Review: Power Rangers (2017)
I grew up with Power Rangers.
I must admit that I don’t remember anything particular about it, but perhaps to my parents’ annoyance, I did sing the Power Rangers theme song ALL THE TIME when I was kid. What I meant to say is, as much as I can’t tell you much about the story of the old series, I do have emotional attachment to Power Rangers. I wanted any Power Rangers movie to be good, but I did not expect this 2017 remake to be good. At all. The remade costumes looked like such a far cry from the original costumes that I assumed that it must’ve completely missed the soul of the original series. I expected a failure on the level of 2010’s The Last Airbender or 2009’s Dragonball Evolution. But you know what? I was glad that I’ve been proven wrong.
A Power Rangers movie is only as good as its Rangers, and the characters that they’ve given us are, surprisingly, excellent. Our Rangers are Jason (Dacre Montomery), Billy (RJ Cyler), Kimberly (Naomi Scott), Trini (Becky G), and Zack (Ludi Lin) as Red, Blue, Pink, Yellow, and Black Ranger respectively. Our protagonists are quintessentially teenagers but are also flawed, which not only makes them immediately relatable but also interesting. All of the kids are great characters with solidly established of backstory (it’s shocking how much I cared about these kids), but my favorite is Billy. His character is explicitly in the autism spectrum, and he’s also our coolest character (IMHO) and the heart that glues the team together. Since these teenagers are decidedly “not friends” at the beginning even though they go to the same high school, the big part of their story is about knowing and learning to work with each other. So yeah, this Power Rangers is a bit reminiscent of The Breakfast Club, and it is exactly what makes the movie so good.
It’s clear that the people who made this movie actually cared. Story, cinematography, and editing are much better than you’d expect with some genuinely exciting shots — which shows that the filmmakers not only loved this movie and wants it to succeed, they’re talented too. However, the movie cares about our characters so much that it just doesn’t care about action. I say that with confidence because there are a couple of moments where typical ‘action heavy franchises’ would definitely milk for its action, but Power Rangers just either glosses over it or skip it altogether. It isn’t necessarily bad, because the character work has been so strong throughout the movie — until we get to the action-heavy third act.
The final fight is, for lack of better word, boring. The villain is Rita Repulsa, played by Elizabeth Banks, who played her with a heavy dose of camp, and she is accompanied by huge monster Goldar and an army of “putties”. The CGI villains are as generic as they can be. Note the lack of name of the putties, which shows the absence of thought put into the villains — although Rita herself has a somewhat interesting backstory. I can’t really fault them for the name “Goldar” since it’s from the original series, but they did do the original character disservice because here, Goldar is less of a character and more of a mindless tool. They’re basically just CGI blob, and the Rangers’ fight choreography — if there is any — is very lackluster. The act did have some highlights (“Go, go Power Rangers!”, the theme song, the Megazord), but the overall final fight is pretty unimpressive. Which is a huge shame, because Power Rangers really do have the potential to be a great movie, but instead it’s dragged down by its uninspired finale. The final fight did have some good character moments, but the action itself is hugely lackluster.
However, all in all, I really do enjoy this movie because I’d choose great characters over empty action any day. In fact, I loved it. But if you’re just looking for just a fun action movie, then probably Power Rangers is not for you. Weird, I know.
