I want to preface this review by saying I'm going to do my best to remain unbiased. If you know me, you'll know that I'm a giant fucking nerd for all things dumb and over the top and silly awesome. MGR (shut up it's amazing), Pacific Rim, TTGL, Transformers. All that is golden to me so it's to be expected I'd gush over something like this but I'll try to remain as unbiased as possible, so without further ado...
POWER RANGERSIn a world of endless reboots, sequels, remakes and adaptions, you'd be forgiven for just brushing this off as yet another attempt at reviving another franchise and in a way it is, but it was actually done really quite well. I think reboots and adaptions are a tricky thing because you can either keep the material exactly the same as the source and risk people complaining that it's just more of the same, or you can change it too much and risk it being so different that there's no point in making it in the first place. I believe this movie did a really good job of sticking to the MMPR source material but also expanding on it a great deal.
Remember back in the original show, how the Rangers were basically stereotypes of their respective backgrounds? Jason was the noble martial artist, Billy was the nerd, Kimberly was the pretty girl? They were such deep characters, right? Who can forget Zordon, the floating mentor head in a tube who gives them orders? Remember how he was just overflowing with character and emotion? Me neither. In this movie adaption, the characters are given so much more to do. Each member of the team has their own motivations and struggles that they have to overcome.
I actually think the characters themselves were my favorite part of the whole movie, even. I was
very surprised at how much I enjoyed seeing the team grow and interact with each other throughout. While none of them had majorly drastic changes (they all started off as nice people and ended as nice people) they still had to learn to work together as a team in order to save the day and that's where the movie's strengths lie. I went into this expecting a horrible attempt at a gritty reboot with bad acting and characters I'd hate but I got the opposite.
While the movie is somewhat grounded (come on, it kinda has to be these days) it really didn't come across as gritty or serious at all. The villain was hammy as all fuck (more on that later) and the movie actually had quite a few funny jokes here and there.
The acting was surprisingly good. Jason doesn't come across as a pretty boy douche at all and does a good job as the team's leader, a fallen star who has issues with his daddy. From the trailers I was expecting Billy to be the worst, but when you actually see him in the movie and see where the lines are coming from, it fits so much better. He's also autistic. A black autist! The yellow ranger is also an implied lesbian! Progression FTW!
I'm not really quite sure what to make of Rita Repulsa though. She's batshit crazy and chews the scenery to no end, so in that regard she's a good adaption of the antagonist of the show. I'm not too entirely sure on whether or not she clashes with the tone of the rest of the movie. (Again, it's not too gritty or anything)
Bill Hader was actually quite enjoyable as the usually insufferable Alpha 5 and Bryan Cranston brought some depth to Zordon that I wasn't expecting.
The action was alright, it had that fast-slow-mo stuff that every movie rips off and some of the CGI on the Zords was a bit iffy. I liked that they actually got the individual Zords in on the action rather than just jump straight into the combination sequence. Speaking of the Megazaord, the fight scene between it and Goldar was pretty cool. You could actually tell what was going on. It wasn't in the movie much but it did its job. Wish you actually got to see it form though...
So yeah, uh negatives... As I already said, the villain MIGHT be a bit too hammy and clash a bit with the rest of the movie but then again, it's fucking Power Rangers so she's SUPPOSED to be hammy. Hell, you might even love her. She certainly did fit the role. Some of the CGI looked a bit off and I think they could have done a bit more with the yellow and black rangers. I also wish the Power Rangers theme was used in the movie more.
Ok I'm going to go into a bit of spoilers now but I doubt any of you care. I'll spoiler it anyway
Spoiler
Right at the start of the movie you find out that Zordon was the former Red Ranger and Rita was the Green one who went nuts and betrayed her team to try and steal the fucking ZEO CRYSTAL. Does this mean we're gonna get Zeo? Fuck yeah I hope so. Also there's a mid credits scene where you find out there's a new kid in class. Three guesses who his name is.
So idk if you got anything from this review but I'll summarize it. It does a good job in giving the rangers actually personalities and likability as a team. Hell, that's the best part of the damn movie! It's not as stupidly cheese as the show was so if you're after dumb non stop action shlock you might not find it in this movie. I wouldn't be too put off by the trailers, because I really was too but I took a dive and saw it anyway and was pleasantly surprised. You might find the slow buildup to the morphing scene to be a bit of a drag but it personally didn't bother me too much.
I'd give it a 7.5/10 tbh
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