Saban's Power Rangers

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Cast

Dacre Montgomery
as Jason Lee Scott/The Red Ranger

Naomi Scott
as Kimberly Hart/The Pink Ranger

R.J. Cyler
as Billy Cranston/The Blue Ranger

Becky G
as Trini Kwan/The Yellow Ranger

Ludi Lin
as Zack Taylor/The Black Ranger

Bill Hader
as Alpha 5

Bryan Cranston
as Zordon

Elizabeth Banks
as Rita Repulsa

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Critic Reviews for Saban's Power Rangers

Audience Reviews for Saban's Power Rangers

• Aug 21, 2018

  I think we need to talk about nostalgia. Nostalgia is the type of thing where, through rose-colored glasses, you look back on something from your youth fondly. The rose-colored glasses, of course, means that you're looking at things as how you remember them and not how they were. That's what, in my opinion, led to the major controversy surrounding the all-female Ghostbusters. There's this silly, subconscious idea, that women aren't funny and, therefore, an all-female Ghostbusters would just fail because the original is such a beloved classic. But, and I hate to burst your bubble, the original Ghostbusters doesn't hold up as well. It's a good movie, don't get me wrong, but I never felt it was a classic. The original Vacation was better, Stripes was better, Animal House was better, Caddyshack was better, A Groundhog Day was better. That right there is FIVE movies, right off the top of my head, that are better than Ghostbusters in my opinion. None of these films were as big as Ghostbusters was in 84. But, and this is where nostalgia gets in the way, the original movie was such a phenomenon when it came out that people who were very young the first time they watched it, place it on some comedic pedestal that it, quite frankly, doesn't deserve. Again, it's a good movie, but I've seen better. Sue me, take my geek card away, do whatever you must. The reason I bring this up in relation to this movie is the fact that, yes, back in the day, I was HUGE fan of the Power Rangers. Yes, I have to admit that I was. I believe that I dressed up as the Red Ranger one year for Halloween (I also dressed up as Wolverine and Batman other years, but that's besides the point). Though, if I'm completely honest, the Green Ranger (later White Ranger) was my favorite. Also, the Pink Ranger was my first crush, as I'm sure it was for many other boys (and girls) my age at the time. I had this Sega Game Gear Power Rangers game. My mother, the absolute saint that she is, took me to see the theatrical movie that came out in 1995. So yes, I was a quite the Power Rangers fan when I was a kid. But it was something of a phase, as it was for many other kids at the time. The older I got, naturally, the less and less I was interested in the Power Rangers. I look back at those times fondly, of course, but that's not to say that I'm misremebering the Power Rangers or revering them as saintly pop culture icons. It was a total cheesefest with insanely over-the-top villains and some cool kaiju monster vs Megazord fights. I know exactly what it is now and, with how cheesy and campy it is, I'm certain that I could get some enjoyment from it now that I wasn't able to at that age. Having said that, this brings us to this reboot movie. Here's the thing, and I need to preface this with this little aside, I love Batman Begins, I really do. It's a gritty, believable crime drama that just so happens to also be a superhero movie. It's one of the finest origin stories in any medium. It has set the template to follow if you wanna do an origin story successfully. Having said that, just because that original template was so successful and led to the best superhero trilogy of all time (there's no real debate here) does not mean that every major franchise in existence needs to follow that same template in order to reboot their franchise. And, for all intents and purposes, this is Batman Begins: Power Rangers Edition, except it's not nearly as exciting, as thrilling and original as the one that set the standard. Look, it's not that this movie is as gritty and serious as Batman Begins (or The Dark Knight) was. But, and this is something that a lot of people complained about, this movie is far more serious than it probably should have been while they also, at the same time, try to be a fun summer blockbuster. It wants to be both silly and serious and, honestly, it doesn't know how to execute both properly. I shit a lot on the Transformer movies, but even they do a better job at finding a great balance between the serious elements and silliness of the concept. Here's the thing, and this is something someone pointed out in a review, superhero movies are a dime a dozen now. What used to be special is now overexposed. The Power Rangers, while relying on the nostalgia factor a bit, did not put its best foot forward in making a great first impression. In this overcrowded world, where movies like Black Panther and The Avengers take the spotlight, you have to offer something that is both new and interesting to capture the casual audience's attention. Just relying on nostalgia wasn't gonna work for this movie and its disappointing box office performance is proof of this. It made $143 million worldwide on a $105 million budget. Here's the thing about this movie, though, and that is the fact that for the first 90 minutes or so (over 75% of its running time), the movie is about the Rangers FIRST discovering the coins that gave them their superpowers, figuring out what these coins are, finding the underground spaceship that Zordon has lived in, being trained in order to be adequately prepared for when Rita tries to destroy the world, bonding with one another in order to be a better team, BEFORE they're able to wear their suits of armor for the first time. This is a running theme, the group isn't able to wear their colored suits due to the fact that they are not really a team working as one and thinking of one another solely to accomplish their goals. This is a massive failure, in my opinion, because the thing that everybody wanted to see was the Power Rangers in their costumes and, again, they literally make you wait 90 minutes before the team is actually able to wear their costumes. And, I'll be honest, the costumes are cool as shit, but not cool enough to make it worth sitting through 90 minutes of an uninteresting narrative. Batman Begins made it work because their characters were so rich and complex that you could explore the dynamics of why Bruce Wayne became Batman without it becoming dull and uninteresting. This movie, sadly, is just this sort of bland, safe and generic in its narrative. Like, seriously, how difficult is this to fuck up??? Give them their suits early on, have them kick ass immediately, add some B-tier villains while the looming threat of Rita and Goldar is present. They're getting to Rita, eventually, but they're gonna get their feet wet first with some minor villains, per se. This isn't me being a fanboy, because, again, I stopped being a fan as I got older. But it just seems to me to have been the most obvious thing to have done. Attention spans are shorter, sadly, and if you don't give people something that's gonna immediately grab their attention, then they're just not gonna bother. Why would people bother with this when they can watch Pacific Rim which, essentially, gives you more of what you want. Big mechs fighting big kaiju monsters. And it's not that I thought this movie was bad, it's ok, it's better than I was even expecting. Having said that, I will admit that there's something sweetly nostalgic and cool about seeing the Rangers, in their individual Zords, heading towards where Goldar is in the city with a cover of the Power Rangers theme playing. I'm not even gonna lie, it took me back to the "good old days". And seeing the Zords combine into the Megazord was also cool. Though, in the interest of fairness, the Megazord in this movie wasn't nearly as cool as the original. Being a fair man, I also have to admit that the casting wasn't bad in the slightest. The real standouts, to me, are Dacre Montgomery (who plays Max's asshole stepbrother in Stranger Things) and RJ Cyler as the Red and Blue Ranger respectively. Out of the five, they're the only two that feel like they're actually friends. Everything else, the interactions between the group and their attempts to bond feels so forced and manufactured. And I like the fact that the movie is the first superhero movie in existence to have an autistic and openly gay character, but they literally do nothing with that. I mean, Billy, who's autistic, is a central character and they do more with him than Trini, who's a lesbian. The thing about Trini is that it feels like it's such a throwaway line. It's like 'guys, I'm a lesbian' and that's it. She doesn't exactly say it explicitly, Billy puts two and two together based on her reactions. Not that it needed to be brought up again, it's just that it feels so forced. There's something to explore with Trini's character and the movie forsakes that in order to just have be a throwaway moment when the group is attempting to bond. I don't really know what else I can say about this. This is just a misfire honestly. Incredibly inconsistent tone that wants to be gritty and modern, but also silly like the original and they just did a poor job of it. Narrative is bland and safe. Product placement is rampant. And they make you wade through 90 minutes of a boring narrative just to give you a few cool moments of the Power Rangers in their armor and the Megazord. If a sequel is planned, and it seems to be for all intents and purposes, they just need to drop the serious tone and embrace the silliness. They also seem to be teasing the Green Ranger's arrival for the sequel, so they clearly want this to be a franchise. Having said that, they need to go back to the drawing board and make something with a lot more personality and life. Watchable movie, at best, but there's nothing here that you can't get done better from whatever movie Marvel wants to push that year...or month.
  Jesse O Super Reviewer
• Sep 06, 2017

  My initial reaction when I heard Power Rangers was coming back to the silver screen was an emphatic YES. Then I saw the idea for the uniforms come out a few months later, and that yes changed to a skeptical 'We'll see'. The castings were fine by me; I was OK having five unknowns encapsulate the heroes I grew up idolizing. Placing super stars like Elizabeth Banks, Bill Hader, and Bryan Cranston in supporting roles had me fully on board after the fact. So, when it hit theaters, for some reason, I just couldn't hype myself up enough to go see it. I wasn't disappointed when I finally popped it in, but it never quite delivers on any front like the TV show did. There were enough 'wow' moments to count on one hand. The biggest and best (and most nostalgic) was when the zords are running down the desert with the original song blasting. There just wasn't enough of it to remind us of why the Power Rangers were such a hit in the 90's and beyond depending on how long you followed them. The morphing was a dud. They tried to bring a realistic sense to the world like Chris Nolan did for Batman instead of sticking to a bit of the campy fun of what the show grew up on. I get this is a starting point for what can only be deemed a franchise in the making, but they were just so light on action overall, it felt like a teenage high-school drama. I still had fun with each character though. They gave every ranger a chance to have their own identity sticking as closely as they could to the show's original creations. If this was just the first of what could be, I'm intrigued. If it's the only one we get, color me unimpressed. It was still enjoyable enough to watch one time through.
  Lane Z Super Reviewer
• Jul 25, 2017

  Or is it [i]Saban's Power Rangers[/i] now? I understand the title comes from the creator of the Power Rangers, Haim Saban, but why?? Why not just 'Power Rangers'? So in short, the [i]Mighty Morphin Power Rangers[/i] was a science fiction/martial arts TV show that appeared in the early 90's; it was adapted from a similar Japanese series. Despite being clearly aimed at kids the show still managed to court much controversy for its supposed violence. Nevertheless the show was a massive hit across the world...for some reason. I myself was too old for the MMPR franchise and never saw any of it, nor did I see the previous movies. So I entered into this movie completely blind, only knowing what I've picked up over the years. The plot is the standard origins reboot affair really. The Power Rangers have always been around it seems, the suits are passed on from group to group. So in this case the previous group of Rangers (who were aliens) died to save the Earth from Rita Repulsa (yeah because Rita is what you call your villainess) by hiding the power coins (the suits power source). With his last dying breath the red ranger orders a meteor strike (from their ship) to try and kill Repulsa but instead sends her to the bottom of the ocean. Back in the present day a new group of high school kids eventually find the power coins and the ancient alien spaceship. Whilst at the same time Rita Repulsa is found and comes back to life, the timing huh. The Asian chap is the first Ranger to find a coin near these caves, embedded in rock. But what was he doing there in the first place?? Its within the ancient spaceship that the youngsters discover the consciousness of Zordon (the dead red alien ranger) who explains to them all about the suits and Repulsa. The teens can only morph into their suits when their emotions run high? And when they can then control their emotions or whatever; so this entails lots of training. Basically they only have eleven days before Repulsa gains her full powers back. She then intends to find the Zeo crystal to destroy Earth, because reasons. Oh and there is also a small robot called Alpha 5 that helps Zordon. Think the robot from [i]Lost in Space[/i] but smaller, and he does nothing. It was only a matter of time before the Power Rangers got a new gritty movie reboot, twas inevitable. Now I fully admit I don't know much about this franchise, but I do know of the franchises light-hearted tone, and boy is that gone for a Burton! So long to the brightly coloured lycra and plastic Ranger suits. Goodbye to the acrobatic fight sequences with hokey dubbing over the top, and cheerio to the men in rubber suit monsters. This new reboot is all about teen angst folks, lots of teen angst and of course questions about ones sexuality, because 2017. In that the entire movie mainly focuses on these teens and them trying to find themselves, or find the power within themselves so they can morph, I dunno. The actors playing these characters aren't bad per say, they just aren't interesting, at all (maybe its because I'm too old). I mean the yellow Ranger Trini was just annoying, again I realise her character is supposed to be moody but ugh christ! The rest are your basic carbon copy America teens with their newfangled hipster talk and whatnot. The red Ranger looks way older than the rest. Also I realise the original show had a diverse cast, that being its thing, but its just too manufactured for me, too much box ticking. Oh and they switched up the suit colours, so now the Asian bloke isn't in the yellow suit etc...Glad they pointed out and avoided that iffy microaggression, phew! Old Rita is quite scary I thought considering what this was adapted from. Look at her in the original series and its hilariously embarrassing; look at her here and she looks like a flesh-eating zombie. Although her outfit is still ridiculous looking. The sequence where her body is trawled up by fishermen is pretty dark Jesus! Yet the fishermen didn't seem overly concerned, I'd be freaking out. But end of the day what's her motivation here? What is she really wanting to achieve by destroying the Earth? She used to be a Ranger apparently and now she wants to wipe them out, someone must have really pissed her off! But where did she get her powers? I presume she's an alien? Yeah so its basically a glum teen angst flick right up until the last act of the movie...and [b]then[/b] we get to see some Power Ranger action. Finally we see the new Iron Man inspired suits doing stuff, and by that I mean a bit of leaping around before jumping into their big transformer zoid thingies (which they can all pilot perfectly first time). All this in time to fight Rita's large monster made out of gold, called Goldar (fuck me). Yeah so its a whole load of pretty average CGI fighting robots and a large liquid gold humanoid. Oh and there are these CGI rock creature henchmen things that just get destroyed easily by the Rangers. So the Rangers eventually win relatively easily all things considered, and Rita gets bitch slapped into space, K. This movie actually gets worse when the Power Ranger action kicks in! Is this a serious action fantasy? Or is this a jokey light-hearted movie for kids? Come on movie make your mind up here will ya. The visuals are clearly in the serious zone but the tone is all over the show. One minute the actors are acting as if their lives depended on it; the next a huge lumbering gold monster awkwardly walks across the screen with this [i]Voltron[/i] looking transformer hot on its ass. I understand the plot is taken from the original source material, but I can't help but feel they should of put some more thought into it. So yeah, I wasn't a fan before I saw this movie, aaand I can't see myself becoming a fan now. I'm willing to bet the original cheesy TV show was probably far better than this because it knew what it was and embraced that. This movie takes itself so seriously I'm not even sure if MMPR fanboys will like it.
  Phil H Super Reviewer
• Jul 10, 2017

  I grew up on Power Rangers, I always loved them, even as an adult I re-watch Mighty Morphin' about once a year. But it's never been "good", so for 2017's Hollywood go-over to even come across as well as it did is impressive, but still, in keeping with history, Power Rangers is not "good". And where it fails hardest is in its most Power-Ranger-iest moments. Before Rita Repulsa, and the Ranger suits and the quote unquote epic showdown at Krispy Kreme (which by the way is probably the most heinous example of product placement I've ever seen), I was actually pretty on board, sure the acting was hit and miss at best, but as characters I was interested to follow their dynamic. Unfortunately, this is at best half the film, and even this half isn't perfect.
  

  Gimly M Super Reviewer

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