Released January 13, 2017 / Directed by Dean Israelite
I won’t start with a synopsis, seeing as Powers Rangers have been around for over 20 years. I will start off with saying this is not the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that I loved in the early 90’s. I was hopeful when I first saw this trailer and I can say that this film was a huge let down. Don’t get me wrong, the original television show was not the greatest but it was campy in its own fun way. I know this review is old but I needed to write it. I grew up on the original and wanted to make my voice heard. Plus, why have a blog and not say what I want.
It seemed as though, this new set of rangers were not friends (unlike the original and spin offs that followed) but kids stuck in detention for whatever reason. You have the Billy (brains), Jason (athlete), Kimberly (princess), Trini (basket case) and Zach (a criminal?). What does all of the spell… THE BREAKFAST CLUB. Literally! It was so obvious and watching their so called bond form was like watching a remake of breakfast club and not in a good way. I didn’t feel any chemistry between any of the actors, it’s not to say that they weren’t friendly off screen but it was not convincing on screen. Zordon came across as whiney and in no way, shape, or form a mentor, whereas the original Zordon guided the rangers, to find their strengths within themselves and each other. This version of Rita Repulsa I kind of liked, but the execution was all wrong. I like the concept of her being the original green ranger but her constant need for gold was laughable. She sounded like Goldmember.
Last up for the negative is the soundtrack. Did Daft Punk or Michael Bay create the soundtrack, because that is literally what it sounded like. It was almost as if Transformers & Tron had a soundtrack baby and not in a good way.
There were a couple of things I appreciated from this reboot, the main one being that they had a Power Ranger who was autistic. For personal reason, that was very much appreciated. The only other thing I liked from this reboot was the scene where all of them were assembling into the Megazord. They created it the same way as the original, with the same theme song.
Overall, this movie was crap and I will make no apologies for it. With any film reboot, if you’re going to do it, make it better or tell a new story. With some aspects of this film, they had the idea but did not execute it properly. Even the cameo from the original pink and green ranger Amy Jo Johnson and Jason David Frank were subpar. Saban should have let the Adi Shankar and Joseph Kahn bring the dark version of Power Rangers to life. Their fan film was phenomenal and with Beek & Sackhoff as the green and pink power rangers was a great cast move. I won’t bother posting a trailer for this reboot, instead ill post the fan film that you should watch, if you haven’t yet.
Sup, Nerds! 