Power Rangers is the youth superhero movie that Josh Trank’s Fantastic 4 wanted to be. Three kids in detention with various troubled back-stories plus two others discover magical crystals buried in an old mine and find they can leap wide crevasses in a single bound, crush mobile phones with an excessively firm grasp and smash the sinks in their bathroom. Others in their position might be grounded but they make a further discovery of a spaceship buried underwater and are trained by the voice of Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad, Capote) as Zordon and his side-kick Alpha 5 (modelled on the robot in Short Circuit, Johnny Five and voiced by Bill Hader) to use their powers to defend their home town of Angel Grove against the evil, recently resurrected Rita Repulsa (Elizabeth Banks, channelling her inner Debi Mazar) who is determined with her sidekick Goldar to find an even more powerful crystal. I’ve heard of gold-diggers but Rita has gold that digs.
This is not to say that Power Rangers is not completely ridiculous from start (set 65 million years ago) to finish – and completely derivative too. It benefits from a Stranger Things vibe, in particular references to 1980s movies, for example the use of the song Stand by Me when a dead body is discovered as well as The Breakfast Club-style set up and Bryan Tyler’s retro synthesizer soundtrack.
Power Rangers (or Saban’s Power Rangers to be exact) benefits from an appealingly drawn group of characters who invite sympathy from the get-go. Jason (Dacre Montgomery) is a High School jock who had turned against his football team with a prank involving a bull that he inadvertently ‘milked’ (this film isn’t aimed at younger children) and is in permanent detention with a tracker on his ankle. He intervenes when an autistic boy, Billy Cranston (RJ Cyler from Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) is being bullied after lining up his pencils on the desk. The third detainee is Kimberley (Naomi Scott), whose social media activity – texting a compromising picture of a boy – turned her into a pariah. Billy is obsessed by the old mine where his late father worked. In exchange for over-riding Jason’s tracker he asks for help on an experiment near the same lake where introvert Zack (Ludi Lin) and ‘emo’ Trini (Becky G) as well as Kimberley, going for a moonlight dip, are hanging out. Billy causes an explosion that leads them to the discovery of crystals and cops on their tail.
Director Dean Israelite (Project Almanac) doesn’t pause for parents telling their kids off but keeps the action moving as the quintet discovers what it takes to get them to ‘morph’, that is, to earn their distinctive body armour.
It is unusual for all superheroes to have the same power and this only becomes a problem at the climax, which is derivative without being fun. It is also really hard to deeply love a film that features Banks as a cackling villainess, one who never looks in the mirror. She may possess a powerful staff but never thinks to change her wardrobe.
Power Rangers has the spark of emotional engagement and an accomplished group of performances, with plenty of nods to the TV series that spawned it, including the hint of the introduction of the sixth ranger, Tommy Oliver (cue whooping from some of the audience). It doesn’t compete with the best of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but it has heart and production values as well as none of the silly motorcycle helmets from the 1993 TV series, itself derived from a Japanese TV series, Super Sentei. The original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers played like a cheap knock-off of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (same number of syllables in the title, for one) but this film has $105 million worth of production values, an Oscar nominee in the cast list and genuine warmth.
Go go Power Rangers, indeed.
Power Rangers is out in cinemas now!
