Guilty Pleasures #41 - Saban's Power Rangers

We’re on a kick with Power Rangers, aren’t we? And this is what it’s been building towards.

There’s been an odd trend that of Hollywood trying to make uber-serious versions of otherwise silly franchises. The worst of these was Fant4stic which managed to be dark, boring, completely non-nonsensical and somehow dumber than the movies it was supposed be more serious than.

But the truth is, there’s nothing wrong with a light-hearted tone, as long as the serious moments are taken seriously. A good example of this done effectively is Spider-man Homecoming, which I will probably get to next year. Although most of the Marvel movies are a good example of how to do this right.

Here’s the thing though. Power Rangers, in spite of some serious ideas, is an inherently silly show. Especially during the Mighty Morphin Era which this movie is attempting to re-tell. Whilst I can at least understand the potential of a dark Fantastic 4 (that doesn’t mean I think it’s a good idea) I don’t really see what can be accomplished with doing the same to Power Rangers.

But here we are, and it’s another of 2017’s franchise ‘failures?’, boy there’ve been a few of those this year. It made only $142m on a $100m budget. Factoring in marketing and theatre cuts that’s a net loss for the studio. Fortunately, the one thing Power Rangers is usually good at is selling toys and it’s no exception here, it’s also apparently made a decent amount in DVD sales. I don’t see a sequel as likely but it’s apparently not beyond the realm of plausibility, unlike *cough*Fant4stic*cough*

But that said, Power Rangers struck an interesting chord with me, I actually kinda liked it, and I’m far from alone, this has a 45% Rotten Tomatoes rating which, whilst far from good, indicates at least mixed reception. So here is my take on the movie.

We open in the Cenozoic era on Earth. The world is in ruins and the Power Rangers of the era have been foiled, only the Red Ranger, Zordon, can stop her. Zordon tells Alpha to target the meteor here and tells the power coins to work only for those who are worthy of them. Rita, the Green Ranger, seems to be after their energy and wants to rule the universe with an artefact called the Zeo crystal but the meteor hits and she’s cast into the ocean. Aww, that was sad and depressing, let’s immediately cut to some forced comedy, and I say ‘comedy’ in the loosest possible terms.

Jason and erm… someone have brought a cow into a changing room, the other guy says he milked the cow but the cow’s a he. LAUGH! The cops arrive and they’re quickly on the run with a snazzy chase sequence with a forced pop song that ends with the car flipped. Anyone want to explain this? Why did he do it? I can get kids not talking about their problems but what problem exists that could lead to Jason saying ‘let’s steal a cow and take to it to the changing rooms?’

Jason now has to go to a special Saturday class so he can graduate. His father is understandably worried about him, and disappointed that this ruins his chances at playing football. Jason finds a guy named Billy being bullied by someone who isn’t Bulk and Skull. Billy’s autistic and they showcase that immediately with wanting his pencils in a certain order. Jason stands up to the bully, dodging his attacks and landing a huge slap on him. They agree to leave each other alone from now on, providing Billy isn’t bullied again.

One of the girls receives a text message and finds two girls hiding in the bathroom. She apparently punched out a boy’s tooth, that’s why she’s in Saturday school. She also sent a mean picture or something so the girls have decided to cut her out of their group. This is an incredibly mean-spirited way of doing it, but whatever. In response, a new pop song plays as she cuts her hair short. Her name’s Kimberly, as is revealed by her angry father when the day ends and he comes to pick her up.

Billy wants to hang out with Jason, but Jason has a tag so he can’t leave his house after 7pm, Billy says he has the tools to trick the tag if he arrives before 7 and has a car which Jason can use if he drives him to a particular location of interest. He hears the parents arguing about him at home and decides to pay Billy a visit. OK, fine, he’s gonna have a record for the rest of life over something that’s really rather stupid but it could be worse, he could’ve faced jail time, he could’ve hurt someone, and as far as I can tell, no-one was hurt. There may still be a life for him, even if it’s a restricted one. This drama feels a little forced.

So, after a song that feels like it should’ve died in the 90s Jason arrives at Billy’s house, Billy’s mother acts like she’s a fan of his. What did he do exactly? More details please! Anyway, as Billy chatters on about his dead father, he manages to trick the bracelet into believing he’s at home.  I’m going to call bullsh*t on this but whatever the plot demands, I guess. They head into an abandoned gold mine that’s about a week away from going BOOM! Jason’s a little cautious as Billy explains he’s autistic despite the fact most people figured that out already, like Jason.

But to be fair, we get a bit more of an insight into exactly how his mind works. He isn’t really good with humour or sarcasm, my bread and butter, but has a really good memory. Jason leaves to use the van and spots a guy atop an abandoned shack, he’s looking at a girl listening to music on the cliff edge. Not creepy in the slightest.

Jason spots Kimberly taking a dip in the nearby water, don’t remember seeing that near the gold mine. He doesn’t see her surface and is about jump in when she manages to sneak up behind him, somehow. Billy is “talking to his father” as he prepares some wire work. Kimberly explains she hikes around here to clear her head and Jason doesn’t really care about her tooth punching incident.

Jason believes people are looking at him funny now, because somehow bringing a cow into a changing room can ruin a sports team or something, they must have subs who are capable.

Billy detonates his explosives. Yes, he has explosives… Which gets everyone’s attention and brings everyone to Billy’s position. The cliff begins to collapse, unearthing an ancient glass structure. They break through the glass and unearth the power coins. But an alarm goes off.

Jason and Billy get back in the van and it’s time for another chase sequence. Err…Go Go Power Rangers? They catch up with the girls and get them in, deciding to leave the other guy behind. He jumps onto the roof of the van from somewhere and they get in. And we get a cliché escape from a moving train bit, except this time, the van is sent flying into river. And that’s them all dead. GO GO POWER RANGERS?

Meanwhile, a freighter captained by Jason’s dad, uncovers Rita and for reasons leave her in the pile of dead fish. Eww, she looks like a rotting corpse, don’t leave her where she could contaminate food. The next morning all of them wake up, alive and unharmed, somehow, and Billy soon uncovers his enhanced strength, although he really should be in trouble regarding the van, I highly doubt that recovered. Jason and Kimberly soon also discover their enhanced strength.

The bully from earlier tries to confront Billy and tries to snap his wrist but it doesn’t work and a headbutt knocks him out. Billy gets a lot of attention for that move. Kimberly feels like they need to go back up to the mine and when the power coins start causing chaos at the table everyone agrees. Why do the Power Coins do that anyway? Can’t imagine a use for it. So, Jason’s father reports Rita’s body to a policeman, who begins to file his report on the body but the body glows green and wakes up. NOW SHE’S RADIOACTIVE, THAT CAN’T BE GOOD!

Jason, Billy and Kimberly head to the mine, where one of the others, who we find out here is Zack, is already doing some investigation. He jumped over a house this morning. The other girl is also here, we don’t get her name yet, she can climb really easily. Kimberly chases her to a cliff’s edge, Kimberly tries to get her to talk, but she jumps over the large gap. Zack soon follows, with Jason and Kimberly jumping soon after her. Billy on the other hand, is incredibly scared, he does eventually jump and only barely makes it to the other side, before falling over the edge.

  

He talks from the bottom, it’s water. About that, jumping into water from that height would still be fatal. Jason and Zach jump in no problem, but it’s up to Kimberly to persuade, look I’m just gonna call her Trini because it’s easier, but outside of subtitles, and the fact she’s the only member left of the Mighty Morphin team, her name is not mentioned. Kimberly uses the ‘can I have some water’ trick to get Trini into the water with the others, Trini is kinda dumb. The water glows around them with the colour of their power coins and we get a joke about the racism of a black guy being a black ranger in the original series.

They dive in and find an odd barrier. Billy puts his hand through and feels weird, since his hand is in the dry, screw gravity, am I right? the all exit and fall to the actual floor, ok, just make up your rules of gravity. Inside they find a space-ship. Oh good, maybe with an active space ship we can get out of the dark and gloomy cave. The power coins grant them entry, and wait, never mind, it’s dark and gloomy like the cave. Something is activated and the ship’s interior begins to change, but still remains dark and gloomy, panicked the 5 split up. They hear a Trini captured by Alpha-5, who can fight a little better than remember. He gets them into a chamber but they’re not trusting of him

“I’m a talking robot. You can trust me”

This movie has to have a little bit of self-awareness with that line. Billy steps into the footprints first, showing it won’t kill, Zach is second, Trini and Kimberly are next before Jason finally does the same. They ship’s AI begins to activate, wait, that is Zordon? Was a hologram really that difficult to do now, holograms are everywhere! I swear a giant floating head in a tube can’t be beneath your budget now, what the hell is this? Anyway, Alpha put Zordon’s essence in the ship’s matrix after his death.

As Alpha-5 talks to Zordon, the 5 try to escape but are locked in. The morphing grid is supposedly never wrong, so despite Zordon’s reservations, these 5 are the Power Rangers. So, time for some background stuff. Every planet that has life has a piece of the Zeo crystal in it, it was the Power Rangers’ job to protect them. Erm, Jason is home and sees Rita, attacking them and killing everyone, apparently everyone sees the same thing.

Rita Repulsa (yes, they’ve kept that inherently silly name) will create a monster named Goldar (who was more a comic-relief sidekick in the show) who will rip the Zeo Crystal from the ground and kill everyone. With the Zeo Crystal piece she would have the power to destroy worlds at a whim. They estimate they have 11 days to stop her before it’s too late.

Trini decides to leave and the others follow suit. Zordon makes a plea to Jason, who is the Red Ranger and the defacto team’s leader. We FINALLY get a proper introduction to Trini, who no-one really seems to know and seems invisible to people. Jason tells the others he’s coming back at 4:00 tomorrow and asks them to join him.

So, time for a little insight into Zack and Trini’s lives. Zack lives in a shack with his mother who is suffering from plot-convenient illness. She wants to know he’s doing okay but he’s avoiding all her questions. Meanwhile Trini’s parents want her to open up and are rather forceful about it. These parents, particularly the mother, are idiots, they must know the personality of her daughter by now. So, we get a ‘joke’ about her telling them the truth and them wanting her to pee in a cup. STD Joke. You know, she could easily just show her super-strength at this point but that would ruin the ‘joke.’

The car Jason totalled in the opening is brought back to his house, his father wasn’t offered much for it, so he’s leaving it up to Jason if he wants to repair it. The police arrive, telling him of the death on his boat as Rita begins searching for gold, attacking a guy with a gold-plated tooth and gaining a small amount of gold that was only barely worth her time. So, it’s 4:00pm the next day and would you believe it, all 5 of them show up, because of course they would.

There are 3 rules to being a Power Ranger. Never use powers for personal gain, never escalate a fight beyond what’s necessary and never reveal your identities. Maybe the ‘pee in the cup’ joke would’ve been better after that, though not by much. They need to morph to get their armour, but to do that they need to connect to each other, and that’s not happening yet.

With little time, Zordon decides they need to train without armour. He simulates the army of Rita Repulsar, and would you believe it they look similar to the Enchantress’ pathetic pile of bullsh*t from Suicide Squad, although give them credit, they actually like they’re made of rock in this.

Training montage with the occasional bit of home life kicked in. Kimberly and Trini training by arguing a bit of cake. What is this, Kung Fu Panda? Their fighting improves but they still can’t morph. Thanks to system damage, they can’t triangulate the location of the Zeo Crystal but Billy manages to track it down. And yes, here is the most egregious problem with the movie. Krispy Kreme Product Placement. The news are beginning to catch on to Rita’s rampage, which doesn't really provoke any reaction from Angel grove.

Alpha-5 tries to motivate the team by showing them the Zords, creatures that took the form of dinosaurs since at the time, they were the most powerful beings on earth. They need their armour to fully bond with the creature but Zach is less than impressed and takes it out for a spin anyway and…, are you f*cking kidding me, almost crashes into a bus filled with nuns. We are supposed to be taking this seriously, right?

The Zord crashes back into the cave, almost burying the rest of the team. When Jason calls him out on it, it leads to a fight. Billy tries to stop the fight and he ends up morphing. Zordon isn’t pleased though, putting an end to training. Billy is demorphed and can’t morph again, none of them can. All of them except Jason leave but decide to camp for the night together.

Jason confronts Zordon and hears that if the team morph he can transfer into one of their bodies and come back to life. Jason is not pleased to hear this and calls Zordon out on it. Harsh words are left as Jason leaves. Rita enters a jewellery store and begins taking the gold from it. One of the staff raises the silent alarm but when the police arrive, Rita’s strong enough to raise her putties from the ground, and destroy the jewellery store. Around this point there should be mass panic as you’d bet the media would’ve heard about this

At the camp site, it’s time for a trust circle. Zack starts off, he lives in the Melody Mobile home park with his mum, she’s sick and he’s scared of her eventually dying, especially as he has no-one else. Billy reveals he likes country music and he misses his dad less whilst he’s with them. He also ended up in Saturday detention because he blew up his lunchbox because of course he did.

Kimberly isn’t open and Jason isn’t either, so it’s Trini’s turn. Her family is super-conformist and she’s gay. 3 schools in 3 years means she’s never really had to worry about relationships. The night closes on a simple question: are they friends? Trini gets a visit from Rita and they fight, OK, how was she tracked down again? Rita tries to find out more about the Rangers. She wants to know where the Zeo crystal is, also she plans to destroy Angel Grove tomorrow but in exchange for her life, she wants the location found of the Zeo crystal. Also, how are her super conformist parents not hearing this?

Kimberly pays Jason a visit, telling him she punched a boy in the face, for telling people how mean she was, and he was right. One of her friends sent her a picture in confidence, and she text it to the boy, I think there was some jealousy there. It didn’t seem mean at first but it rarely does till the consequences roll in.

Jason is consoling, doing a bad thing doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person. Sometimes you have to live with the consequences of your mistakes. It’s actually a good lesson for children and young adults, that’s not ham-fisted or sappy, although it would be more poignant if Jason’s mistake wasn’t bringing a cow into a sports stadium for no adequately explained reason! They all get a text from Trini, as she explains the situation with Rita. Jason wants to after her and with a speech that echoes the one from earlier, gets the others to follow him.

They pick up some weapons and head to the ship graveyard, where Trini was told to go. A place that’s dark and eerie, who would’ve guessed? They find a man tied up but it’s a trap. And, as is common-place with a villain in Power Rangers, she kicks their asses and ties them up on the ship. She plans to kill them one by one until Billy tells her where the Zeo Crystal is. And this is one of those instances where the product placement becomes a joke! She leaves, killing Billy by pushing him into the water and not all of them for some reason and letting the others go, thinking them no challenge.

They pull Billy up, but god is this f*cking stupid, they survived a longer dip in the water earlier. They grab him and take him to Zordon, with another forced pop song. Zordon says there’s nothing he can do. Jason regrets that his fear and anger may have lead them to their doom, still doesn’t explain the goddamn cow but I digress.

And they come to the realisation that like Billy, they would all likely sacrifice their lives for each other. Honestly, that’s a little forced for me but this had to happen eventually I guess. The morphing grid begins to open, offering Zordon a chance to come to life, but he instead uses it to save Billy. Whilst I’m not usually a fan of a dead character coming back to life, this works because it comes at a price, Zordon can never return to life.

With Billy back, and the words spoken as they were, they try once again to morph. Jason even saying the titular ‘it’s morphin time’ line. For the development they’ve been through in the past 90 minutes they FINALLY MORPH! This must be the most-long winded origin story yet. Even Turbo didn’t wait as long as 90 minutes for their first morph. Even Fant4stic didn’t wait till ¾ of the way through the movie but honestly, it kinda works. Because the characters and mostly well written and relatable. Some of the dialogue is sh*t but I was invested in their personal drama and that is a remarkable achievement for me. Still don’t know what Jason was up to with that bloody cow, and no I’m not letting that go!

Now, as for the suits themselves. I do have some issues, they could be a little brighter and the Yellow Ranger suit looks almost Green to me, at least in the dark cave. Rita arrives at the gold mine and she uses the remaining gold in the mine to summon Goldar. Putties begin to enter the base so the Rangers get to work taking them out before ascending to the surface and fighting more of them off. Jason gets a sword to help him. The Rangers are overwhelmed by putties but Zach comes to their aid in his zord. But with that battle over, they see Goldar heading towards the Zeo Crystal.

They get into their Zords and we get a remix of GO GO POWER RANGERS! And again, the product placement becomes a problem as Krispy Kreme because every other line. Rita sees their success and we get a forced pop tune as Rita summons a mass of putties for them to fight. Also, there’s a Transformers references and a few of the bullies get pummelled by debris. Sadly, Rita finds the Krispy Kreme and begins eating one of its donuts.

Did I mention this review is sponsored by Krispy Kreme, Krispy Kreme, come to your local supermarket and get 3 donuts for only £5.30 (or get own brand versions at less than £1.50) anyway, whilst I was busy making that 'joke', Jason’s father manages to smash another car and Jason comes out of his Zord to rescue him. The destruction is immense but anything that equates to them saving by-standers is good.

An attack on Goldar destroys Rita’s putties, but Goldar and Rita are still in the fight, feeling the crystal, she digs to it. They fire everything they have but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything at all. Goldar can now shoot fireballs, one of which hits Kimberly and downs her. They’re all being pushed into the pit, they’re content with dying together, as long as they give everything but the heat and smoke is beginning to overwhelm them. But if you’re a fan of Power Rangers, you can guess what’s coming. The Zords come together under fire, forming the Megazord.

Rita and Goldar merge together. But initially the Rangers can barely function since they’re now controlling separate body-parts. They use their training to come together as one as Goldar gains more powers, they draw swords to finish Goldar off. Rita survives, warning them that others will come to seek the Zeo Crystal, she dives at them and gets backhanded into orbit, where I’m sure she’ll never bother anyone again.

So, Angel Grove is in tatters but there are clearly still survivors who cheer on the Megazord, taking photos with their phones. Jason’s father has a newspaper clipping of the incident pinned to the fridge, which to me indicates he might know that it was Jason who saved him. Oops, rule 3 broken there. Trini begins repairing her room as her brothers discuss which ranger they’d like to be. Zack’s mother discusses the incident with Zack, Kimberly is content with her new friends. And all of them are still showing up to detention as Zordon narrates in the background how all of them are owed a debt of gratitude.

Mid-credits sequence as detention has a new member, Tommy Oliver, who’s already gone. Also another of Billy’s lunchboxes blows up because joke?

It’s hard to exactly define why I enjoy this movie, the product placement for Krispy Kreme, the words Power Ranger, Rita Repulsa, the stupid scene with the cow, it should all make it impossible for me to take this movie seriously.

But, here’s the thing, somehow, I end up doing so anyway. The characters feel real in a way I don’t see in a lot of movies. I still can’t pin Jason down, but he’s quick to prove himself likeable, with the way he saves Billy from the bully. I commend this movie for being diverse without being in your face about it. Having well rounded characters who are lesbian or autistic still isn’t common in a movie and I commend this movie for trying with them.

Like I said in the summary, despite there being a definite lack of action in this movie, I didn’t end up missing it because I was invested in the characters and their arcs, surprisingly that includes Zordon which I really didn’t expect.

The weakest part of this movie for me, is the action. Not only was most of it spoiled in the trailers but some of the dialogue during the fight sequences felt out-of-character and more akin to traditional Power Rangers. That and Rita Repulsa isn’t that good a villain. I know she was hammy in the original, but rather than going for a full-serious villain, the performance here tries to find middle ground and it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t help, that the actress probably gives the worst performance in the movie, though that could boil down to bad direction given the inconsistent tone, especially of her character.

With regards to tonal whiplash, I do understand where critics are coming from here, for me the only major misstep with regards to that (aside from anything with Rita) is the very early scenes where they went from a deep and dark backstory to stupid sh*t without any real transition. But this feels more like an idea that was badly done, a sudden change of tone can be a good joke if handled properly, here it feels poor. Speaking of, a lot of the jokes don’t land very well, not sure I cared enough about the bully to laugh when his car was crushed (essentially since Billy already beat him in an earlier scene and he got slapped in his only other appearance) or the girls Kimberly used to know when they faced the same fate.

Whilst it’s not everything I want a Power Rangers movie to be, it’s probably the closest of all the Power Rangers movies to being good and I found myself enjoying it.

Rating -75%

But that leads to the question, why did this movie not do well? I have a couple of theories. First off, the marketing, it wasn’t good a made it kind of obvious that action wasn’t going to be its strong point and showed off one of its worst jokes. The PG-13 rating may not have helped either. Power Rangers is still an ongoing franchise with a young audience, it really didn’t do them much good to alienate that audience with a PG-13 rating. Having said that, I realise that a lot of themes in the movie would have to be toned down for a PG rating. Beyond that, the reception to serious reboots has waned since Fant4stic started airing trailers.