With Cinema Suffocated By The Likes Of Marvel And DC, The Power Rangers Reboot Makes Its Superhero-Landing At The Right Morphin’ Time

                            A breakfast club you certainly won't forget about...

There seems to be such a pattern forming with films being targeted with controversy, doubt, hate and scrutiny, that you can almost expect these things to now form part of the promotional material and marketing strategy for most franchise films. But it probably doesn’t help when a film’s advertising is conducted mostly through its merchandise counterparts. And in the case of Power Rangers 2017, it was the toys.

If like me you’re a lifelong fan of the franchise, you’ll of course remember the one or two Christmases in the early nineties when the Power Rangers toys simply took over the world, doing a far better job than screen villains Rita Repulsa or Lord Zedd ever did back then. In short, those action figures were simply awesome. The ones for the new movie, not so much. But it’s not the quality of said-toys that generated a whirlwind of moans and groans from the hateful place that is the internet, but rather the designs themselves.

The Power Rangers costumes seemed to go down a treat, bar a handful – or perhaps a few million actually – who thought they looked too “robotic” or too “Iron Man-like”. It’s understandable that, like most films, a considerable amount of market research went into the production of this film, and armour clearly wins over spandex these days, if the MCU and DC franchises are anything to go by. But perhaps the most controversial designs were the Power Rangers’ war vehicles, the Zords, as well as famous TV villain Goldar, with all of them looking far too removed from their respective terrestrial counterparts.

Alas, let it be said that Power Rangers, whether it was the original TV show, the hit 1995 movie or the further twenty-odd years’ worth of shows – ongoing might I add – remains cheesier than all the pizzas consumed in the life of four teenage ninja turtles combined. Simply put, if any franchise was screaming for a reboot, it was this one. And now, here we are. The wait and the hype – and maybe even the hate - is over. Yes, you guessed it right – it’s morphin’ time.

Both premise and concept are familiar: five teenagers with “attitude” (Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott, Becky G, RJ Cyler and Ludi Lin, who play classic characters Jason, Kimberley, Trini, Billy and Zack, respectively) are selected by alien being Zordon (Bryan Cranston) and his robot assistant Alpha Five (Bill Hader) to defend the earth against evil monster-making space-witch Rita Repulsa (Elizabeth Banks), using super powers aided by the spirits of the ancient dinosaurs (as well as a mastodon and a sabre-tooth tiger). But astronomically different here are the execution and tone, with some much-needed world-building thrown in.

This new history sees Zordon as the former Red Ranger; leader of a long-since dead team of Power Rangers who were killed by the Green Ranger-gone rogue (sound familiar?) Rita Repulsa who wanted to extract the earth’s life-force known as the “Zeo Crystal”, some 65 million years ago. Consequently, Zordon was part-destroyed and survives now inside the matrix of his spaceship, with Rita just as not-so-dead elsewhere in Angel Grove, waiting for the right time to conquer Earth. The history works, even if the choice to place the backstory a staggering 65 million years ago is plain weird and perhaps over-the-top, especially considering that, as mentioned, among the Zords are a mastodon and sabre-toothed tiger; creatures from the much later Pleistocene era.

Unlike the show or any of its follow-ups, there’s a real focus on drama here, which comes as no surprise from director Dean Israelite who brought us the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it-but-slightly-underrated time-travelling teen flick Project Alamanac. Here there are growing pains, sexuality challenges, the weight of high school popularity, bullying, hyper-active disorder, and plenty of self-made drama. Yes, you’re right - smells like teenagers. In fact, this film gets right what the original series never actually nailed: these teenagers really do come packed with attitude, worlds away from the sickeningly-positive, squeaky-clean do-gooders of the original and every series thereafter. However, on first glance, our not-so-spotty and rather beautiful characters are seemingly obnoxious and unkind towards one another and everyone around them, but the trick is to let them grow on you as the narrative progresses.

The performances all-round are solid, with Elizabeth Banks gloriously hamming the hell out of hers as a strangely-sexy version of Rita, who is busy scraping together all the gold she can find in the town of Angel Grove so that she can build her giant monster Goldar, with which she intends to rip the Zeo Crystal out of the earth for her own personal gain, even if her motives are ambiguous. Meanwhile, the Rangers must overcome their individual struggles and their differences if Zordon is to take them seriously as a fighting force against Rita. Only then will they be able to “morph” into the Power Rangers and save the world. Sure, the plot might be wafer-thin but it’s a necessary evil to allow room for what is essentially an origin story to unfold, with enough drama to boot.

Perhaps the most disappointing choice here is the form of Goldar. You might remember him as Rita’s gold armour-clad, winged blue monkey/wolf minion-thing. Here, he’s literally a walking blob of gold – nothing more. From a creative perspective, this potential-wielding villain is ill-conceived, but consequently serves the plot, helping to add to some inevitable world – or universe – building, making this poor effort semi-forgiven by the time the credits roll. Then there’s Zordon himself, played by Bryan Cranston (who you may not know voiced monsters in the original show back in the day, and who Billy Cranston is also named after). Typically, the floating head has very little to do besides getting annoyed at the rather annoying Power Rangers, but at least he isn’t zipped up in a body bag before the first act is over.

There are some bold choices here, most of which pay-off. For the most part, this is a teenage drama with very little in the way of colour-coded, karate-based action; an obvious attempt in separating itself tonally from both the original series and movie, which ultimately makes this reboot more mighty than morphin.’ But that isn’t a bad thing. When the film eventually decides to go-go power rangers, there’s no stopping it, making the choice to have zeo – sorry, zero Power Rangers until the last twenty minutes strangely work.

There’s also a clear attempt here to kick-start a franchise, with some subtle world-building as well as credibility to the mythology that was never seen before. In other words, the film takes its time before going into full turbo mode, something other superhero movies need to take note of.

There are also several references to the 1995 film, with one in particular that might have you wanting to jump out of your seat and shout “It’s Morphin’ Time” in the middle of the cinema. The film’s hip soundtrack is also littered with not-so-subtle nods and winks. But whilst there’s an eye-eye-eye-eye-eye-rolling cameo from a certain you-know-who (as well as another who’s much less irritating), fortunately the film doesn’t ooze with faces of old as you might expect it to, given there are probably hundreds.

It might lack the charm of the original movie, and perhaps the show too (even if it is actually quite awful), but with more heart and soul than most of the corporate-feel superhero films that litter the cinema nowadays, Power Rangers 2017 is a more-than promising start to a new series of films, as well as a refreshing take on the cheesy franchise, with everyone’s favourite colour-coded heroes stronger – and cooler - than before.

It's simple: If you're a fan of the franchise, then go-go watch this movie. And stick around after the credits, or your friends will spoil it for you and render you green with evil - er, I mean envy...

Power Rangers 2017 was filmed in Vancouver, Canada, where I'll be spending a few days in early June and again some two weeks later, so I'll be sure to go go check out some of the filming locations.