A reboot of the Power Rangers franchise that has so far included movies, live action and animated TV series, action figures and toys, this is also something of an origin story which basically means you’ll have to sit through 90 minutes of teen bonding before anyone does any mighty morphin’.
It seems that 65 million years ago, Power Ranger Zordon (Cranston) died trying to save the earth’s special lifeforce crystal from being stolen by Rita Repulsa (Banks). Now she’s back, and so is he (sort of) – but he can only save the planet by relying on five teenagers who have accidentally stumbled upon Zordon’s spaceship and his Short Circuit-like comic relief robot Alpha 5 (voiced by Bill Hader). There’s Jason (Montgomery, looking like a less appealing Zac Efron, with added bad hair), the quarterback who has wrecked his scholarship chances for no apparent reason, ex-cheerleader Kimberly (Scott), mildly autistic scientist Billy (Cyler), annoying loner Zack (Ludi Lin) and new-girl-at-school Trini (Becky G). They’ve got to decide if they can pull together and save the world (if they can fit it around their school detentions).
While this isn’t as lame as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, or as cheap and silly as the TV series, it is rather dull. Most of the movie’s running time is back story and teens pouting and training (don’t their parents ever notice they are never at home?), and things only pick up when Rita starts crushing people in her bid to collect gold to make a big shiny monster to destroy the world (quite why she wants to do this is anyone’s guess).
The final action sequences, when they eventually come, are fine, even if the plot climaxes with the villain locating the town branch of Krispy Kreme donuts and then smashing it. The problem is, despite much running time spent on them before they become Power Rangers, that we never really learn much about any of the kids (a line about Trini being part of the LGBT community is thrown away and never again referred to) so don’t really care what happens to any of them. Oh well, at least the Power Rangers armour looks cool…
Is Power Rangers suitable for kids? Here are our parents’ notes...
This is a 12A certificate in the UK, and children under the age of 9 may find some scenes with Rita Repulsa scary. She looks quite frightening (corpse-like) to begin with, and harvests gold teeth from people which may upset younger viewers.
Children should not be bothered by the rock monsters, but younger viewers may not like the golden giant of the final scenes.
If you like this, why not try: