I kind of remember watching the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on TV as a really young kid, with my youngest brother being a baby almost. Back then we liked most anything that was colorful on TV, while my Mom did not. Having older brothers that could change the channel when she left the room was handy. These memories made me curious about this weeks movie, Power Rangers.
The movie starts in the Cenozoic era on Earth, 65 million years ago. It shows volcanoes erupting in the background as a Red Power Ranger crawls on the ground. He gets to the Yellow Power Ranger and takes her power coin, causing the armor around her to disappear, revealing the dying alien inside of it. Then the Red Power Ranger continues crawling while asking Alpha 5 to aim the meteor towards him. He takes the power coin and buries it with the other four he has including his own telling them to find someone worthy, when he is then confronted by the Rita Repulsa (played by Elizabeth Banks). As they speak, we find out the Red Power Ranger is Zordon (played by Bryan Cranston) and he is trying to save the world from Rita. Rita says that Zordon won't survive fighting her, and Zordon says they will both die together. The meteor hits shortly after, sending Rita into the sea with a green power coin, drowning her, and killing Zordon immediately.
It then moves to the present day where two high school students are bringing a cow into the locker rooms for a prank. One says that they should have done something else instead and begin arguing, when they hear police signals from outside. One of the two, Jason (played by Dacre Montgomery) gets in his truck and starts driving away. The police chase after him, but he escapes from them and continues driving away. Just when he thinks he is good he ends up in a car crash that wrecks the truck, injures him, and gets caught by the police. It goes to six days later when he is being dropped off to his school by his dad (played by David Denman) for detention. They talk about why Jason has to go there, how disappointed his dad is, and shows the ankle tracker that he now has to wear because of his actions.
The story plot was ok, but honestly I thought with the action at the beginning that we would have a decent amount through the whole movie, but that was not the case. As with a lot of origin movies, most of the action was at the end. I would compare the length of time between the beginning and the action to Batman v Superman, but I think this one had a bit more in it. Even though it takes a while to get to most of the action, when it does it makes you feel like a young kid again. Or at least, that's how I felt for a moment or two. It was nice to have that nostalgia on knowing how they all became Power Rangers in this, plus some backstory on the first Power Rangers as well. But with how graphic some of the violence in this, I would probably not recommend very young children going to see this.
The acting was not as cheesy as the original Power Rangers, but still pretty up there. I think it is just their trademark at this point. I actually think that is why Elizabeth Banks was so perfect for her role as Rita. She knows the perfect balance between cheesy funny and cringing cheesy. She also managed to bring some actual feeling of terror of her character to the roll, which again helped with that balance. I will give props to RJ Cyler who played the Blue Power Ranger Billy as well. It is told early into the movie that he is on the autism spectrum, and how he portrayed that was done well. Another movie that has a main character with autism is The Accountant. These of course affect me personally, not because I am on the autism scale, but because my difficulties have what they call autistic tendencies. I think it is great for kids to see people like this as someone they can look up to. The other actors were good for their roles for the most part as well, and with the mid-credit scene you know they will have more movies to improve and build from here.
Overall, the acting was done very well considering the roles and cheesiness, and the story went very in depth with most everything they never explained before. If you are or were a long time Power Rangers fan, or are just starting into it, this movie is definitely something to watch. As for negatives, keep in mind this is supposed to be a kids movie, but probably not for kids under the age of five. And so, for the reasons above, I would rate this movie 7.8/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment