Power Rangers

It seems the film industry will never stop on their relentless pursuit to tickle all of our nostalgia funny bones. Why come up with an original idea when you can mine the past for inspiration? Why risk a new property when an existing one will attract a rose-tinted audience?

All well and good if these adaptations are handled properly. Unfortunately, we’ve not been lucky in this regard recently. The less said about the Transformers franchise the better and the horrible attempt to update the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for ‘modern youngsters’ backfired miserably. The latest for the trash heap? Power Rangers.

Yes, the beloved, spandex-clad teenage fighters of extra-terrestrial threats have been updated (again) this time for a post-Hunger Games, Twilight, Divergent etc. ‘young adult’ audience. With no comic book prestige to go on, just a rather out of date, if fondly remembered, cheesy 90’s show it seems Lionsgate thought it best to lump it in somewhere in the middle of the aforementioned properties and the more 'prestigious' superhero flicks.

Bottom line? It almost works. It starts promisingly; a lengthy establishing exposition introducing us to the five teens who’ll take on the costumes. The length of the film (totalling two hours plus) actually pays off in this regard, allowing the audience time to acclimatise to the characters. Sure, they’re all emo, woe-is-me types (another example of Hollywood generalising) but they’re a likeable bunch.

What’s less forgivable is the serviceable attempt to bring in some ‘big’ topics. It’s wildly wide of the mark in this regard. Much has been made of one of the characters being ‘on the spectrum’ and another being LGBTQ+ but, rather than being a realistic portrayal of a wider teenage market, these important details are brushed off as reasons for their moodiness.

This is all in order to get to the action faster but, after this initial, entertaining 45 minutes we’re treated to a middling middle section montage of the teens training to become ‘full Rangers.’ They stumble on an alien spaceship, spend a lot of time talking to Bryan Cranston’s floating head and Bill Hader’s robot (a serious waste of the two's talents) They’re randomly told that, by the way, they can use some giant mechanised dinosaurs once they’re ‘fully trained’ (yes they’re pretty cool, yes it tickles those who grew up on the show but it’s just too damn random!) and that, conveniently, Elizabeth Banks’ (yes, it’s really her) Rita (in fairness, another good nod to the show) just happens to have appeared in town at the exact same time.

All momentum is hereby wasted as, after this interminable montage, we get a horrific CGI mess of a battle sequence between the aforementioned dinosaur-things (I’m sure their name is mentioned but it’s too ridiculous to remember) and a giant, gold man attempting to pull up a crystal from the ground which will, somehow, ‘end the world.’ You start to realise at this stage that this pulpy subject matter, whilst brilliant as a 90’s Saturday morning show, was never gonna cut it on the big screen. Also, what we want is the Power Rangers fighting hand-to-hand not acting stupid in their unexplainable machines. It’s a serious waste (plus, whisper it, the costumes look embarrassing, it’ll make you miss the spandex.)

Good bits? Well, for anyone who did grow up with the show there is some nice touches. They manage to shoehorn in the line “it’s Morphin’ time” and, believe it or not, they even squeeze the classic theme tune in at one point (it’ll look awful to new viewers but it’s fun for ‘fans’.) There’s also a nice Marvel nod and a Transformers reference as well for 90’s kids.

One review brilliantly encapsulates this film by saying: ‘the Power Rangers get in the way of their own film.’ This is spot on. An initially valiant attempt at joining the young adult market is scuppered by a concept which just isn’t meant for this demographic. Not a wasted opportunity, just a stupid idea in the first place.

2 stars **