Power Rangers (2017) Review

Time: 124 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Dacre Montgomery as Jason Scott/Red Ranger
Naomi Scott as Kimberly Hart/Pink Ranger
RJ Cyler as Billy Cranston/Blue Ranger
Becky G as Trini/Yellow Ranger
Ludi Lin as Zack/Black Ranger
Bill Hader as the voice of Alpha 5
Bryan Cranston as the voice of Zordon
Elizabeth Banks as Rita Repulsa
Director: Dean Israelite

Five ordinary teens must become something extraordinary when they learn that their small town of Angel Grove – and the world – is on the verge of being obliterated by an alien threat. Chosen by destiny, our heroes quickly discover they are the only ones who can save the planet. But to do so, they will have to overcome their real-life issues and before it’s too late, band together as the Power Rangers.

I never grew up with the Power Rangers, I definitely heard about it and knew it existed but I didn’t know that much about it. Honestly I wasn’t looking forward to watching the 2017 live action movie, it just didn’t look that good at all. It looked like a generic kids film riding on the popularity of a known kids series. However, Power Rangers actually surprised me, it wasn’t great by any means but for a kids movie its actually reasonably okay.

For a Power Rangers movie, you don’t actually see the main characters in the suits that often, and you’d think that this would really make the movie bad. However, surprisingly that segment (by segment I mean most of the movie) was actually the best part of the movie. We get to explore and learn about these characters and their lives and problems and the movie really focusses on them working together as a team. That part surprisingly worked quite well, which is helped by the chemistry of the actors (which I’ll get into later). Towards the end when the characters are full on Power Rangers and wearing the suits, I actually really started to lose interest plotwise, you might be entertaining by the ridiculous over the topness, but as a story it really felt flat in comparison to the first two acts. This movie is very cheesy and silly but from what I can tell its more serious than other versions of Power Rangers, so credit to the filmmakers for making it somewhat watchable for adults. You have to really keep in mind that this is a kids movie, I went in knowing this and I had a good time. But I can see someone going in expecting something a little more serious or mature and end up finding the whole movie to be incredibly obnoxious. If you’re going to watch Power Rangers, know that you’re going to watch a really cheesy kids movie.

What makes this movie work is the main actors and their chemistry. The leads, Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott, RJ Cyler, Becky G and Ludi Lin, on top of being a diverse cast are good and work great together, they share great chemistry. Some of their line deliveries at time don’t work so well, and they do have their fair share of occasional not-so-great acting moments, but for the most part it works. Elizabeth Banks plays the villain and to be perfectly fair to her, the character she is playing, Rita Repulsa, isn’t that good, she’s radically over the top, cartoonish and one dimensional, there’s really not much to her. To Banks’s credit though, she is having a ton of fun in this role and is going all out crazy here, which is honestly the only way that anyone could play his role. Bryan Cranston is in it but doesn’t really do much, he served his purpose fine enough, though there really wasn’t any point casting him in the role.

The direction by Dean Israelite was fine overall, nothing spectacular but it worked well enough for a Power Rangers movie. The action is reasonably entertaining but the special effects range from being okay to being really fake looking. They looked particularly goofy and basic in the climax, and with a reasonably large enough budget I’m not sure how the effects looked that bad. Then again the worst of the effects was in the climax, which as I said already was the least interesting part of the movie anyway.

Although it’s not a really that good of movie, Power Rangers surprised me and was far better than what I thought it would be like. The cast and their chemistry really worked. It’s just the cheesiness and the noticeably weak last act which does bring the movie down a bit. With that said, I wouldn’t mind if a sequel ended up happening. If it does happen, I hope the filmmakers can learn from the first movie and make the Power Rangers as interesting and entertaining in the suits as they are without them.

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