a POWER RANGERS musing
All I remember of the original Power Rangers series is just me running around the house and on the couches pretending to be the Blue Ranger, but not necessarily any of the “plotlines”. But hearing that theme music brought back the nostalgia of the 90s, and instantly put a smile on my face. The rest of the movie does a great job of balancing its tones, but not its aspirations. POWER RANGERS takes the best parts of 2000s-2010s teen high school movies, but the worst parts of superhero movies.
The five Rangers are all so great in their roles: Dacre Montgomery as Jason Scott/Red Ranger, Naomi Scott as Kimberly Hart/Pink Ranger, RJ Cyler as Bily Cranston/Blue Ranger, Becky G as Trini/Yellow Ranger, and Audi Lin as Zack/Black Ranger. They all had their strengths and many weaknesses, but they gel so well and really have a good handle on their characters. There’s a real camaraderie between them, that when it gets cheesy, I couldn’t help but laugh because I loved these characters and their relationships so much. But when situations get dangerous, their easygoing-ness starts to become unbelievable. We see them be afraid in some degree in real life situations or with their family, but when staring in the face of death show no signs of worry for their lives nor others. They do care about what happens to each other, but that seems to be the extent of their cares.
That tends to be the problem with most superhero and, especially, TRANSFORMERS films, in that there’s not much care for collateral damage (until there’s fan complaints about it). The Rangers reference their favorite superheroes (and TRANSFORMERS too), but the writers don’t seem to care about the problems that plagued those films. They don’t really mind putting in bad dialogue, either.
POWER RANGERS sets up a new franchise successfully by introducing and fleshing out the main cast of characters. This wasn’t a perfect movie by any account, but my goodness, it’s fun. The chemistry paid off and made me get teary at some points. Go see this movie so I can get my sequels and audition to be the Green Ranger or something.
RATING: GOING IN MY BLU-RAY COLLECTION
(Refer to my rating system HERE!)
