Power Rangers movie review

Here's what you need to know; just when life sinks to its latest low for Jason Scott and his new detention friends, the three, accompanied by two fellow renegades, stumble across a collection of strange coins, that seem to turn them into super humans. That's not the last surprise waiting for them, as an ancient evil returns from the grave, and resumes its mission to destroy life on Earth. With time now running out before Rita launches her assault, the group must assume their new responsibility, and begin their training to become the Power Rangers.
A sad and somewhat bizarre confession, I know nothing at all about Power Rangers, and haven't watched a single episode of any of the shows. Despite this, Power Rangers has been on my radar for a while, and rather than watching my choice of film; Ghost in the Shell, we watched Power Rangers, and weirdly I'm not complaining.

Power Rangers opens with a sequence I wasn't expecting, and it actually really kicked the film off in a good way for me, as we are introduced to Zordon and Rita, and the film's primary conflict is established. What follows is what you'd expect, an introduction to the Rangers, starting with the Red Ranger; Jason, who's a surprisingly likable chap. He fits the familiar mould for his character, as he starts off as a well meaning rebel, and becomes a leader over the course of the film, and the introduction to the rest of the Rangers around him is very well done, as all of them are outcasts in some way. Billy is a very curious one, as we started to joke that he was Autistic, before the film just admits it, that was pretty cool, as is his character, his social struggles are pretty relatable to an Aspie like me, and his affection for his fellow Rangers was really endearing. Kimberly is a more secretive character, as the reason for her social exile is kept very out of the picture, as it were, for a lot of film. While Zach and Trini, the Rangers the film focuses least on, are both passably interesting in their respective roles, and round out a team that makes for a solid cast of main characters. Zordon, who is a talking wall, is a character that surprised me somewhat, as his motivations are not as noble and selfless as they first appear, while his robot buddy Alpha 5 is a character that I understand will annoy some people, but I thought he was pretty funny. In the very typical fashion of this sort of film reboot, the film, in some ways, tries to take a more serious and dramatic approach, the Rangers are a good example of this, as their story is told more as a drama than a superhero film, Zordon tries to do the same, while also being a talking wall. The biggest departure from this approach, apart from the entire final act, is the film's villain; Rita Repulsa, who is a really fun villain to watch, but does stick out as a bit cheesy in this apparently more serious film, again though, I liked her as the villain, and her cheesy super villainy was actually something that kind of worked over all, for me anyway. Before that final act however, this film dedicates itself mostly to the idea of a darker origin story for the Power Rangers, in that sense it's a good thing that the Rangers are interesting characters, and their story is engaging, because the film is relatively devoid of action for the first two acts, simply consisting of the personal dramas of the Rangers, with some fun training and super human scenes, and the odd update on Rita's evil plan, before letting everything loose in that final half an hour or so. This does get to be a bit of an issue when that final battle is so detached from the rest of the film; Power Rangers has a lot of conflicting tones going on, which I suppose is the result of the people behind it not knowing whether to go full gritty reboot or to try and hold on to the light hearted silliness of the source material. While this doesn't ruin the film, it does effectively divide the film, with scenes that try to be serious and dramatic, along with funny and light hearted scenes, and staying largely restrained in terms of action and effects, before losing its mind at the end.

On the subject of those effects, they're fine, and that's really all there is. As far as the visual effects go, the film restrains itself a lot for a long time, and it's during this time that the effects look their best, Zordon and Alpha 5 are as distracting as it gets, which is a pretty good sign, since they look good, as does their buried space ship. But like this film's conflicting tones, the effects are very split, when the Power Rangers finally armour up and take on Rita and her Golems, this film throws everything it's got at you, in a massively effects heavy final act that's kind of like a cross between Transformers and Pacific Rim, but with way less polished effects; this isn't a visual effects power house by any standards, when it's CG, it's very CG. That being said, even if it felt like I was watching a completely different film all of a sudden, the final big action sequence is actually stupidly entertaining, as the Rangers ride in in their Zords, and start tearing shit into Rita's army. I'd be lying if I said that watching the Zords in action wasn't a lot of fun, on a very mindless level. Again comparing it to other stuff though, the film lacks the visual flash of a Michael Bay Transformers film, and lacks the visual beauty and brilliance of Pacific Rim, while being completely insane, it's relatively unremarkable. When it isn't Zords, the hand to hand combat is passably entertaining, and gets the job done, I reckon the film could have benefited from more fights interspersed throughout, a smaller fight with Rita's golems, similar to the scenes with the training monsters, would have fitted in very nicely, and help to smooth out some of this films' tonal problems. What's surprising about what I'm saying is a flaw here is that it kind of works; the character story that is the build up to the Morphin time is completely detached from the Morphin time, in terms of visuals and tone, but the film was never really boring; that character story was engaging enough to keep the film going. Rita, while being a bit of an oddball in this apparently gritty reboot, was a pretty cool villain in my opinion, and was fun to watch. And when the final act hits, and the film just goes full force on the cheesy, light hearted, Pacific Rim esque action, it's fun to watch. A sequel to this film is very likely, so it'd be interesting to see how this is addressed in a sequel; and to see where it would commit itself in terms of tone, since while the film does still mostly work, it's inconsistent, and it's a more obvious flaw in retrospective, especially given how this film's big battle sequence ends, even for a film that has robot dinosaurs and a building sized monster made of gold, it was really, really cheesy, possibly too much so to be ignored, to the point where it betrays the film's grittier elements, and is completely out of place.

 Power Rangers' biggest flaws only really become clear upon reflection, and the fact that this film doesn't seem to know what it wants to be is one of them, as is the film's lack of desire to commit to either a gritty superhero origin story, or a big, dumb popcorn spectacle film. And when it goes for the spectacle, it looks cool and is fun, but it's not special. The film's characters are something that picks this film up though, as the story told around them is decently engaging, and the characters themselves are interesting, even if they fall into the same trap of being inconsistent. Power Rangers is a flawed film, but there's definitely enjoyment to be found in it, and it's a fun enough little film to kill the two hours it's on, it's worth checking out.