Granted, this movie wasn't made for me, but I can't imagine many kids liking it, or even adults looking for a nostalgia fix. This latest Power Rangers film is incredibly bland and slow moving.
In the early 1990s, Saban Entertainment, an American-Israeli television production company, lifted action scenes of a super team, dressed in what appears to be snazzy Motocross attire, battling rubber monsters from the Japanese Super Sentai series and added their own American stories around them...and it became a bit hit with kids. Since then, there has been an endless parade of Power Rangers series and movies.
This time we have a big budget bore that has an identity crisis. At first, it wants to be a moody teen drama but ends up a Mentos commercial. Then it wants to be a campy, science fiction saga but it's never fun or exciting.
We meet a gang of teen delinquents. There's the troubled Jason (Dacre Montgomery) with The CW level teen angst; Kimberly (Naomi Scott), the popular girl with scruples; Billy (RJ Cyler), the African-American computer nerd; smart-ass Asian kid, Zack (Ludi Lin); and the lesbian with a heart of gold, Trini (Becky G.). When they happen upon a cave and a treasure of colored coins, they all gain super powers. They are able to jump canyons and crush iPhones.
Anyway, Bryan Cranston (!) shows up as their mentor, Zordon, and Elizabeth Banks is the scenery chewing witchy villainess Rita Repulsa. Banks plays it broad, and that is pretty much the only way to play it, but the character never does anything witty or clever.
It isn't until late in the film that the heroes actually don their colorful costumes and pilot dinosaur machines. So, you have a long wait until the picture gets to all the uninspired property damage.
I think I will go and watch the gloriously goofy and cheerful Infra-Man (1975) to wash Power Rangers from my system.
