I spent my life untouched by the Power Rangers franchise though I was aware of its existence. On one hand, when it started on August 28, 1993, I was about to start my freshman year of college so that could explain my lack of interest. On the other hand, I love superheroes and sci-fi, and I am 42 years old. If I wanted to see it, I would have made the time, and I did not care because it seemed a bit rough around the edges. So what changed after almost twenty-four years? When I saw the preview for the third feature film and reboot of Power Rangers, it reminded me of Chronicle, and I liked that movie so I added it to my queue.
Was Power Rangers supposed to be good? I think that the filmmakers confused having focus groups and concepts with actually making a good film. It has Breakfast Club pretensions, but at 2 hours 4 minutes, it is too damn long for a cast that is not yet compelling enough to carry such a crap story. Basically the original Powers Rangers had a power hungry Judas, Rita Repulsa, played by Elizabeth Banks, in their midst. They defeat her, but lose their lives in the process. Cut to the present day when the original threat and the new generation of heroes have emerged. Will these heroes be able to prepare in time to defeat such an experienced foe? No, everyone dies, and there will be no more Power Rangers or Earth. Ha! You’ll wish after watching this film.
Power Rangers has numerous dissonant moments. Initially the film seems to choose a traditional leader, the popular, but pure of heart prankster and football hero played by random affable white guy. As the movie unfolds, he is explicitly designated as the leader when he becomes the Red Ranger. The Pink Ranger, a disgraced cheerleader who learned the wrong lessons from Unfriended, dominates the later half of the film and leads the group in battle. Then at the end of the film, he is still affirmed as the leader. Wait, what is going on? It was as if the film clung to the traditional model and wanted to divert from it, but succeeded in doing neither.
Power Rangers features the first autistic and LGTBQ superhero on the big screen, which is great. The autistic superhero is black, which is important since black people are rarely the face that people associate sympathetically with autism. In a movie that doles out these firsts as if they are enough of a defining trait that there is no need to have any more character development, I wonder if it was a mistake to have one character be black and autistic because the character’s autism, which played a crucial role in the early part of the film, seemed to morph into magical Negro status: the first to access his powers because he is so noble and the first to make a huge sacrifice. I defer to the black autistic community regarding whether or not the film did a good job representing them, but I felt like the ball was ultimately dropped.
The tone of the film was a wretched, uneven mishmash of postmodern darker hued, more advanced technological tones to goofy slogans and cheers that harkened back to the original series. Only Bill Hader managed to strike a balance between the cheerful primary color origins and the brooding doomed present, but Power Rangers is not a comedy so his efforts were all for naught. Don’t trust that Bryan Cranston means a better quality film just because he is a good actor. He was in Godzilla.
The Black Ranger has the best backstory, but it gets very little airtime. None of them do, which is maybe why I was not invested in the story. For such a long movie, this lack of character development is criminal. Elizabeth Banks as Rita managed to get a sizable amount of screen time. I found her tirelessly absorbing, and her years toiling away in the Hunger Games franchise paid off. She literally chewed the scenery. It is hard for most actors to act through the costumes and makeup. If she could fake a British accent, Cara Delevingne would not have gotten the role as the Enchantress in Suicide Squad. If Power Rangers was realistic, no one could have stopped Rita. From her resuscitation scene to her final frame, I believed that she would end the world if she could. I just wished that she had successfully tempted someone from the younger generation of heroes to go to the dark side and possibly become interesting.
If I learned anything from Power Rangers, it is to trust my instincts. I should have known better and skipped the whole mess. This one is on me.