lot with that film, especially during the many "discovering our powers" scenes.
• In the original TV show, it could be argued that the color of the Power Rangers' costumes were based on their race or gender. Zack, who was African-American, was the Black Ranger. Trini was Asian, so she was the Yellow Ranger. Kimberly was a girl, so she was the Pink Ranger.
A few years ago the internet suddenly noticed this phenomenon (decades after the fact), and dozens of "Power Rangers Is Racist!" memes were born.
Eh, did anyone really think that back in '93 before all the stupid internet memes started? The actors spent a good amount of each episode with their faces obscured by helmets, so I just assumed their costume colors were visual shorthand, to help the audience tell who was who. Jason always wore a red tank top, so he was the Red Ranger. Billy often wore blue overalls, so he was the Blue Ranger. Tommy often wore green, so he was the Green Ranger, and so on. I never saw it as anything more than that.
Fortunately though the studio leapt into action here in good old hypersensitive 2017, and took steps to right this grievous imagined wrong, to save all the SJWs out there from having icky bad feelings.
Billy is now an African American, and is the Blue Ranger. Zack is now Asian, and is the Black Ranger. Trini's still the Yellow Ranger, but now she's Hispanic. Whew! Crisis averted!
And just in case the cast wasn't diverse enough, Lionsgate covered their asses even more. Billy is now on the autistic spectrum, and Trini implies she's a lesbian.
• After detention, Billy asks Jason to drive him to the local quarry. This implies that Billy either doesn't know how to drive, or isn't allowed to because he's borderline autistic. Later when the security trucks are after them, Billy takes the wheel of his mom's van and drives his friends out of the quarry. He seems to know what he's doing, as he expertly evades capture and drives down the road at high speeds.
So if he knows how to drive, why'd he want Jason to take him to the quarry? Did he pretend he couldn't drive just to make friends with Jason?
And before you say anything, I do realize that I'm a grown-ass man sitting here complaining about the lack of logic in the Power Rangers movie. But c'mon, even fantasy fiction needs a set of internal rules to follow!
• In the opening credits of the TV series, Zordon tells Alpha to recruit "a team of teenagers with attitude." Hey, it was the 1990s, what can I say? Anyway, the point is that Alpha probably ran some sort of scan, picked the five best best candidates for the job and beamed them into the Command Center.
In the movie, the selection process is completely coincidental, as the main characters all randomly converge in the quarry at the same time and just happen to find the five Power Coins. Apparently this time around, possessing one of the Coins is all it takes to qualify for the job.
Lucky for Zordon that five criminals didn't find the Power Coins. Or a bunch of hobos camping out in the quarry.
• Dacre Montgomery, who plays Jason, looks distractingly like David Yost, who played Billy in the original series. Coincidence, or intentional?
• Hey, look! A scene from the trailer that's not in the actual movie! Don't you just love those? There's nothing I like better than a trailer that promises things it has no intention of delivering. False advertising, smalsh smadversmising!
Ah well. It's only one scene (as near as I can tell). It's not like this is Rogue One.
• When the kids first fall into the underground lake, they note that the water around each of them is glowing with their signature colors. Zack, who will eventually become the Black Ranger, says "I'm glowing black!" A couple things here.
First of all, the film's color pallet is so muted and dreary that it's impossible to see any kind color in the water at all. Secondly, just how something "glows black" is left to our imaginations.
• After the teens land in the lake, for some reason they decide to dive deep into it and have a look around. Eventually they find what appears to be a force field that separates the water from an underground chamber. Jason tentatively pushes his hand through this force field into the dry air on the other side.
So how did they film this startling effect? With CGI? In a tank with some sort of elaborate hole in the side for Jason to stick his hand through? With a real live force field?
Dean Israelite only has one previous Hollywood film under his belt— the teen found footage time-traveling sci-fi pic Project Almanac.
Once again, a newbie director is handed the keys to a $100 million dollar plus production. I honestly don't get why studios keep doing this, as it seems like a risky move and rarely turns out well. Why not hire a seasoned director who knows what he's doing to helm your big budget tentpole picture?
This is actually the third Hollywood film version of Power Rangers. Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie hit movie screens in 1995, and Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie premiered in 1997.
Believe it or not, it's been a whopping twenty four years since the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers first graced our TV screens back in 1993. Twenty four years! Can you believe it? That means there are actually college students out there right now who weren't even alive when the show premiered! How the hell is that possible?
I was wayyyyyy past the target demographic when the Power Rangers TV show premiered. Despite this, I watched it occasionally, mostly because I was a fan of kaiju movies and liked the Voltron-like live action scenes (the teen segments, not so much).
The show quickly became a YUGE cultural phenomenon. There was a ton of merchandise based on the show, which quickly sold out nationwide. Chinese manufacturers opened up entire factories dedicated to producing nothing but Power Rangers toys in order to keep up with the demand. The shortage was so bad for a while that the owner of an auto dealership allegedly offered to trade a brand new car for a full set of action figures! It was a Big Deal.
It also generated its share of controversy, mostly due to angry parents protesting the show's violence (insert eye roll here).
Actually, most of the no-fun, jittery parents complained that the show caused their kids to punch each other and knock over lamps and such. Hey, at least it got 'em up off the couch!
So what's the verdict on this new take on the Power Rangers? Does it succeed in recapturing the fun and insanity that made the original TV series such a hit? Hardly. This is a Power Rangers film that desperately doesn't want to be a Power Rangers movie. It's dark, dour, joyless and just plain no fun. It's a Power Rangers movie as reimagined by Christopher Nolan.
Worst of all, the film is just plain boring. I checked my watch more than once during the overlong runtime, trying to will it to hurry up and end already. The last thing a Power Rangers movie should ever be is dull.
I kind of had a feeling that something like this would happen. Way back on October 28, 2015, I reported that producer Haim Saban was working on a new, big budget remake of the series. I was skeptical of the project even then, saying:
"Details are sketchy, but don't be surprised if it turns out to be a grim, gritty and grounded take on the property. In other words, no damn fun."Wow. How frighteningly prescient. It's like I actually saw two years into the future! This new version of Power Rangers is indeed grim, gritty and grounded, and worst of all, no damn fun.
Long before the movie premiered, director Dean Israelite said in an interview that the film would be "completely playful, and it needs to be really fun and funny. But like Project Almanac, it's going to feel very grounded at the same time, and very contemporary and have a real edge to it, and a real gut to it, it's going to be a fun, joyful, but one that feels completely grounded in a real world, with real characters going through real things."
Ugh... he said the "G" word. "Grounded." Twice! Lately that word's become code for "dull and joyless." Any time you hear a director use that word when describing a movie, you should avoid it at all costs, because I guarantee it's gonna be a flop.
Why do directors insist on taking beloved pop culture properties and then strip them of every element that made them popular in the first place? Are they trying to appeal to the wider general public instead of the fans? Bad idea, as this tactic ends up pleasing nobody.
I'm honestly not sure who this film is aimed at. Kids? They'll be bored to tears by the lack of action and colorful costumes. Is it for nostalgic adults, who remember watching the show when they were younger? They're just gonna be pissed at the lack of anything they recognize from the series they loved. It's a movie without an audience, as the box office results show all too well.
The film clocks in at a whopping 124 minutes, which is wayyyyy too long for a kid's film. A good half hour could have been cut out of this film without hurting it one bit.
The Rangers' costumes, the Zords, the MegaZord and most of all the action—the things the audience came to see—are on screen for twenty minutes, if that. You'd probably see more of the Power Rangers in the average episode of the TV series than you do in this film.
One thing you should know if for some reason you insist on seeing this movie: you are not prepared for the outrageous amount of product placement in Power Rangers. It is for all intents and purposes a two hour commercial for Krispy Kreme donuts, with a few scenes of the Power Rangers tossed in now and then. I am not exaggerating. I'll go into more detail about this in a bit.
Power Rangers was originally scheduled for a July 22, 2016 release. Lionsgate then delayed the film to January 2017 to "allow the film room to grow," whatever the hell that means. It was pushed back yet again to March 24, 2017. As loyal readers of Bob Canada's BlogWorld know all too well, anytime a movie's pushed back multiple times, it's always a bad, bad sign. And so it is with Power Rangers.
Apparently I'm not the only one who's underwhelmed by this take on the material. So far Power Rangers has only managed to rack up a modest $81 million against its $100 million budget. Oddly enough it's done even worse overseas, where its only made $47 million, for a worldwide gross of $128 million. Due to marketing and other costs, these days movies need to gross around twice their production budget just to break even, so Power Rangers has a long, long way to go before it starts turning a profit. If ever.
Lionsgate Studios obviously had high hopes for this movie, hoping to leverage it into a lucrative franchise. In February of this year, producer Haim Saban (who turned Zyuranger into Power Rangers) said that he and Lionsgate already have a SIX movie story arc planned.
Eh, I dunno. I wouldn't hold my breath for Power Rangers 2. If it does come to pass, it'll be a very scaled-down version with a much, much lower budget.
SPOILERS I GUESS, EVEN THOUGH IF YOU'VE EVER WATCHED EVEN ONE EPISODE OF THE POWER RANGERS IN YOUR LIFE, YOU'LL KNOW EXACTLY WHAT TO EXPECT!
The Plot:
We open in Earth's Cenozoic Era, long before there were Krispy Kremes. A fierce battle rages, as we see the wounded Red Ranger, aka Zordon (played by Bryan Cranston, if you can believe that!), crawling along the ground. He's the last survivor of the Power Rangers, and takes his fallen teammates' Power Coins and buries them slightly under the dirt. He then orders his assistant, the robot Alpha 5, to send a giant meteor to his location.
Zordon's confronted by Rita Repulsa (played by Elizabeth Banks), the former Green Ranger who betrayed the team. She's looking for the Zeo Crystal, which she wants in order to rule the world (Which world? Earth? She doesn't look like she's from around here, and even speaks an alien language. Why's she care about this planet?). She offers Zordon the chance to rule by her side, but he refuses. Suddenly the meteor appears and slams into Earth, killing Zordon, along with the dinosaurs. Somehow Rita survives, as she's thrown into the ocean along with her Power Coin.
Cut to the present day, as the town of Angel Grove (and Krispy Kreme!) now stands on the spot where the meteor hit. Star football player Jason Scott gets involved in a teen prank that goes horribly wrong, wrecking his father's car. He's forced to take weekend detention, is placed under house arrest and loses his football scholarship. This greatly disappoints his father Sam (played by David Denman of The Office fame).
Jason reports to Angel Grove High for detention. He sees a bully messing with Billy Cranston, a fellow student "who's on the spectrum." Jason smacks the bully in the face (?) and tells him to leave Billy alone. Cheerleader Kimberly Hart is in detention as well, after sexting a photo of a fellow student (Seriously! I'm not making that up!). While in the restroom, her friends inform her she's been kicked off the cheerleading squad. She stares into the mirror, takes a pair of scissors and cuts her long, luxurious hair. Um... that'll show those old mean girls! I guess?
After detention, Billy thanks Jason for saving him and wants to hang out. Jason says he'd love to, but he's wearing an ankle monitor and can't be out past 7 pm. Billy says it's no problem, as he can deactivate it. Apparently Jason hasn't learned his lesson, as he agrees to go to Billy's house. Billy deactivates the monitor with seconds to spare. He then asks Jason to take his mother's van and drive him to the nearby quarry (I guess Billy's not old enough to drive?).
At the quarry, Billy starts digging around in the side of a cliff wall, saying he's carrying on the project he and his late father started or something. Jason wanders off and sees Kimberly, who's swimming in a strip pit (bad idea!). This quarry's apparently the place to be, because another outcast, Zack Taylor, spies on fellow social pariah Trini Kwan, who's doing yoga. Welcome to Coincidence Theater, as the entire cast is now present and accounted for here in the quarry, so the plot can proceed.
Amazingly Billy's experiment involves drilling a hole in the side of the cliff and filling it with dynamite (!). He sets off a massive explosion, collapsing the cliff face. The others run to see if he's OK. Zack spots several glowing objects (the Power Coins Zordon buried eons ago) embedded in a translucent substance in the side of the cliff. He digs them out and the teens each randomly take one.
Suddenly they hear alarms, and see the quarry's security heading for them. The five teens pile into the van as Billy drives off (So I guess he can drive after all?). They fly down the road, and see an approaching train. Jason says if they can beat the train, the security trucks will be trapped behind it and they'll be home free. Billy floors it and zooms across the track, but the train slams into the back of the van, causing it to spin. It crashes into a gully, as the five teens are knocked unconscious.
Meanwhile, Jason's dad Sam is working on a fishing boat (I guess Angel Grove must be a seaside community?). He pulls up a huge net of fish, and when he dumps it out a petrified body plops onto the deck. Gosh, I wonder who that could be?
The five teens then each wake in their own rooms, unharmed and with no idea how they got there (?). Each of them then realizes they now have super strength. Jason, Kimberly and Billy meet up and decide to investigate the quarry again after school. They arrive there and find Zack trying to break through the cliff. They see Trini, but for some reason she bolts and runs up the side of the cliff when spotted (?). The others chase after her and discover they can now jump huge distances. As Billy tries to jump a wide gully, he falls into a deep chasm.
The others jump into the chasm to save him, and land in a lake far below. They dive down into the lake and emerge in an underground cavern. Inside the cavern is a massive spaceship, filled with advanced tech. They're greeted by Zordon's robot Alpha 5 (voiced by Bill Hader), who's apparently been waiting there since the Cenozoic Era.
I cannot emphasize enough that it's taken the movie over thirty minutes to get to this point, something the TV series did in fifteen seconds.
Alpha activates a display and Zordon's face appears. He explains that his body died eons ago, but his consciousness is alive and well inside the Morphing Grid. Even though the five teens just happened to find the Power Coins, Zordon states that they've been "chosen" to become the new team of Power Rangers. So the fate of the entire world apparently depends completely on random chance here. Got it. Power Rangers, everyone!
Zordon infodumps a ton of exposition to the teens, telling them that Rita Repulsa was originally a Power Ranger, until she betrayed the team. Rita plans to create Goldar, a gigantic monster who will destroy Angel Grove in order to find the Zeo Crystal. If Rita obtains it, she'll destroy the entire world. Wait, now she wants to destroy it? I thought she wanted to rule it? If she blows it up, where's she going to go?
Zordon orders the gang to step onto the Morphing Grid and transform into the Power Rangers. They try, but nothing happens. He realizes they'll need several montages worth of training before they can morph.
Meanwhile, Sam calls the police to come investigate the petrified body in the hold of his ship. In an incredibly awkward and stilted scene, he tells the investigating cop he's going home to bed, conveniently leaving the cop alone with the body. Obviously this body turns out to be Rita, and she absorbs the cop's life force to revive herself. Why she didn't do this to Sam when she was alone with him is left to our imaginations.
Cut to the first of many, many Power Ranger training montages, as the gang fights solid, holographic rock monsters, called "Putties." Once again they try to morph, with no luck. The gang sees a huge cavern filled with giant, mechanical dinosaurs. Alpha causally mentions those are their Zords, huge anthropomorphic vehicles they'll get to control someday when they're ready.
Zack decides he's ready now, and sneaks away, and secretly takes his Zord out for a spin. Naturally he can't control it properly, and nearly destroys the town before returning it to the cave. Well, that was a pointless scene!
When Zack returns, Jason yells at him for recklessly endangering himself and the town. The argument escalates into a fist fight. Billy separates the two, and they're amazed to see he's morphed into his Power Ranger armor. Unfortunately it disappears, and he has no idea how he did it.
That night the Rangers camp out and discuss their morphing situation. Jason believes they can't morph because they don't fully trust one another, and suggests they open up and reveal their darkest secrets. GAWWWWD, can this goddamned movie possibly drag itself out any longer?
So the Rangers rehash all the stuff we already know— Jason blew his big chance at a football scholarship, and Kimberly's an asshole who sexted a friend's photo. Zack says his mom's really sick, and worries about what'll happen to him if she dies. Trini's an outcast because her family moves around a lot, plus she may or may not be a lesbian. And Billy's a dangerous loner who likes to blow things up. Power Rangers, everyone!
Meanwhile, Rita wanders around Angel Grove collecting gold in order to create Goldar. She's confronted by the police, but easily dispatches them. Finally, a tiny bit of action!
Billy then uses his autistic powers to figure out where the Zeo Crystal is. It should come as no surprise that it's located directly below Angel Grove's Krispy Kreme franchise. That night Rita appears in Trini's bedroom and attacks her. She says she killed the previous Yellow Ranger, and demands she tell her where the Zeo Crystal is located. Trini says she has no idea, and for some reason, Rita believes her. She threatens to kill Trini's family unless she lures the other Rangers to the local docks.
Trini texts the others, and they rush to the docks to meet her. Rita easily traps them, and somehow senses the Billy knows where the Crystal is located. Billy finally tells her, and Rita kills him as she heads for Krispy Kreme. The others try to revive him, but he's dead.
Somehow the four teens carry Billy's dead body back through the quarry, into the underground lake and into Zordon's ship. For some reason, the Morphing Grid activates, and Alpha tells Zordon that this is his one and only chance to restore his body and return to the real world. Zordon hesitates, and says only one person may come back through the Grid. He chooses to stay, and uses the energy of the Morphing Grid to bring Billy back to life. I think. It doesn't really matter at this point. The others are so overjoyed that Billy's been resurrected that they're FINALLY able to morph! Hooray! That only took ninety minutes! Power Rangers, everyone!
The Power Rangers head into town to stop Rita. She sends an army of Putties after them, as she puts the finishing touches on Goldar. The Putties soon overwhelm the Rangers. They then summon their Zords, and despite the fact that they've had absolutely ZERO training in operating them, they're able to use them to quickly defeat the Putties. They then set their sights on Goldar.
Billy sees his dad Sam about to get stepped on and rescues him, without letting him know his identity. Sam gives the Red Ranger a long, hard look, apparently sensing something familiar about him.
Goldar easily gets the upper hand, and pushes the five Zords into a fiery pit that's opened in the middle of town. Rita then spots the Krispy Kreme and orders Goldar to destroy it and start digging for the Zeo Crystal. Inside the pit, the Rangers fear they're done for. Suddenly their Zords start to interlock and form the Megazord!
The Megazord begins battling Goldar, demolishing most of Angel Grove in the process. Our heroes! Rita merges with Goldar, combining her power with his. The Megazord somehow manages to defeat him, and Goldar melts into a huge puddle of gold. Jason orders Rita to surrender, but of course she shrieks "Never!" or something like that. She attacks the Megazord, but it simply swats her so hard she flies into outer space and freezes solid (!). Her frozen body then drifts toward the moon, where I'm sure she'll never, ever bother anyone again, unless there's a sequel.
The citizens of Angel Grove then stand in the smoldering ruins of what was once their town and for some reason cheer the Power Rangers. A few days later, we see Sam tape a newspaper article about the Rangers on his fridge, implying he knows his son is one of them. Back in Zordon's ship, he congratulates the team on becoming the new Power Rangers.
In a mid credits scene, we see the detention room at Angel Grove High. The teacher takes roll call, mentioning Tommy Oliver's name several times. We see an empty chair with a green jacket hanging from the back, setting up the Green Ranger saga in the sequel.
Thoughts:
• The film begins with a flashback to the Cenozoic Era, where Rita betrays Zordon and his team.
By the way, in the prologue, Zordon and Rita speak a subtitled alien language called Eltarian (Eltar being Zordon's home planet). The producers actually hired a linguist to create the Eltarian language. Supposedly Bryan Cranston and Bill Hader had trouble learning and speaking it, but Elizabeth Banks was fluent in it. Wow. What a valuable skill that'll be a year from now.
• In the TV series, Rita Repulsa was an evil alien witch who used her powers to conquer dozens of planets. Hence her name, which is obviously a play on "repulsive."
The movie tries to get clever though, fleshing out her backstory and linking her origin to Zordon's. Here Rita was the Green Ranger, a member of Zordon's team before she went bad and betrayed him.
Due to this retcon, this means her name was REPULSA before she turned evil! Well done, five screenwriters!
• Also in the TV series, the Power Rangers' entire origin story was covered in the opening credits. Rita Repulsa emerges from a "dumpster" on the Moon and says, "Ah! After ten thousand years I'm free! It's time to conquer Earth!" Cut to Zordon, who says, "Alpha, Rita's escaped! Recruit a team of teenagers with attitude!" We then see the five teens as they're beamed from the Angel Grove Youth Center straight into Zordon's Headquarters, where they morph into the Power Rangers.
This entire sequence takes all of TWENTY SECONDS. Seriously! Everything we need to know about how they became the Rangers is covered in less than half a minute. This dreary film stretches their origin into more than two hours!
• I mentioned earlier that it's been a whopping twenty four years since Mighty Morphin Power Rangers premiered on August 28, 1993. How the hell can that be possible? It seems like it came out just yesterday.
It gets worse. Of the five principle cast members, three were born AFTER the series began! Dacre Montgomery (Jason) was born in 1994, RJ Cyler (Billy) in 1995 and Becky G (Trini) in 1997 (!). Ludi Lin (Zack) was born in 1987 and Naomi Scott (Kimberly) was born a couple of months before the show premiered, in May of 1993.
Excuse me while I go take my rheumatiz medicine...
• Max Landis (writer of Chronicle, American Ultra and Victor Frankenstein) was originally hired to write the Power Rangers screenplay. In an early draft of his script, the Rangers' signature colors were assigned randomly, resulting in Kimberly being the Black Ranger, and Zack the Pink. The idea of a male being the Pink Ranger was then played for maximum yuks.
This concept was quickly scrapped, and Landis was fired from the film. Actually I wish they'd used his take on the material. It had to be more interesting than this The CW teen angst snoozefest we got.
By the way, after seeing the trailer, Landis criticized the movie, saying it felt a lot like his Chronicle screenplay. He's not wrong. Power Rangers shares a lot with that film, especially during the many "discovering our powers" scenes.
• In the original TV show, it could be argued that the color of the Power Rangers' costumes were based on their race or gender. Zack, who was African-American, was the Black Ranger. Trini was Asian, so she was the Yellow Ranger. Kimberly was a girl, so she was the Pink Ranger.
A few years ago the internet suddenly noticed this phenomenon (decades after the fact), and dozens of "Power Rangers Is Racist!" memes were born.
Eh, did anyone really think that back in '93 before all the stupid internet memes started? The actors spent a good amount of each episode with their faces obscured by helmets, so I just assumed their costume colors were visual shorthand, to help the audience tell who was who. Jason always wore a red tank top, so he was the Red Ranger. Billy often wore blue overalls, so he was the Blue Ranger. Tommy often wore green, so he was the Green Ranger, and so on. I never saw it as anything more than that.
Fortunately though the studio leapt into action here in good old hypersensitive 2017, and took steps to right this grievous imagined wrong, to save all the SJWs out there from having icky bad feelings.
Billy is now an African American, and is the Blue Ranger. Zack is now Asian, and is the Black Ranger. Trini's still the Yellow Ranger, but now she's Hispanic. Whew! Crisis averted!
And just in case the cast wasn't diverse enough, Lionsgate covered their asses even more. Billy is now on the autistic spectrum, and Trini implies she's a lesbian.
• After detention, Billy asks Jason to drive him to the local quarry. This implies that Billy either doesn't know how to drive, or isn't allowed to because he's borderline autistic. Later when the security trucks are after them, Billy takes the wheel of his mom's van and drives his friends out of the quarry. He seems to know what he's doing, as he expertly evades capture and drives down the road at high speeds.
So if he knows how to drive, why'd he want Jason to take him to the quarry? Did he pretend he couldn't drive just to make friends with Jason?
And before you say anything, I do realize that I'm a grown-ass man sitting here complaining about the lack of logic in the Power Rangers movie. But c'mon, even fantasy fiction needs a set of internal rules to follow!
In the movie, the selection process is completely coincidental, as the main characters all randomly converge in the quarry at the same time and just happen to find the five Power Coins. Apparently this time around, possessing one of the Coins is all it takes to qualify for the job.
Lucky for Zordon that five criminals didn't find the Power Coins. Or a bunch of hobos camping out in the quarry.
Ah well. It's only one scene (as near as I can tell). It's not like this is Rogue One.
First of all, the film's color pallet is so muted and dreary that it's impossible to see any kind color in the water at all. Secondly, just how something "glows black" is left to our imaginations.
So how did they film this startling effect? With CGI? In a tank with some sort of elaborate hole in the side for Jason to stick his hand through? With a real live force field?
Nope! They just tilted the camera on its side and filmed him sticking his hand out of a pool. It's actually not a bad little low-tech effect. There's just one thing that gives it away— the air bubbles. When they turn the scene on its side in the actual film, you can see a series of bubbles traveling horizontally through the water. Bubbles generally float up, not right to left!
• When the teens enter the Command Center, they're confronted by Zordon, who looks just like a giant version of Bryan Cranston who got his face stuck in a wall.
Honestly it's not a bad effect, but it's impossible to see it and not think of those 3D pin boards you stick your face or hand in. Did the production designer on this movie really think no one had ever seen one of these things before? I guess we're lucky he didn't place a gigantic Newton's Cradle in the middle of the set as well.
• After one of the many, many training montages, the teens catch a glimpse of some gigantic robotic vehicles inside one of the vast caverns. Alpha causally mentions these are the Zords, which took the form of the most powerful creatures on Earth during the period in which they first came here.
A helpful caption tells us that the prologue took place in the Cenozoic Era. Need I point out that there were no dinosaurs on Earth at that time? The Cenozoic was the age of cave lions, saber-toothed tigers, cave bears, giant deer, woolly rhinoceroses and mammoths.
One of the Zords takes the form of a saber-tooth tiger and another a mammoth (sort of). I guess the other three Zords didn't think the Cenozoic animals were cool enough and decided to take the form of much earlier creatures.
I don't know how much money Krispy Kreme contributed to the film's $100 million budget, but it must have been at least half in order to warrant the kind of attention it gets. I hope it was worth it, Krispy Kreme!
I honestly can't remember ever seeing this level of product placement before. The only other movie that might come close is Demolition Man. Remember the scene in which Lenina Huxley tells John Spartan, "After the Franchise Wars, all restaurants are Taco Bell." And then they go to a fancy, four star restaurant which of course is a Taco Bell.
Believe me, as overt as that was, it was positively subtle compared to the product placement here in Power Rangers. Blatant doesn't even being to describe it.
• Rita Repulsa needs gold in order to create her gigantic minion Goldar. Lots of gold. An incredible, impossible amount of gold. See, Goldar is a lumpy, vaguely humanoid-looking thing (with large, inoperative wings, yet) that stands a good five hundred feet tall.
Rita would need literally tons of gold to form Goldar. Thousands of tons. Maybe even hundreds of thousands. She'd likely need all the known gold in the world, especially if he's supposed to be solid, which I have to assume he is. A hollow kaiju wouldn't be much of a threat, would it now?
Yet Rita collects this gold by casually strutting through the streets of Angel Grove, occasionally popping into the odd jewelry store now and then, and stealing the gold rings from the display counter.
Angel Grove seems like a fairly small town. In order to provide Rita with all the raw materials she needs, its economy is either 99% jewelry based, or else it sits on the world's largest underground deposit of gold.
There was an easy solution to this problem. Just say Angel Grove's near some kind of Fort Knox-like bullion depository, and show Rita break into it and steal all the gold with her magic scepter.
Once again, I realize I'm an adult with a job and a mortgage who's complaining about absurdities in the Power Ranger movie, but come on!
• So in the third act, Goldar stomps around Angel Grove, knocking over buildings and downing power lines as he looks for the Krispy Kreme (!).
About ten minutes before the end of the film, the Rangers FINALLY form the Megazord and battle Goldar. They cause just as much collateral damage as Goldar did, if not more! It's Man Of Steel all over again!
And just like in Man Of Steel, once Rita and Goldar are defeated and the entire town is literally flattened, the surviving residents of Angel Grove inexplicably cheer the Power Rangers!
• Power Rangers features some of the worst production design I've seen in a long time. Everything in this movie looks absolutely awful. It's all dark, drab and colorless. I get that they needed to add more detail to the TV designs for the big screen, and after twenty four years the Zords and costumes were probably due for an upgrade. But did they have to make everything so joyless and off-putting?
Take the Power Rangers' armor. When we finally do get to see it, some one hundred minutes into the film, it's complicated, over-detailed and just plain dour. Gone are the bright and fun colors of the TV show, replaced with a pallet so desaturated you can barely tell them apart.
Production designer Andrew Menzies (ah, so he's the one to blame) said in an interview that the new suits are "an alien costume that grows on them, that’s not man-made. You can’t win everyone over, but we are trying to appeal to a more mature audience and gain new fans."
Nice try, Andrew, but you failed miserably. I don't see how these costumes could possibly appeal to anyone, young OR old.
Also, we only see them like this for about five minutes, tops. After that, their visors open up so we can see their faces. Why, I have no idea. I'd understand it if Tom Cruise or Sylvester Stallone was in this film, and the producers said, "I didn't pay $20 million to cover up their faces for the whole goddamned movie! Get those helmets off 'em!" That would make sense. But no one's ever heard of ANY of these actors playing the Rangers. Who cares if you can see their faces or not?
They also feature boob armor where needed, to remind us that some of the Rangers are of the fairer sex. Jesus wept.
The designs of the Zords are just as awful. In the TV show, the Zords were giant mechanical prehistoric creatures. Dinosaurs and mammoths and such. They had pretty cool and simple designs, and it was easy to tell what each one was supposed to be.
That just wouldn't fly here in 2017, so the Zords had to be mucked up and complicated to the point where I'm not even sure what I'm looking at. No longer do the Zords look like their namesake animals. They're more like Transformers now. Vague shapes that've been coated in glue and rolled around in a box of gears and metal parts.
Seriously, look at the designs of these things in that poster above. The yellowish thing in the center looks slightly feline-like, so I assume it's the Saber-Tooth Tiger Zord. But what about the red thing above it? It's color would indicate it's supposed to be the T-Rex Zord, but it looks more like an overly-complicated dildo.
Despite the fact that I saw the movie, I still only have a vague idea of what the Zords actually looked like. Between their speed, the framing and the constant shaky-cam, there's no way to ever get a good look at them. Why, it's almost like the filmmakers were ashamed of the designs and were doing their level best to obscure them!
The best glimpse of them I could find were these images of the toys. As you can see, they resemble prehistoric animals in the academic sense only. That black lump at the upper right is supposed to be the Mastodon Zord. Except it doesn't seem to have a trunk, and it inexplicable has eight legs. The blue thing at bottom left is ostensibly the Triceratops Zord. It's head actually looks a little like a Triceratops, so kudos there, but once again, it also has way more legs than it's supposed to. Did the production designer ever actually see any land animals before?
And what the hell's up with the pink Pterodactyl Zord? That doesn't look like a dinosaur, it's just a weird drone! No wonder this movie's a flop!
The Megazord doesn't fare any better, as it's just as off-putting. The original was a big, boxy, colorful and powerful-looking robot, and it was obvious that it was made up of the five individual Zords.
Once again this new design is desaturated and joyless. There's no fun whatsoever in this design. Worst of all, I have no idea how the individual Zords are forming it. Look at the original design. Right leg is the Tiger Zord, left leg is the Triceratops. BOOM! Done. Can spot that from a mile off. Is that what's happening with the new one? Beats me. There's a bit of dull yellow around its torso. Is that where the Tiger Zord's supposed to be? Your guess is as good as mine.
And why does it look so... shapely? As if it has actual muscles? I have a horrible feeling that if I looked at the back of this Megazord, it will have lovingly sculpted ass cheeks!
• In the final scene, we get yet another montage, showing us the Power Rangers' lives after their big battle. Jason's dad puts a newspaper clipping about the Red Ranger on the refrigerator, implying he knows his son's secret identity. Billy's mother is ecstatic that her son now has friends. Zack's mom has inexplicably recovered from her Movie Disease. And Trini paints her bedroom after Rita destroyed it earlier.
A couple things about the Trini scene. First of all, as she paints, her little brothers sit on the floor of her room playing with actual Power Rangers action figures. Wha....? Where the holy hell did they get those? It takes months, sometimes over a year for action figures to go from the design process to store shelves. Did Trini really wait that long before remodeling her room? I know, I'm complaining about logic in a Power Rangers movie again.
Secondly, as her brothers play with the figures, one of them grabs for the yellow one, saying, "He's my favorite!" Trini turns and says, "How do you know he's not a girl?"
This is likely a reference to the fact that in the original Japanese version of the Power Rangers (which was called Zyuranger), the Yellow Ranger was male. In the American Version, the Yellow Ranger's gender was swapped.
Also, boob armor. Trini's brother either needs some glasses, or an anatomy lesson.
• The mid credits scene sets up the appearance of Tommy Oliver in a possible sequel. Tommy of course was the Green Ranger on the show, who started out as an evil minion of Rita, and eventually rebelled and became good.
Note that we don't actually see Tommy here in this movie, just his green jacket. Hmm. Because we live in a touchy-feeling, politically correct hellscape, I'm confident there's an 85% chance that Tommy Oliver will turn out to be a girl if there's a sequel.
Krispy Kreme Presents Power Rangers somehow takes a colorful, exciting and beloved property from the 1990s and turns it into a dull, dour, desaturated teen angst-fest, that's completely devoid of any sense of fun whatsoever. Throw in some of the worst production design ever seen, product placement that actually becomes a goddamned plot point in the movie and an interminable 124 minute runtime, and you have one of the worst films of the year. Skip this snorefest and go watch the TV series again. I give it a very generous C.
• After one of the many, many training montages, the teens catch a glimpse of some gigantic robotic vehicles inside one of the vast caverns. Alpha causally mentions these are the Zords, which took the form of the most powerful creatures on Earth during the period in which they first came here.
A helpful caption tells us that the prologue took place in the Cenozoic Era. Need I point out that there were no dinosaurs on Earth at that time? The Cenozoic was the age of cave lions, saber-toothed tigers, cave bears, giant deer, woolly rhinoceroses and mammoths.
One of the Zords takes the form of a saber-tooth tiger and another a mammoth (sort of). I guess the other three Zords didn't think the Cenozoic animals were cool enough and decided to take the form of much earlier creatures.
• Elizabeth Banks is the only person in the entire cast who seems to know she's in a Power Rangers movie. She's clearly having a ball here, as she chews the scenery with ravenous gusto. I'm not a fan of her costume, but she's one of the few bright spots in the movie, and it picks up considerably whenever she's on screen (which is all too briefly). The film definitely could have used more of her.
• OK, let's get this over with, and talk about Krispy Kreme, shall we? There's product placement, and then there's product placement, and then there's the unbelievable level of product placement found in the Power Rangers movie.
Product placement in film is nothing new— in fact it's been around almost from the beginning of movies. Most experts agree that the 1927 silent movie Wings contained the first use of product placement, for Hershey's chocolate bars.
I understand that this is a necessary evil of filmmaking. Movies are expensive, and having a company cough up some dough in exchange for featuring their product helps defray some of the enormous cost. So I get it.
But it should be used subtly, and sparingly. Things like a can of Coke sitting on the main character's kitchen table, the make and model of car he drives, or a particular billboard he drives by. It should be unobtrusive and in the background. It should NOT interrupt the plot and make a loud, obnoxious pitch to the audience.
Which brings us to Power Rangers. Krispy Kreme donuts are awkwardly and unnaturally mentioned multiple times throughout the movie, which is bad enough. Then sometime around the halfway point Krispy Kreme actually becomes a goddamned plot point! Rita's looking for the Zeo Crystal, and finds out it just happens to be burried deep beneath the local Angel Grove Krispy Kreme shop!
At one point the movie even grinds to a halt as it literally features a commercial! While looking for the Crystal, Rita wanders into the now abandoned Krispy Kreme. She looks around the store a bit, then casually grabs a donut from the counter, takes a bite and pastes a satisfied look on her face. She stops just short of looking directly into the camera and saying, "Mm-mmm! That's crispy! And creamy!" You think I'm kidding, but I'm not.
The movie comes dangerously close to being a two hour Krispy Kreme commercial, with occasional clips of the Power Rangers tossed in now and then. It's almost like Krispy Kreme is the sixth Ranger!
• OK, let's get this over with, and talk about Krispy Kreme, shall we? There's product placement, and then there's product placement, and then there's the unbelievable level of product placement found in the Power Rangers movie.
Product placement in film is nothing new— in fact it's been around almost from the beginning of movies. Most experts agree that the 1927 silent movie Wings contained the first use of product placement, for Hershey's chocolate bars.
I understand that this is a necessary evil of filmmaking. Movies are expensive, and having a company cough up some dough in exchange for featuring their product helps defray some of the enormous cost. So I get it.
But it should be used subtly, and sparingly. Things like a can of Coke sitting on the main character's kitchen table, the make and model of car he drives, or a particular billboard he drives by. It should be unobtrusive and in the background. It should NOT interrupt the plot and make a loud, obnoxious pitch to the audience.
Which brings us to Power Rangers. Krispy Kreme donuts are awkwardly and unnaturally mentioned multiple times throughout the movie, which is bad enough. Then sometime around the halfway point Krispy Kreme actually becomes a goddamned plot point! Rita's looking for the Zeo Crystal, and finds out it just happens to be burried deep beneath the local Angel Grove Krispy Kreme shop!
At one point the movie even grinds to a halt as it literally features a commercial! While looking for the Crystal, Rita wanders into the now abandoned Krispy Kreme. She looks around the store a bit, then casually grabs a donut from the counter, takes a bite and pastes a satisfied look on her face. She stops just short of looking directly into the camera and saying, "Mm-mmm! That's crispy! And creamy!" You think I'm kidding, but I'm not.
The movie comes dangerously close to being a two hour Krispy Kreme commercial, with occasional clips of the Power Rangers tossed in now and then. It's almost like Krispy Kreme is the sixth Ranger!
I don't know how much money Krispy Kreme contributed to the film's $100 million budget, but it must have been at least half in order to warrant the kind of attention it gets. I hope it was worth it, Krispy Kreme!
I honestly can't remember ever seeing this level of product placement before. The only other movie that might come close is Demolition Man. Remember the scene in which Lenina Huxley tells John Spartan, "After the Franchise Wars, all restaurants are Taco Bell." And then they go to a fancy, four star restaurant which of course is a Taco Bell.
Believe me, as overt as that was, it was positively subtle compared to the product placement here in Power Rangers. Blatant doesn't even being to describe it.
• Rita Repulsa needs gold in order to create her gigantic minion Goldar. Lots of gold. An incredible, impossible amount of gold. See, Goldar is a lumpy, vaguely humanoid-looking thing (with large, inoperative wings, yet) that stands a good five hundred feet tall.
Rita would need literally tons of gold to form Goldar. Thousands of tons. Maybe even hundreds of thousands. She'd likely need all the known gold in the world, especially if he's supposed to be solid, which I have to assume he is. A hollow kaiju wouldn't be much of a threat, would it now?
Yet Rita collects this gold by casually strutting through the streets of Angel Grove, occasionally popping into the odd jewelry store now and then, and stealing the gold rings from the display counter.
Angel Grove seems like a fairly small town. In order to provide Rita with all the raw materials she needs, its economy is either 99% jewelry based, or else it sits on the world's largest underground deposit of gold.
There was an easy solution to this problem. Just say Angel Grove's near some kind of Fort Knox-like bullion depository, and show Rita break into it and steal all the gold with her magic scepter.
Once again, I realize I'm an adult with a job and a mortgage who's complaining about absurdities in the Power Ranger movie, but come on!
• So in the third act, Goldar stomps around Angel Grove, knocking over buildings and downing power lines as he looks for the Krispy Kreme (!).
And just like in Man Of Steel, once Rita and Goldar are defeated and the entire town is literally flattened, the surviving residents of Angel Grove inexplicably cheer the Power Rangers!
• Power Rangers features some of the worst production design I've seen in a long time. Everything in this movie looks absolutely awful. It's all dark, drab and colorless. I get that they needed to add more detail to the TV designs for the big screen, and after twenty four years the Zords and costumes were probably due for an upgrade. But did they have to make everything so joyless and off-putting?
Production designer Andrew Menzies (ah, so he's the one to blame) said in an interview that the new suits are "an alien costume that grows on them, that’s not man-made. You can’t win everyone over, but we are trying to appeal to a more mature audience and gain new fans."
Nice try, Andrew, but you failed miserably. I don't see how these costumes could possibly appeal to anyone, young OR old.
Also, we only see them like this for about five minutes, tops. After that, their visors open up so we can see their faces. Why, I have no idea. I'd understand it if Tom Cruise or Sylvester Stallone was in this film, and the producers said, "I didn't pay $20 million to cover up their faces for the whole goddamned movie! Get those helmets off 'em!" That would make sense. But no one's ever heard of ANY of these actors playing the Rangers. Who cares if you can see their faces or not?
They also feature boob armor where needed, to remind us that some of the Rangers are of the fairer sex. Jesus wept.
Seriously, look at the designs of these things in that poster above. The yellowish thing in the center looks slightly feline-like, so I assume it's the Saber-Tooth Tiger Zord. But what about the red thing above it? It's color would indicate it's supposed to be the T-Rex Zord, but it looks more like an overly-complicated dildo.
The best glimpse of them I could find were these images of the toys. As you can see, they resemble prehistoric animals in the academic sense only. That black lump at the upper right is supposed to be the Mastodon Zord. Except it doesn't seem to have a trunk, and it inexplicable has eight legs. The blue thing at bottom left is ostensibly the Triceratops Zord. It's head actually looks a little like a Triceratops, so kudos there, but once again, it also has way more legs than it's supposed to. Did the production designer ever actually see any land animals before?
And what the hell's up with the pink Pterodactyl Zord? That doesn't look like a dinosaur, it's just a weird drone! No wonder this movie's a flop!
Once again this new design is desaturated and joyless. There's no fun whatsoever in this design. Worst of all, I have no idea how the individual Zords are forming it. Look at the original design. Right leg is the Tiger Zord, left leg is the Triceratops. BOOM! Done. Can spot that from a mile off. Is that what's happening with the new one? Beats me. There's a bit of dull yellow around its torso. Is that where the Tiger Zord's supposed to be? Your guess is as good as mine.
And why does it look so... shapely? As if it has actual muscles? I have a horrible feeling that if I looked at the back of this Megazord, it will have lovingly sculpted ass cheeks!
Goldar was always one of my favorite character designs from the TV show. He was sort of a humanoid dog/lion thing, who wore a kind of Egyptian-themed golden suit of armor. He was just a solid, all around fun design.
This new Goldar may well be the worst character design I've ever seen in a major motion picture. It's lumpy, misshapen and looks less like it's formed from solid gold and more like it's made from gellied urine. It looks like the production designer told his six year old kid he could design Goldar, and he threw this together out of Play-Doh. And once again its body is inexplicably shapely! Look at it! This horrible Goldar design has a goddamned six pack! I hate everything about it.
One last time, I realize I'm an adult complaining about the look of the Power Rangers movie. But this is ostensibly a kids' movie (I think?). It should appeal to a child's sense of wonder and adventure. The designs should be colorful and exciting, and most of all, fun. These designs are none of those. They're a failure on every imaginable level.
A couple things about the Trini scene. First of all, as she paints, her little brothers sit on the floor of her room playing with actual Power Rangers action figures. Wha....? Where the holy hell did they get those? It takes months, sometimes over a year for action figures to go from the design process to store shelves. Did Trini really wait that long before remodeling her room? I know, I'm complaining about logic in a Power Rangers movie again.
Secondly, as her brothers play with the figures, one of them grabs for the yellow one, saying, "He's my favorite!" Trini turns and says, "How do you know he's not a girl?"
This is likely a reference to the fact that in the original Japanese version of the Power Rangers (which was called Zyuranger), the Yellow Ranger was male. In the American Version, the Yellow Ranger's gender was swapped.
Also, boob armor. Trini's brother either needs some glasses, or an anatomy lesson.
• The mid credits scene sets up the appearance of Tommy Oliver in a possible sequel. Tommy of course was the Green Ranger on the show, who started out as an evil minion of Rita, and eventually rebelled and became good.
Note that we don't actually see Tommy here in this movie, just his green jacket. Hmm. Because we live in a touchy-feeling, politically correct hellscape, I'm confident there's an 85% chance that Tommy Oliver will turn out to be a girl if there's a sequel.
Krispy Kreme Presents Power Rangers somehow takes a colorful, exciting and beloved property from the 1990s and turns it into a dull, dour, desaturated teen angst-fest, that's completely devoid of any sense of fun whatsoever. Throw in some of the worst production design ever seen, product placement that actually becomes a goddamned plot point in the movie and an interminable 124 minute runtime, and you have one of the worst films of the year. Skip this snorefest and go watch the TV series again. I give it a very generous C.
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