What movie are you viewing at the moment?

[Starkos]

Death Wish (2018)



Imdb

Paul Kersey, a Chicago trauma surgeon becomes a one-man vigilante squad after his wife is murdered by street punks in which he randomly goes out and kills would-be muggers on the mean streets after dark.

Being a fan of almost all (if not all) 70's flicks, curiosity got the best of me and i decided to check it out with some friends last night. Like most remakes/reboots of 70's rape/revenge/survival classics such as Straw Dogs, Last House On The Left, I Spit On Your Grave and the likes, this one fails miserably. As soon as they anounced Willis would reprise Bronson's role as Paul Kersey, I had a hunch that it'd blow...Boy was I right. Charles should be in charge ! Gone the grittiness/edginess, the excruciating rape/murder scene, the NY 42nd Street vibe, Jeff Goldbum's/Saul Rubinek as street thugs and the conscientious objector's angle from the original. The fact Willis is merely goin' through the motions just doesn't help either. The idea of a trauma surgeon turned killing machine just doesn't hold up. I was expecting a shitshow and Death Wish sure went wayyy beyond my expectations. To top it all, there isn't any gore on display which is surprizing coming from Eli Roth. Much like the Blade Runner sequel, a freaking mess of a movie. Avoid, def avoid. On a side note, D'Onofrio is wasted in this.
Now i'm just hoping they don't remake Deliverance. Taxi Driver, the Godfather, Midnight Express or other 70's classics. Fingers crossed on that one.

3/10

[Tmee2020]

Chinatown (1974)

Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston. Directed by Roman Polanski.



Jack at his absolute peak.

This film looks so good, the way it is shot. The 1930s dress style, the cars and the setting are all immaculate. Don't play with knives and keep away from sharp objects, certainly while watching.

JJ Gittes seems to be doing pretty well, he's driving a beautiful 1935 Ford ragtop. Like its owner, the '35 Ford gets a little roughed up.

[Wendigo]

I have no one to blame but myself. I knew what was coming but it had the word Bigfoot in the title

1313: Bigfoot Island (2012)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2083123/

A woman Danielle who it seems was attacked by a group of randy jocks a while back summons the great spirit of the forest (a tatty looking ginger Bigfoot) to avenge her. It is directed by David DeCoteau so as I suspected it entails a lot of topless men running around whilst the shittest Bigfoot ever kills them with a feeble throw of his arm. Total utter shit but I watched it to see if Kathryn Collins disrobes in any way, she doesn't, she just sits on a rock chanting.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y_o_8FzRMQ

Beware jocks alert

[Tmee2020]

True Grit (1969)

John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Kim Darby.

Some famous names, or soon to be famous, are in support.

From the Charles Portis novel.



There are lots of memorable lines, and one scene I found particularly moving. I need to get hold of the novel.

[Oh hi Mark!]

Power Rangers (2017)





What I thought would be a culmination of my Mighty Morphin Power Rangers digestion, actually amounted to something that had similarities, whether intentional or coincidental, to other seasons of Power Rangers. One big similarity elevates itself to being an inspiration point. Yes, this movie is mainly inspired by Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, but apparently it also drew influences from the Dino Thunder season. I start my review with these things because, well, I've only watched all of MMPR. I just started Alien Rangers, which was a 10-episode mini-series that follows up the epic cliffhanger from the MMPR finale. If you've seen that finale, you'd probably agree that it's weird that they cut the follow-up into a mini-series since the story technically isn't done. 145 episodes therefore should be 155, but let's move on from that. Dino Thunder was the 2004 season of the series, and has been seen as a spiritual successor to MMPR. It features Dino-themed Rangers, Red, Blue, and Yellow even adopt three of the same dinosaurs from the original series. Tommy Oliver, who was the Green and White Ranger in MMPR, is the mentor/Zordon figure in that show, Jason David Frank reprising his role. Also, the big similarity/possible inspiration point, the teens are misfits. Not really knowing these similarities and taking the film strictly as something to compare only to MMPR, the two are very different, and arguably to a fault. Even when you take the apparent Dino Thunder tie-in, I still feel like this movie stands apart, in some good ways, and some bad ways. I'll try and explain throughout this review. Regardless of similarities to other seasons of the show, the bottom line is this was based mainly on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the first 3 seasons of the franchise, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. So, it's a reboot, and before the film's release, Saban and Lionsgate wanted this to be a 6-movie story arc. Unfortunately, the movie was a slug at the box office, with poor sales internationally. It took a massive toy sale in the UK for it to restart sequel talks that have since died out. Learning about some troubles overseas due to sociopolitical things (I'll explain that in the end), and how much of a mixed bag this was right from the premiere, this movie casts an uncertain future about this planned movie series. If not for the big toy sale in the UK, it's possible the movie series idea would've been dead almost on arrival. As of June 2017, talks of a sequel came up, but a month later those talks died out. So, who knows? I can say for sure the movie leaves some unfinished business, there was world building and all that, but it still stands alone. That's a good thing, if it focused too much on franchise building, it would've sucked. Also, given some of the unfinished business, especially a mid-credits scene, I would actually like a sequel, despite what I'm about to say. So, here we go...


I didn't realize until after reading some trivia bits that this features the very first female Green Ranger. Let me clarify though that this movie is part of its own continuity, I think that's obvious, but consider the franchise as a whole. All the Green Rangers before this movie were male. It's really strange knowing about that, because I thought the only gender-specific role was Pink. Quick and weird fact, an early draft script of this movie made it so that Zack (Ludi Lin) was the Pink Ranger, and Kimberly (Naomi Scott) was the Black Ranger. That was swiftly scrapped. In Power Rangers HyperForce, a Twitch series that has 5 protagonists play some RPG board game thing with a female antagonist, there is a female Black Ranger, making her the first ever one in the franchise. There has also been a female Red Ranger, only twice, but both were very brief. The Red Ranger is typically the leader of the group, both in Power Rangers, and the series it adapts each of their seasons from, Super Sentai. Still, extremely weird about the Green Ranger note.


So let it be known that Rita Repulsa in this movie's canon, was a Green Ranger. The movie starts with an old incarnation of the team, apparently from 60 million years ago or so, perishing. On a scorched Earth, Zordon (Bryan Cranston covered in blue makeup) as the Red Ranger talks to the dying Yellow Ranger, and retrieves her Power Coin. Standing over him was the Green Ranger, Rita, who betrayed her fellow Rangers for more power. Specifically, she wanted the Zeo Crystal all to herself. Zordon, crawling, contacted Alpha 5, telling him to direct a meteor to hit where he and Rita were at. He removed his own Power Coin, and hid that and the four other ones underground. Rita confronts Zordon, but that doesn't last for long as the meteor hits, killing Zordon, and sending Rita back flying, crashing into a body of water and kind of going all caveperson, lying dormant for millions of years.


With that, I'll compare this and the show, I'll be doing this a lot, hell, I'll even compare this to the original Power Rangers movie from 1995, as there are comparisons to be made there surprisingly. Rita was just an evil witch in the show who had been banished by Zordon into a space trashcan for 10000 years. I was hoping this prequel portion was set 10000 years ago, but sadly no. Zordon won a coin toss in his battle with Rita to facilitate the banishment, but Rita's parting shot was trapping Zordon into a time warp. As said in this movie, he straight up dies. The explanation for his presence in the story after this prequel is that Alpha 5 managed to imprint his consciousness into the Rangers' spaceship, think downloading an AI to a software program. I have a feeling this was the filmmakers' explanation and retcon over Rita in the show possessing the Green Ranger Power Coin. In the show, she used that to make her own evil Green Ranger, putting a spell on Tommy Oliver and letting him loose on the other Rangers. In the show, there is really no explanation as to how Rita has that Power Coin. I admit that this backstory is very fascinating and makes the Rita/Zordon feud more personal than it was on the show.


Now we move onto the Rangers. In the show, they are already friends with each other, hanging around doing their thing at Ernie's Juice Bar. Rita's space trashcan was opened by dumb astronauts on the moon, and she vowed to conquer the first planet she sees, which was Earth. Zordon and Alpha 5 had already established base there, and when Rita makes her first invasion, the former instructed the latter to teleport 5 emotionally charged young individuals. Alpha panicked at that, saying “Oh no, not teenagers.” Conveniently, the original 5 are standing close to each other while the world was shaking, they are transported to the Command Center. They meet Zordon and Alpha 5, they are told what's going on, Zordon needs 5 new Rangers. They are given their morphers, but they leave the Command Center confused and doubtful of all this being real. Rita sends down Putties to attack the teens, and this pretty much forced them to morph, and the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers are born. All that happened in a 20 minute first episode. This movie is slightly over 2 hours long, so...yeah. Epic stretching out, but it allows for you to learn about the 5 teens better. As I said earlier, this was supposedly influenced by Dino Thunder, where the teens there are misfits. The comparison is certainly there, the Blue Ranger in that is a black boy, and he was a nerd in his own right, more in line with the 21st century non-hipster nerd than the 90s nerd quality of the original series. That may explain the Billy character in this movie reminding more of the 21st century nerd. I want to say it reminds more of the Dino Thunder Blue Ranger. Again, I haven't seen that season yet, but I do know that they are first seen attending detention. Detention was a major setting in this movie actually, so perhaps the season was an inspiration point. Jason gets the first exposure, being played by Dacre Montgomery aka Billy from Stranger Things season 2. He was awesome in that show by the way, but technically this role predates Billy, though both products came out in 2017. Knowing about his Stranger Things character, I have to say that the differences are staggering. That's obvious, but make it general, in terms of depth, there's just something bubbling inside Billy that makes him really fascinating. Whereas Jason is not really that deep. You learn about him pretty quickly. His first scene has him pulling some prank where he and some guy try to take a real bull into a locker room. There was a stupid moment during that where Jason's buddy thought the cow was a female, because he milked her. Jason pointed out that males, as in bulls, have “one udder,” which I assumed was a euphemism for penis. The fucking buddy flashed his light to that one udder and was disgusted. In a PG-13 movie, they showed a bull's penis. What the fuck? So, does that mean he gave a bull a handjob? No time for that, they are busted, they escape. Jason drives off in his red Dodge Dakota, note that this guy becomes the Red Ranger. Unrealistically, he gets into a big car crash, and comes out of it seemingly unscathed. It's shown later that he has bruises, but they're underneath where his clothes would cover them. Even more surprising is that he got a leg brace, meaning he injured his leg. This was revealed after the first detention scene, which was minutes after you see the car crash and the aftermath of that. It's even more suspect because he didn't look like he had trouble walking, no limp or anything. Jason was a star quarterback for Angel Grove High School, but because of this stunt, he was kicked off the team and had to attend Saturday detention for the rest of the school year, every week. One thing I didn't count, but the producers cited as an influence, was the Breakfast Club impact. Yeah, they claimed that movie was an influence to this one, which in hindsight makes perfect sense. As you see, the Rangers, when they attend school, are all in that detention area.


Jason in this movie is a stark contrast from the TV version. Jason in the show already exhibited a leadership quality, while in the movie, it feels like its randomly bestowed on him by Zordon later on. What, because he was a quarterback and the Rangers are the equivalent of his offensive squad? Jason in the show was just a straightforward, serious guy who practiced martial arts and was first seen instructing a class, Billy joined that class as well. Admittedly the show's original 5 didn't really have a lot of depth, especially in season 1, but they are still very defined, and easy to identify. Already the show and the movie differ greatly. That being said, trying to bring this concept into 2017 is not easy, and I think they did a decent job at it. The purpose seemingly was to make these Rangers relatable, while also giving some of them a form of redemption. This movie's biggest strength is giving so much characterization to the 5 protagonists, and Jason being the bad boy he was, had some redemption to do. His father is very disappointed in him, football dad basically, and his local celebrity status shifted from football hero to rule breaking zero.


At the first detention scene you see Billy, played by RJ Cyler, and Kimberly, as said before, played by Naomi Scott. Billy from this movie and the show are different...and it's so obvious how. The original Billy Cranston (it's not confirmed fact that he was named after Bryan Cranston, who did voice two one-off monsters in MMPR, people just assume he was, and I have a feeling he was too) was a white nerd. Here, he's a black nerd. Well, they seem to imply that being a nerd and autistic are the same. Let's get this out of the way, because the damn movie does this too, the movie to me blatantly made some social commentary statements here. Given the weight of these historic moments, it feels tacked on, but I won't bash it entirely. One, Billy in this movie is officially the first superhero in a big budget movie, to be on the autism spectrum. He mentions that to Jason about 15 minutes into the movie! That is quick, and he blurts it out. Now, I'm no expert on autism, but I feel like the sudden proclamation of that from Billy in the scene where they are at a quarry (Billy's deceased dad used to work there as a miner) was not handled well. Then again, he did also blurt out in the scene before to Jason that his dad died. So, I guess it's in line to someone on the spectrum would do? As far as how he himself explains his condition, he said simply that he doesn't understand humor and sarcasm. That's it.


This segues into the aspect of bullying. Apparently in the movie trailer, Trini reads something on her locker that says “Die you ugly loser.” That was stupid because she looks beautiful. Welp, they cut that out. There is some bullying done to Kimberly, being confronted by two girls and not really shitting on her, they cut a photo of her with scissors. It apparently goes to some huge misdeed she herself committed. She took the pair of scissors, and cut her hair, for real. The actress did cut her real hair in that scene. I thought they were going to do something more hardcore, wrist cutting. Nah. This was after the “bullies” leave the bathroom. The point I'm trying to make is that bullying was toned down big time here. I thought it would be a major part of the movie, but it wasn't. Billy even got a small amount of bullying. For the small amount of time you see them in the school setting, Billy is bullied once in detention, Jason enters into Billy's life by pimp slapping a ginger bully, and then fast forward to after the Rangers getting their powers, the ginger tried to headbutt Billy and went down like a sack of shit. As a result, Billy got mad props from everyone, suddenly he's popular! It's strange because the movie strives to take itself seriously, but that part where everyone suddenly loves the guy and think he's cool, is a very old-time cliché. To be specific, 80s and 90s, which the latter would make sense since Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is 100% a product of the 90s. Still, here, it's kind of out-of-place. Not bad though, I found Billy soaking in that popularity to be funny, as he created his catchphrase, “Come at me bro.” Still, you don't really get a hard sense of bullying impacting any of these teens. Zack's backstory is shown later where he basically is taking care of his sick mother in a mobile home, and stays away from people, and even home most of the time because he fears for his mother that much, like he can't look at her for long. Big difference again, Zack in this movie is Asian-American, whereas Zack in the show was a black man. Yeah, black guy being the Black Ranger. Pure coincidence, I'm not bullshitting. Same with Trini, in the show she was played by Thuy Trang, and was the Yellow Ranger. Asian girl, Yellow Ranger, coincidence. In fact, the original Trini in the unaired pilot was Latina. I think Becky G, the actress who plays Trini in this movie, is Latina as well. I find that interesting, and Johnny Yong Bosch, who replaced Zack as the Black Ranger, is half-Asian. I feel like Adam in this movie was a very soft amalgamation of Zack from the show, and Adam. He does say things like “Yo,” and has a tiny bit of ghetto-ness to him, but that's about it. He does have some reserved nature, a version of the shy and quiet Adam. It does mix well into being outgoing on the outside, but very troubled on the inside.


Back to the bullying, I thought Kimberly got that “Die you ugly loser message,” but I think it was Trini. It's a bit hard to tell because it's trailer crap, always cut from moment to unrelated moment. Considering what Kimberly confesses to much later in the movie, the “Die you ugly loser” message actually would've fit more for her. Not because she's ugly, far from the truth, but because it could be argued that she kind of deserves it. I'll get to that later.


Still on Kimberly, she is so far removed from her TV show counterpart, played by the beautiful, lighter brunette haired, Amy Jo Johnson. At first, Kimberly in the show is just a Valley Girl, loves shopping and all that, but throughout the show developed into a really strong character. She was not bullied though, she was more like someone people would trip themselves over. Here, complete opposite. It's revealed halfway into the movie that Kimberly was shared a private picture of a female classmate. She shared that picture with that classmate's boyfriend, horrifying him. Same guy who she punched in the face, so she had a real vendetta against him and it basically was settled at the expense of this classmate. Kimberly has since felt really bad about the incident, so her redemption story involves coming out of that. Kimberly in the show, would never do that.


Trini is kind of odd in that if you think about it, her backstory is deep, but very little is said about her story. She herself doesn't share much. You see a scene later where she is having a meal with her parents and two younger brothers, the mother really aggressive in trying to get her to say something, and the father having some tact over the situation. It was funny because he asked Trini to talk about one thing. She just blurted out what had happened to her at that point, which was basically obtaining superpowers and finding a spaceship underground. Everyone but the mother is silent, she just got up and ordered Trini to take a urine test! That's kind of funny. This leads me into the other big social commentary statement, one that I felt was exaggerated by outside forces, including the director. Trini is supposedly the first LGBQT superhero in a big budget movie. The director claims she is, people in general think she is, but the label they specifically use is “lesbian.” She never said she was a lesbian, and from the mouth of an actual homosexual, David Yost (Billy the original Blue Ranger), he said she was more “questioning” of her sexuality. With the backstory established of these 5 teens, it all culminated in a pivotal campfire scene where you get definitive statements of their troubled status and such. In that scene is where you get the most info out of Trini, which again was quite small. Zack asked if she had boyfriend problems, to which she repeated in a tone that means “No.” Then he asked if she had girlfriend problems, Trini doesn't respond at all, her face tells the story of being off guard by the question, and perhaps resisting to answer that definitively. That's all you get, so it doesn't say she's a lesbian, it's clearer to me that she was questioning, curious. People are just jumping the gun, she's not a lesbian, despite what the director claims. I feel like that and Billy's autism was done just to make a statement. Considering the lukewarm reception it got critically and financially, I'd say the statement didn't really make an impact. So, boohoo. I'm not against it though, fair play to them, and especially to RJ Cyler who got this special character down. Summing him up already, he is the best of the 5 Rangers. He was fantastic, even the original Billy, David Yost, praised him hardcore. Well deserved.


Going back to Trini, it's really not worth comparing her with the TV version. Well, there are some things. In her first scene, it looks like she was doing some Tai Chi movement, while listening to metalcore music. In Trini's first scene in the first episode of Power Rangers, she's doing very similar Tai Chi movements, so that's the extent of their similarities. Trini was actually the least developed character of the show, you pretty much know about her fairly quickly, for a long time she was Billy's translator. Since Billy was super smart and used big words, Trini would translate for him, as well as being his closest friend seemingly. Despite this low amount of development, there was a serious backbone quality to Trini. Her cast members would describe this, she was the calm spirit of the crew. Secretly mischievous, but her character and acting brought a notable balance to the Rangers. You can tell she was missed when she, Zack, and Jason, were replaced. In music terms, she was the important rhythm guitarist, you already have your vocalist in Jason, lead guitarist in Zack, bassist in Billy, and drummer in Kimberly.


Back to Zack, one major element missing is the Hip-Hop-Kido. This was Zack's brand of martial arts in the show where he would fight and dance. Yeah, it's a silly gimmick, but pretty fun and made for some nice moments on the show. The Zack in this movie wasn't black, but he still could've pulled off this aspect of Zack. The movie definitely could've had more humor, cheese to it, to me it was way too serious. I understand that, especially with the climate of superhero movies these days, but I would've liked if they dialed back a bit.


As you can see, I'm kind of all over the place with the review, because of wanting to compare the movie with the show. I really glossed over the plot. I'll get back to it. So...


Jason's prank and subsequent car crash also resulted in him being on house arrest, with an electric collar around his ankle. After pimp slapping Billy's bully, the man immediately wants to be buddies with Jason, inviting him to his house. He wanted Jason's help in something at the quarry, in exchange for him using his hacking skills to diffuse the collar. It was supposed to go off at 7PM in the event that Jason didn't return home. Jason is sweet talked further into Billy offering him his mother's van for a few hours. Jason agrees, goes to Billy's house, the hacking works. They go to a quarry, Billy basically wants to find something as some sort of homage to his dad. Jason gives up on this, leaving Billy alone. He sees Kimberly, who he briefly saw in detention, taking a dive into a lake. He thought she committed suicide, but no. I'll pause here to note that they were apparently building a romance between Jason and Kimberly, which wasn't accurate to the show. Tommy and Kimberly were the item. Anyways, there was a scene of them kissing, but it tested poorly with test audiences, for good reason, and they scrapped it. I said that's a good thing because despite the very slow burning nature of the movie, even them kissing would've been too much of a jump. If they do sequels, okay, I'll stomach it, I don't feel like it's necessary though.


Back to the plot, Zack regularly hangs around at the quarry, as his mobile home is not too far off from there, and Trini does the same thing. As they all end up there, Billy's expedition involves him using an explosive, and it reveals a special rock. Inside the rock are the five Power Coins. Before they could really analyze what these are, they are busted, the quarry was a restricted area. So some kind of disciplinary force, I think Park Rangers or whatever, chased after them. They all end up in the van, and despite them clearly being far from whoever was after them, they felt the need to speed on past a running train. Billy thought he could pass the tracks before the train would come by. Big mistake, they fucking get hit by the train. Look, at least have the damn police right behind them, to justify this. I thought that was ridiculous, they basically drove fast for no reason, nobody was even close to them. Yeah, keep as much distance apart as possible, but come on, that doesn't mean taking a serious life-threatening chance like that.


Ugh, so they survived thanks to the Power Coins? It was never really explained how they survived. They were imbued with superhuman abilities. It's not so well defined, but I'm thinking they just got super strength, and some Wolverine powers where they don't really get injured easily. Also, super jumping powers, I thought they'd have super speed, but that doesn't appear to be the case. This was a major point of contention for me because I remembered the Power Rangers in the show didn't have superpowers. Only when they morphed, they would have special abilities. I was right, now having seen the first 3 seasons of the show. However, some seasons in the show have the characters obtain powers that weren't reliant on suits. So, just them in civilian clothes, they could exhibit superpowers. Bringing back the apparent Dino Thunder influence, the teens in that show had unmorphed powers including Adamantium-like skeleton and super speed. So, knowing that ahead of time, I can't really crap on this too much, but I still don't believe this was faithful to the original show. In fact, just flat out say, in at least one Q&A panel with Austin St. John (original Jason the Red Ranger) and Johnny Yong Bosch (Adam the Black Ranger), this movie wasn't really their Power Rangers. Overall, I agree, and this particular aspect kind of bugged me still, despite knowing that this was part of series canon.


The thing is that the original 6, which includes Tommy, they were just talented teenagers. Whether gymnasts, dancers, martial artists, in unmorphed fight scenes, they handled themselves very well. They only morphed out of necessity, when the tides turned and they don't have the advantage. Now, I would say the teens did that just fine here, morphing when they needed to, but they didn't have shine in any unmorphed fight scene. In fact, the only unmorphed fight scene, which it barely was, had them trying to beat on Rita, and they failed miserably. This was an example of show and movie being different, and where I liked the show better. To make it simple, in the show, the teens had natural talent, and the suits gave them extra special abilities. Here? It's like they don't really have talents that would serve them well in fight scenes. Billy is a savant in this movie but that doesn't play into that one fight scene with Rita, and they all just sloppily try to gang up on her, to no avail. So really, the superpower angle didn't really matter. Therefore the question becomes why did they bother in the first place?


They really show their other influence on the sleeve, that being Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. Being very familiar with that awesome movie, as well as the filmmakers admitting that this movie was inspired by both Breakfast Club and Spider-Man, I could tell immediately where the latter's influences took hold. The scene right after the train crash, where they wake up in their homes and notice that they are unscathed and with superpowers, that is so Spider-Man. When Peter Parker woke up after the spider bite grew in his hand and caused him to pass out in his bedroom, he looked at himself in the mirror and noticed the muscles, and no longer needing glasses. He realized he changed. Here, they realized their change just as quickly, Billy accidentally tore off a cabinet door in his room (which is also the basement), Jason pressed his hand onto the sink and broke a piece of that off, it all reminds greatly of Spider-Man. Also the bully confrontation between Billy and the ginger was also like Spider-Man only Billy didn't fight back. You still had the bully unaware of him being outmatched. Actually too, Spider-Man and this movie both have an over-the-top villain performance. Willem Defoe as Green Goblin in Spider-Man, which was awesome, and here, Elizabeth Banks as Rita Repulsa. Segue...


I absolutely loved Rita in this movie, I loved Elizabeth Banks here. As it turned out, she was the closest to her TV counterpart than the rest of the cast. Particularly in the first season of Power Rangers, Rita was a combination of the very lively acting movements of Machiko Soga, who was Witch Bandora in Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, the season of Super Sentai that was the basis for the first season of Power Rangers, making her the Japanese Rita Repulsa, and the American voice for Rita, Barbara Goodson. Her voice in that show was so raspy and over-the-top, extremely animated. It's like Banks studied that Rita for a bit, because she really made cartoon villain statements and the makeup on her made her look like an animated villain to an extent. Her present-day story started after the teens first experience their new superpower. Her body was discovered by fishermen, one of them being Jason's dad. He himself called police over to examine the body. She attacks a policeman in some stupid horror movie jump scare that just doesn't fit with what Rita in this movie turned out to be. At that point her body was still decayed and brown. Somehow she was able to regenerate her skin and look like a human. In the prequel section, you don't see what Rita looks like as she's wearing the Green Ranger suit. In fact, you don't see green on her until well over an hour into the movie. When her skin regenerates and you see Elizabeth Banks in all her glory, she's wearing black clothes, they appear to be rags, but the costume is too proper that it just looks like somewhat skimpy clothing. Rita's plan was to basically gather up as much gold as possible, including gold teeth, and even killing for gold, in order to form her monster Goldar. I'll get to that later. Back to Banks, when the movie used direct lines from the show, some were cheeky and nice, some were badly handled, well one, the biggest one, which I'll get to later. Only one was handled awesomely, and that was from Ms. Banks, which again I'll get to later.


Back to the plot, so after Rita awakes and they jump cut from her lunging at the cop, the teens go back to the quarry. They realized they could jump great distances, but Billy's jump came up short and he fell all the way down to a body of water. The other teens follow him in. Now in the water, their colors end up surrounding them in the water, I don't need to explain that they each kept a Power Coin that matches their primary color. There was a funny bit here where Zack said “I'm black!” Billy said he wasn't, to which Zack repeated “I'm black!” That certainly wouldn't fly in the original show, in fact there are some curse words in this movie. Most notably, in the big climax, Jason said “shit.” Whoa! Anyways, they swim down and fall further deep, and ending up in a spaceship. There they meet Alpha 5, who is voiced by Bill Hader, but the body is all CG unfortunately. Alpha 5 notices them having the Power Coins, since that's the only way they could've entered the spaceship, which is also the canon of the TV show. Alpha 5 introduces them to Zordon, and I have to say the interface of Zordon looked great, much better than the energy tube TV version. It was more dynamic, with Zordon's face moving from side to side. Zordon has trouble convincing the teens to trust him, and so he forces them to have basically a horrible premonition on Rita blasting through Angel Grove, with people already turned to clay (like the Putties) and just crumble into pieces. Zordon's personality in this movie is very different from the show version. Here, he's more of a hard-ass, I heard “dick” being thrown at him, I'd say only in his true motive, he's a dick, but past that, he's just really hard on the Rangers. To be honest, after watching the movie, I didn't really think too much about Cranston and his contribution to the movie. I was too busy thinking about Elizabeth Banks and the movie as a whole. Through this review I can express that I feel like he did a great job. I don't really have any complaints about him. Cranston's a fantastic actor, but it's a bit weird how his impact here wasn't as strong as the 5 young protagonists and even Rita. I think simply because he's just so rock solid, whereas some of the other 6 cast members have moments and performances that are above his. That's just a spotlight thing, he was simply pure support.


The teens are not believing this, not willing to take on the responsibility, so Trini leaves first, then the rest, with Jason being last and having a chat with Zordon. There are a few instances of these one-on-one discussions, here Zordon explains that Jason is the leader of the group, he has to be, he was born to be. I don't really see how, unless you analyze the fact he was a star high school quarterback, and go even deeper in how he influenced some of his fellow teens. First with Billy, being the first companion he had in Angel Grove, possibly his whole life. Then his talks with Kimberly, a very pivotal one happened later in the movie where she broke into his house and revealed her great misdeed to him. So by that and just the simple and transparent storytelling of him starting the present-day story and him getting the most screen time at that point, it all paints him as a leader. But by Zordon's own mouth, it's kind of hard to see how he is the designated leader. At first the teens, except for maybe Billy, also couldn't see how he is the leader. Similarly enough he shrugs off Zordon's plea for them to come together, he leaves the spaceship, which I'll just call the Command Center since they don't unfortunately. That's the name of their HQ in the show.


During the scene in the pit in front of the Command Center, Jason talks with the teens, as I mentioned earlier. Billy cuts in asking if they are really superheroes, like Iron Man or Spider-Man. I was all “Aha” at that, mainly because they pretty much are like them. I brought up the Spider-Man comparisons, add on that they are teens suddenly thrust into a world of responsibility after unintentionally attaining a great power. Yeah, with great power comes great responsibility, remember that? Iron Man is so obvious with the suits they ended up wearing, which is disappointing how they blatantly said who they basically ripped off, and how the suits just...are not really great. I want to say they suck, but hold on, I'll get to that later. Actually, I guess it goes without saying if you know the series, but the teens here are wearing clothes that match their colors. Similar to the first movie, it's not so in-your-face about it, in fact it looked like Kimberly wore a dark magenta color rather than bright pink at one point. Billy for some time wore a blue coat, Jason wore a black shirt with red text, Zack (I almost typed out Adam, woops) had a black jacket, Trini had a clear yellow shirt at one point. You get the idea. Back to the scene, Jason said the answer to their questions is back in the Command Center, so let's meet back at 4PM. That's what he expects, not forcing them to go or anything. They do go, of course.


There's a scene dedicated to Zack...fuck now I'm constantly being close to typing out Adam. He is Zack dammit. Okay, so Zack tends to his sick mother in one scene, they speak in Chinese I think. I think Ludi Lin, who plays Zack, is Chinese, the IMDB trivia noted that he sent his audition tape from a really cheap TV studio room in Singapore, and didn't get feedback for his audition until his manager got in touch with him when he was in China. He had no time to go to Los Angeles to audition. He's set to be in Aquaman next, so it's interesting how he has jumped from one superhero movie to another. I'm positive for the guy, here's this dedicated scene and he did a good job here. I'll just sum up, the acting overall is great, it's better than expected. Acting though doesn't always include dialogue. The dialogue is really funky, for the show that's fine because it's all cheese, kids show stuff, 90s fodder. Here, this is an extremely serious movie, funky dialogue can hurt a movie like that, and unfortunately the movie suffers from that. Back to this scene, he doesn't answer his mother's question about him going to school. Yeah, he just doesn't. Actually, he is seen going to school, once, and that's right at the end of the damn movie. So, wow. This goes back to the acting not including dialogue, facial expressions and reactions, on point in this scene for example. No dialogue to risk lowering that effect, though I will say the dialogue here is just fine. I think really short exchanges really help, monologues are huge risks in this movie that don't pay off all the time.


Now that I think about it, approaching the scene where Trini is having a meal with her family, I feel like if there was a weakest link, it would be her. While I'm at it, Kimberly could qualify as well. I know that makes me sound sexist, but hey I give Banks mad props, so there's that. It's important to note that this is Becky G's debut feature film, and she was the youngest of the cast, born in 1997. Compared to the others, she doesn't have a lot to say, which is consistent with the TV show version of Trini, but that's because she didn't have to say much. She was the zen of the group, almost a voice of reason, a communicator for Billy, someone you'd always have a chill time with. For this movie version of Trini, the reserved time is on paper because of her issues deep down, but for me, it's to lower the risk of her messing up her scenes. To put it bluntly, her real color would be green. She and Kimberly honestly have a Disney Channel movie acting quality to them, which is not a compliment. That thought did come up after reading that Naomi Scott, who played Kimberly, was in a Disney Channel movie called Lemonade Mouth, interestingly enough it was about kids in detention starting a band. There was note passing in detention past the 40 minute mark where Kimberly would make a note saying that they should start a band. So yeah. While I praise the acting across the board, I feel like a big part of that for certain actors, is basically fitting them in a tight frame where they can't go off the edges. However, put them in a very open environment, now those edges are far off, so they have space to meander, rather than take advantage of that space. Becky G meanders in this scene basically. It's funny how she blurted out that she may be a superhero, of course they don't believe her. That's nice, but just her posture in that scene, sitting like she's a bad girl, bugged me. Maybe her Latina background is a reason. I'm Latino myself, she's Mexican, I'm not. I feel like she had that bad part of Latina sass to her. That kind of sulking and stuff, to me that's unappealing. I'm speaking too much about this, but I hope I made sense. Overall though, Becky G did a good job, but she had a more, how do I say? Varying rate of success in acting. Let's say 2:3 for her, the ratio is from bad or not so good acting to good acting. Dacre Montgomery, who played Jason, would be 1:3, Naomi Scott would be 2:3, RJ Cyler who played Billy would be 0:3, and now that I think about it, Ludi Lin would be very close to 0:3, let's say .5:3, which doesn't make sense I guess. But yeah, hopefully that's all understandable.


Moving on, there's a scene where Jason's dad explains that since he couldn't get a good price on the busted Dodge Dakota, he offered for Jason to fix it. I thought this would be revisited later, like Jason rolling up in it all repaired at the end of the movie. That didn't happen. Ah man. Anyways, a cop pulls up at their place, wanting to talk to the dad. Actually, this brings me back to their quarry incident. They never got punished, no news about it came up, it's like the cops forgot about it, and focused on Rita. It's also ridiculous how the cop said something along the lines of “There's been a terrible incident,” basically speaking in a way that doesn't sound modern, word choice made him come off as theatrical, totally out of place in this movie. Yeah back to the story, by this point, Rita's murders are making the news. Radio chatter comes on, explaining that, and how she is dubbed the “Gold Killer.” Cut to Rita, her body looking less decayed, to the point where you can see Elizabeth Banks, looking awesome. Well, she's hideous in this scene, but I meant awesome in terms of makeup. They did a great job with her. One simple aspect of her look, no eyebrows, that always makes anyone look ugly. She's seen in an alley, talking to herself, and then some bum comes up to her, I think he wants a screw. She was saying how she was going to get the Zeo Crystal, and then she sees that the guy has some gold teeth. She leaps at him and goes for the gold. Nice.


An aside, the Zeo Crystal is also canon to the show. Now, I haven't started Power Rangers Zeo, which is the season that follows MMPR and Alien Rangers, so I may be wrong on some details. In MMPR, the Zeo Crystal is introduced right at the tail end of the series, when Rita's dad, Master Vile, takes over the bad guys' plan of world domination, and he wrecks shop. He had already conquered a galaxy, so he's no joke...until he talks and at one point brings all the monsters together to have a dance party at Ernie's Juice Bar. Yeah, that happened. Anyways, he wanted to search for the Zeo Crystal, as it contained a tremendous amount of power that grew as time passed. Infinitely increasing power basically. The problem was that it was in the Cave of Deception, which blocked off evil energy. He still wanted to get it, but then Zordon instructs the Rangers to obtain the crystal, as Master Vile is just super powerful, and the Rangers needed help. Things reached dire straits territory, Vile created Globor out of an egg he regurgitated, and Globor had the power of absorbing powers. He absorbed Ninjor's powers for example, Ninjor was the guy who gave the Rangers their Ninja powers as well as the Ninja Zords. Anyways, at the end of the arc, the Rangers prevailed, and broke the Zeo Crystals into 5 pieces, and 5 of them hid them in points in time and space. This way, Vile would never be able to gather and re-assemble them. Now what I think happens in Power Rangers Zeo is that they need those crystals, they gather then up and form new Power Rangers, 5 to be specific. The cast of that carry over from MMPR, for the most part. Adam, Rocky, Tommy, and Kat in particular are part of the new Zeo team, and replacing Aisha was Tanya, another black woman. So there you have your 5. Aisha's exit apparently was that she just up and went to Africa, great writing. Billy the original Blue Ranger, the longest reigning Mighty Morphin Power Ranger, only one to be in every single episode, retired being a Ranger and became a technical consultant at the Command Center. Describing all that, there are some notable similarities to the movie, which is interesting. The big one being that the Zeo Crystal is super powerful and is an item sought out by evil with the ability to destroy and create worlds. It's not surrounded by a force that repels evil energy though, it's just hidden in Earth. In the show, it's hidden beneath Rita and Zedd's Moon Palace. So, this is a huge part of the story, and they fucked it up big time in a scene coming up that reveals its location, which I'll get to.


Alright, so the teens come together the next day, ready to take on the responsibility of being a Power Ranger. Back at the Command Center, Zordon explains the 3 rules of being a Power Ranger, which was directly lifted from the TV show! I appreciated that. Basically they are the following: never use your powers for personal gain, never escalate a fight unless your enemy forces you too, and you must never reveal your identity. Actually it's funny in the show because they broke rule number 3. Specifically Kimberly, Billy, and Tommy, revealing themselves to Adam, Aisha, and Rocky. But this would transition to those latter 3 replacing Jason, Zack, and Trini, so, in the end it's fine. At first Zordon made them swear not to reveal the identities of Kimberly, Billy, and Tommy, but soon after they were officially appointed Power Ranger status. Zordon said they need to morph to get their Ranger powers, and when asked if they ever morphed before, Zack said he only did in the shower. I thought that was funny because I'm pretty sure fans secretly do that. Yell “It's morphin time” in the shower, I mean, I do it. Not just in the shower too, and I'm 25 years old by the way. I'm such an adult.


They are instructed to stand in designated circles to connect to the Morphing Grid easily. This puts them all in a circle, basically they have to morph together. They don't really say they can morph on their own, which I hope they establish that. In the show, yeah they morphed all together for their first ever morph, but there have been loads of time where they would morph when not together. Even alone, for example Billy in season 3, morphed, and was solo in destroying a monster. They do indicate that one can morph alone, but they need to really hammer that home in case a sequel happens. The morph here would bestow upon them their armor, which is deep inside them. You know I never questioned how they went from their civilian clothes to the spandex. I know in MMPR, they call upon their powers through the use of those Power Morphers, which in Zyuranger were called Dino Bucklers. I mean why the question came up now is because in the movie, they armor is seen slowly coming from their bodies, and then covering them. In the show, they call out their dinosaur with the Morpher, and then bam, they are fully clad in the spandex and helmet. Even in the first episode that happens, and the movie doesn't take that kind of pace, which to me was unfortunate. They draw out the first official morph, and it leads to a huge issue with the movie, which I'll elaborate on later. The movie also seems to indicate they can only morph when standing in that circle for that easy connection to the morphing grid. Therefore, they can't morph into any old area, which in the show, they all can. ALL, that includes the subsequent 20+ seasons of the show. All 100+ rangers can morph without really being restricted by a location. Well, unless it's some convenient plot device. That's silly but doesn't really make me mad, for example in a Christmas special, Zordon gave some science babble about how they couldn't morph in the North Pole. Yeah, but let that go. My point still stands, they can morph anywhere in the show.


This would've been the perfect time for them to morph, we're 55 minutes into the movie! Yeah, already a very long time to wait for them to morph. If I could change it, I would have them morph and then lose that ability at some point, to show that they aren't fully connected to each other as a team. Then try again later and then they keep it all the way through the climax. You still get to tease the audience, but not hardcore like this movie did. So with this failure, they have to train without armor in the pit. I have to say, many points in the movie, there was background dialogue I couldn't hear well. I feel like they were designed for the theater, a home theater system, surround sound deal. But since I'm not blessed with that technology, I feel like these noises are too faint. It's prevalent here with Zordon instructing them on what to do when they're at the pit. I hardly could hear the guy, and my volume was all the way up. I won't fault the movie for that, but it's still a general nuisance. They have to fight Putties in this simulation. This was also really sad as the Putties here are just rocky looking beasts whereas the Putties in the show were just people in gray spandex, and ugly masks! That cheap quality in the show made them so lovable. Here they are just unremarkable CG henchmen. Blah! Here it's also established that they need to morph, they absolutely have to. Alright, that was established in the first episode of the series, but seriously in that same episode, they were having an early advantage over the Putties. When it became too much for them, that's when they morphed, following the second rule of being a Ranger perfectly. Here, it's basically “Morph or bust,” and it's infuriating because then the question arises on why they were given unmorphed superpowers in the first place? Again, this is where I hope a sequel happens, and they rectify this with unmorphed fight scenes. Also, here, they struggle with training since they are unmorphed. They did follow a bit of the canon of the show, specifically season 2 when Lord Zedd created his own Putties, and their weakness was the Z emblem on their chest. The Rangers had to really hit that, I don't mean touch, I mean a really hard blow to that area. Here in the movie, they're instructed to hit their center, that's their weakness, so, very similar. When they train in martial arts with each other, Billy specifically had some time with Alpha 5 which was silly, this is also where modern action movie bullshit kicks in. Camera tricks that give the impression that these people can fight. No, they can't, I've seen enough classic martial arts movies and action movies for that matter to tell that their fighting sucks. Yes, I did say I would've liked to see their unmorphed fight scenes, I didn't say they had to be great, they just had to exist. The unmorphed fight scenes in the show were not all that hot, especially in the early part of season 1. By season 2 though, they were experienced enough to really go to town and put on impressive displays. Some notable slip-ups still happen, but for the most part, they are all rock solid and impressive, easily making an impact on the minds of children. Power Rangers inspired kids to take martial arts classes. This movie would never have that effect, which is sad. Now when I said camera tricks, slow motion, obvious undercranking, dimly lit setting to hide soft impact, shaky camera. Also, even for what was seen, it was really brief. It's a double-edged sword, I admit. I wanted to see more of the unmorphed fighting, but what was shown, was not impressive. I would suggest stunt people, but then you run into that problem, as well as how in MMPR, everyone did their own stuff in the unmorphed fight scenes. Sure, when they morph, it became stunt people in the suits most of the time, but knowing that, I appreciated the unmorphed fight scenes more because I know it's them. I know it's Zack Taylor moving and grooving and doing some martial arts at the same time. I know it's Billy and Kimberly doing amazingly consistent and tight back flips that transition to kicks and punches. Also when Tommy comes into the fold, forget about it, the guy was a fucking beast. Then later with Rocky (Steve Cardenas) and Adam (Johnny Yong Bosch), it's like the martial arts when unmorphed raised up to becoming an impressive art form, which was like nothing on TV at the time. I still think there's nothing like it on live action TV. On cartoons and anime, of course, but live action, no. Sorry, I have to rein myself in, you can tell where the movie falters on me, the action. This was supposed to be an action movie, but what actually came about was a drama movie that moved into action at a later point. Also a double-edged sword because the drama was actually good, but still yearning for action. When that came, I was disappointed or just not impressed.


Anyways, this was a montage sequence, it also featured scenes of them going through life stuff, very quick bits like Jason watching football practice from the bleachers. Also, Trini and Kimberly hanging out at Krispy Kreme, and having a fork battle over the last piece of a doughnut. The camera trickery wasn't so bad here, but Krispy Kreme...errr. Back to the Command Center, they still can't morph, back to the pit they go. Alpha 5, of all people, teaches them a nifty takedown move. Alright, this isn't wrestling, this is supposed to be martial arts. I should groan at this, but I am a former wrestling fan, so I can appreciate a wrestling takedown. The thing is when the teens try it, the slip, grab and flip, it looks more like a German Suplex rather than a take down. Alpha doesn't go down in his demonstration, indicating it being a takedown. The teens do, while holding their opponent, Alpha let go, so it looks more like a Suplex because they kept the grab tight and stayed on their back. The grab itself looks like the one maintained in a German Suplex. I don't know why there was that inconsistency, especially when that Suplex came in use at the climax. So yeah, they're getting better at their fighting...which is what the story shows, to me it's not really any different. They're just actually doing damage to the Putties. At least in Rocky, you see Balboa struggling in exercises, but eventually he's a fucking God at it. You can see the leap, the improvement. To me, I don't see that in this movie. Mainly because their improvement was on martial arts, and they weren't really good to begin with. If they were doing push-ups or running up steps, then yeah, that'd be easier to see and track their improvement. The montage also featured the first instance of note passing. Their note passing of course is super impressive because of their power. It's hard to tell if that's the case or if it's a result of their training. That's bothersome too, but it's made to look like it's a result of their training. At least it ends on a funny note, with Billy throwing that paper note at the ginger bully. Speaking of which, this movie is anti-bullying, despite barely showing any bullying. Here's the thing, that ginger gets shit on more than Billy, so who are the real bullies? Tsk tsk. Also, discrimination against gingers much? Even in the show, look at the roster of Rangers, I believe there has only been two ginger Rangers in the entire franchise! They were both in one season together, Mystic Force. The Yellow Ranger was a ginger male, and the White Ranger was a ginger female, as well as being I think the mentor of the group. That's crazy, if a sequel happens, Tommy Oliver should be a ginger.


So still on the montage, they are struggling to morph, they kind of argued with each other, but a major development happens. Billy, after Alpha explains about the Zeo Crystal's uncertain whereabouts, takes it upon himself to search for it. He does it pretty quickly, it's not some major subplot. He finds it...and you want to know where it is located? It's underneath...it's underneath...a FUCKING KRISPY KREME! Product placement worse than Man of Steel, this is one where it's a major part of the plot. The Zeo Crystal, Rita's object of desire, Zordon's as well for different reasons, is underneath a fucking Krispy Kreme. Recently some employee at Saban Brands, the company that owns Power Rangers, tweeted about receiving a crap ton of donuts from Krispy Kreme's. The corporate shilling is hideous, I have a feeling they fronted a lot of money to Lionsgate to get this product placement in. Note too how there's no other product placement in the movie, and in the climax, virtually every building is destroyed, with the Krispy Kreme being last and almost act as some nuclear war bunker, a cockroach that just won't die. It's somewhat funny when Rita says “Krispy Kreme” a couple times, but other than that, it's horrible. That is one of the worst parts of the movie, but it's not entirely their fault, they were probably contractually bound to Krispy Kreme to have them added to the story.


Ugh, so there was a funeral for two fisherman that were killed by Rita, more broadcast chatter about this being in the news. Segue into another horrible part of the movie, the Zords. Alpha 5 introduces the teens to their Zords. This is a taste of the CG orgy that would come at the climax. They should've been more vibrant in color, this goes into modern movies having too much gray, again like in Man of Steel. Knowing that the Power Rangers is a very colorful franchise, it's bothersome that the movie handcuffs itself to modern cinema trends, these Zords when first seen in the pit, you could hardly tell what their colors are. Also they are small, in comparison to the show. The Zords in the show at best were as tall as buildings, especially the Red Zord. Jason's Tyrannosaurus Zord in the show especially was just as big as the Megazord. For non-fans, they look huge and impressive, but as a fan, that is so far from the truth. They're about as big as trucks in the movie, in the show, most of them are as big as skyscrapers. Also, what the fuck was up with the Mastodon Zord? 6 legs and straight tusks? Google mastodon, that is such bullshit. They're basically super gigantic elephants, in Zyuranger it was called a Mammoth. There are differences like the Mastodon had straighter tusks, but not as straight as this damn movie. And even so, no mammoth or mastodon had 6 legs! It looked like an insect, what the hell? Consistent with the show though, Alpha said when morphed and piloting the Zords, their power becomes linked with them. This goes back to an arc in season 3 where the Thunder Megazord collapses because it got destroyed after a major flux in power, and as a result, the Rangers lost their power. Little similarities in canon is appreciated. They're free to have their own separate canon, but I do like when they borrow from the canon of the show, I prefer that anyways.


I also liked Zack taking his Zord for a joyride, even though it's the ugly Mastodon. The CG is total blah, but the concept makes it funny, with Zack's reactions and a random but hilarious cameo of nuns driving a van and singing, to make this memorable. When Zack returns to the pit, crashing near the teens and Alpha, the latter said his infamous “Aye yai yai.” He said it once before, and then here, and that's about it! Thank goodness, a nod to the show while also not overdoing that annoying catchphrase. Jason wasn't happy with this joyride, Zack doesn't care, he throws a punch at Zack. This one instance really demonstrated how unimpressive the action was. That punch was so fake, editing trick where they do a fake punch, and in post-production, make it look like it has impact. That sucks, back then, you really had to punch hard, but not hurt someone. That's more of a challenge, and that's why you have amazing martial arts film stars like Jackie Chan and Jet Li, even in the Power Rangers show there was a point where they were doing damage, but had to not do damage, and it was impressive. Or, the other way is actually hitting each other, see the 6th Rocky movie for that demonstration. Anyways, they end up throwing punches, Billy comes between them, and then it's shown that Billy morphed! Let the record state that Billy Cranston is the first of this movie's teens with attitude (actually that's more true here than in the show) that successfully morphed. This was a major tease from the movie, but Billy couldn't morph again solo, or teach his buddies to morph, it just came from within. My theory is that it was the connection with his buddies, he wanted to stop the fight, preserve their bond together, so he stepped in to do that, as a result, his armor came out. This and the prequel part of the movie showed a bit of what the suits look like, I'll hold off on my opinion until the big morphing scene. So Zordon flat out told the teens to get out, which shows that hard-ass personality of the head. Because Billy couldn't morph again and of course the other teens can't at this point, Zordon said they aren't worthy of becoming Rangers, so piss off. Honestly I'd be like that too, these teens suck at fighting...oh wait, sorry.


I forgot to explain the thing about Zordon. I did mention that he's alive by basically having his consciousness imbued into the Command Center, he would only be basically booted up until those who wielded the 5 Power Coins made it to the spaceship. So basically, he was like Rita, dormant for 60 million years! Alpha 5 though, he apparently runs on unspoken infinite battery life, he was active when he grabbed the teens and brought him to the center of the ship. Talking about Zordon's situation, it actually makes for a good segue into this scene. After Zack invites the guys and girls to a campfire session, Zordon is really agitated, asking if there's another way to get out of the wall he's trapped in. Here, the big bombshell of Zordon's true intentions come to be, explaining his deep down dick persona. He needs the Rangers to morph so he could harness that energy and regenerate his body. Basically, become resurrected. There is a certain opening in the Morphing Grid at a certain time where Zordon would have the chance to resurrect himself. Jason overhears this and confronts Zordon about that. It's a pretty darn good scene, Zordon said they need him back to life so he could lead the team against Rita, he believes they can't stop Goldar. Jason said not to underestimate them, and that Zordon's team is dead, and that he's just as scared as they are. Epic burn, and one where the dialogue isn't really bad, and you get a bit of movie exclusive canon that makes sense. In the show, this kind of idea is never brought up. It could happen, but Zordon's so selfless that such an idea never could even materialize. The separation between the TV Zordon and this Zordon is one where I'm definitely supportive for. It makes for him even having a redemption story, so it's not just the teens and their individual angles. It thus gives more of a connection with Zordon, making him more relatable. That's not existent in the show, but that's fine because Zordon is painted well, for the most part, as an almost omnipresent father figure. Here, he's a flawed father figure, and it's handled really well. In fact this and another scene put Bryan Cranston's acting on the map. He had been a background player for most of the movie, this one really put him front and center, and I enjoyed that. As a result, he made Dacre Montgomery look even better in the dialogue exchange, and that's why Cranston is awesome. In hindsight, I wish there more scenes like this, but ah well.


The greatness continues with Rita coming to a jewelry store and requesting gold. Her green design hasn't appeared yet, she's basically all black. The part where she eats a necklace was actually ad-libbed, Elizabeth Banks really winning my heart in this scene. Well, she already has before even this movie. She was in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies actually, so that goes back to the Spider-Man similarities. While I'm at it, later in 2017 came Marvel's reboot of Spider-Man in the form of Homecoming, so 2017 was just that year for Spider-Man love. Rita inspected the jeweler's mouth for gold teeth, couldn't find any, she nabbed her necklace and melted it down, as it formed to make her staff. Actually, the staff looked like Loki's from the Avengers, more Marvel comparisons. A cop comes in, and calls her “lady.” Rita loves the sound of that. Now, something I should've mentioned earlier, Rita, Alpha 5, and Zordon, spoke an alien language, Eltar being that, though never announced as that in the movie. Zordon in the show hails from Eltar, so that's consistent with the series. When Alpha 5 introduces the teens to Zordon, he mentioned that they spoke a primitive language called English. Wow, I didn't know English existed 60 million years ago, but okay. From then on, the two started speaking English. I assume Rita has that intelligence as well because she spoke English only throughout the present-day story. She gets hit by a shotgun blast, but PG-13, no blood or gun wound. She rises up, as well as raising the glass and jewelry, now she had her green Power Coin infused with the staff, making her magic powers whole. There was one moment where she deflected a shotgun bullet, and it hit a bystander at the store. PG-13, the wound on him was tiny. That's ridiculous, it's a fucking shotgun! That hole should be bigger. It just looked like a dab of paint on his pants. Sigh. Actually, I shouldn't be complaining because the show never had this, but at the same time, this movie is an attempt at maturing the source material, aimed at teenagers but it doesn't offer more blood. I would expect this blood usage to exist in the first Power Rangers movie, this one should've turned it up a notch. Not like the famous fan film that made Power Rangers into an R-rated product, but a happy medium. Anyways, during this, Putties started to rise. Actually, the filmmakers probably wished they could deviate from the show and call these henchmen something else, “Putties” does sound really dumb, but that's the show for you. Oh, she did say “Kill him,” which the show would never say. They would never bring up words like “kill” or “death,” but there you go. The first Power Rangers movie though had that usage, so, hey, that goes to surprising comparisons between this and the original movie. The store catches on fire...


Segueing into the campfire scene. This right here is the best scene in the movie. The acting is top notch, the dialogue is okay, they reveal things about themselves, and I already touched upon the questioning status of Trini. Jason doesn't really tell his friends about Zordon's true motive. It was kind of funny when one of them imitated Zordon's voice, actually sounding like David Fielding's Zordon voice, and he was the original one in season 1 of the show. Zack theorized that they can't morph because they don't know each other. This facilitates the revelations. Zack starting all this though is great, give this man some shine. He started out by saying where he lives, that his mom is the best, but that she's sick. He admits to being scared to stay over the mobile home, fearing that she won't make it. “When” she goes, he said he would have nobody else. That's some deep stuff man. He said being with them is good for him. Actually, his story is actually the best out of everyone else. Billy's is also great, albeit less complex. He follows up by saying he loves country music, and that he doesn't miss his dad so much, because coming with the mines with these people is just as good as coming to the mines with his dad. That's so sweet. Jason asked why he got in detention in the first place. He blew up his lunchbox, by accident. Haha, but Kimberly does not follow this up with her story. As I said earlier, she reveals that privately with Jason. Knowing now about this planned romance, I wish she aired that secret out to her friends, rather than just Jason. I really am not for this relationship, they really straddled the line hard here, but knowing they actually crossed the line with them kissing, bugs me. Also, you can see how the audience was totally right, not liking that moment and having that cut from the film. So I'm not the only one against this. It's just too cliché, it's too contrived. Now in a sequel, it'd be fine because you have a whole previous movie as a foundation, and then build on that even more in a sequel. In comparison, something like Rocky is just the brilliance of that movie, cultivating and having a romantic relationship within just that movie, and then evolving it in the sequels. Going back to the “will they, won't they” thing, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man to me straddled that line very well. Peter loves Mary Jane, Mary Jane slowly but surely appreciates Peter and it grows into a mutual love, but Peter shuts her down at the end, for a good reason, to protect her from being used as a pawn to damage Parker. People actually were against this, saying that ending in Spider-Man wasn't good, I disagree, it was just right for me. Then from there, further develop it into Spider-Man, and it gets more complicated and thus even better. Then finally in Spider-Man 3, they are together. I will admit when that only lasted for a brief time, that's when the relationship crumbled in quality for me, plus Kirsten Dunst's middling performance in that particular movie, ruined something I felt was well developed in 2 previous movies. This movie's usage of a romantic relationship was saved by test audiences, that it wasn't scrapped as a creative decision before just demonstrates a bad quality in the writing. Also, just by this scene, Kimberly came off pretty damn unlikable. Even when she admitted what she did to Jason, I wasn't really down with it. In fact, what she did to me didn't get any emotion, especially when you have Billy and Zack being powerful characters in my opinion. Even Jason, rounding off the male characters, had a more interesting story. This goes back into my risky sexism, where the women's stories are not as enticing. When Zack bounces this figurative ball to Jason, he simply said everyone knows who he is. Yeah pretty much, given his little celebrity status, plus he gave a bit of himself in that previous Zordon scene, saying he's heard enough of how wrong he is at home.


I'll zero in on Trini, since I feel I need to detail her angle. She said she's the new girl, 3 schools in 3 years, and she likes that, social withdrawal and all that. She said her parents don't have to worry about her relationships. It's interesting to note that she's the only one drinking alcohol, which I can see as some angle to further characterize her, but I feel was just unnecessary. If they actually addressed that blatantly, it would've been bad, alcohol would come in as a crutch. This movie doesn't need that. So Zack asked “Boyfriend troubles,” to which she sarcastically repeated that. “Yeah, boyfriend troubles.” Zack then is taken aback by the sarcasm, asking, “Girlfriend troubles?” She doesn't address that directly, instead saying her family is so normal, too normal, believing in labels, talk differently, dress differently, have the kind of friends they have in mind, and she doesn't know how to explain to them what's really up with her. She never revealed this to anyone. That is very deep, but I take it as a bit shallow. This goes back to some need the filmmakers have in making a big sociopolitical statement. In fact, if they just labeled it as “questioning” like David Yost himself said, that's just fine with me. She's battling that kind of aspect of herself. To outright said she's lesbian is too much of a rush. Similar to the Jason/Kimberly angle, that's something that needs building up on delicately, in a sequel. I'll bring up a comparison. In Mortal Kombat X, there is a character named Kung Jin, the cousin of Kung Lao, a very well known character in the video game franchise. Interestingly enough, Jin was voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch, aka Adam the Black Ranger, who replaced Zack. Kung Jin and Raiden chat in the story mode of that game and in the dialogue, Kung Jin mentioned the Shaolin temple would not accept him. Raiden said they would accept him, regardless of what he desires, and who his heart desires. That last part is verbatim by the way. See, I always thought it meant his heart desiring for revenge, as there is a revenge angle with him I think, it's been a while since I played the game. Recently I found out through a random Q&A I watched of The Bosch that Kung Jin is actually the very first gay Mortal Kombat character. This was so subtle, and The Bosch didn't even catch it at first, he had to be told by the creative team about this. This revelation came out of people analyzing the dialogue, Ed Boon and John Tobias, the creators of the video games, didn't go on social media and have some pseudo press conference about this. Here, director Dean Israelite (yeah that's a weird name, he's from South Africa apparently) said in an interview, blatantly that Trini's a lesbian. You take away that analysis aspect, this and Billy's autism was brought up during interviews in promoting the movie. Billy's autism, though arguably tacked on, was handled better because it was only said once, early, and you don't get the sense that it was a crutch, it was something made for ticket sales, rope in the teens. I feel like with Trini, being revealed at a pivotal moment, as some build up, that it was ruined by hype. If you just had this alone, that is fine, and then have people discuss about what exactly she said. But no, it's like giving away the secret of Santa Claus to kids, you have to let the kids find out themselves, you have to let the audience make up their minds about Trini. With that, people can theorize that she is in fact a lesbian, or settle that she is “Questioning.” The widely used definition for the “Q” in LGBQT is “Queer,” but from an actual gay person's mouth, David Yost, he said it could mean “Questioning” as well, whatever you want it to be. I'll go with that for this situation. To make matters worse, that Kimberly opens up privately with Jason, after these bombshells, it's straight up bullshit, to me it pales in comparison to the other teens' issues. While I singled out Trini's secrets, I'll go into detail about Kimberly's.


I should go back to the scene, Trini continued on, asking if they're simply Power Rangers or actually friends? None of them answer the question, which is fascinating, so that puts a good punctuation mark on a scene that evoked a lot of ranting from me, as well as praise. Again, it's the best scene of the movie, even though it exposes character weaknesses, in particular Kimberly's. Trini's was simply compromised greatly by the director, and the hype over her being the first big budget superhero that's part of the LGBQT community. I wish I didn't know about this ahead of time, but blame the interviews and headlines. And look what happened, the movie had a middling box office performance and a middling critical reception. While I'm at it, I looked at the budget, $100 million! Damn, opening weekend, a paltry $40 million, with a worldwide gross of $142 million ($85.4 million in the US + $57 million internationally), that is not a healthy profit. While it has a healthy 6/10 on IMDB, the Rotten Tomatoes critical meter is at 44%, though the audience score is similar to IMDB, 66%. What does that say? Autism and lesbian bombshells don't sell tickets, having good stories around them helps, blurting it out ahead of time does not help, have the damn audience make it up for themselves. Ugh, okay, I'll go more into this at the end, because I think blurting out the lesbian angle in particular hurt them internationally. Also, Dean Israelite apparently blamed the PG-13 rating as a probable reason for the box office disappointment. Fuck off, explain the Marvel Cinematic Universe then. All those movies are PG-13, and do gangbusters and they can even do the sociopolitical statements, but make it very subtle and not really make it so blatant in the movie's writing, see Black Panther.


Okay, I'm telling myself to calm down. Let's move on to something great. Trini is sleeping, but gets some water dripping onto her face, this basically serves as Rita's calling card. I guess she's still wet from being underwater for 60 million years. I'm repeating that time since that's like how the theme song in season 1 would have Rita say “AHHH! After 10000 years I'm free! It's time to conquer Earth!” I have to give a shoutout to the original series that way. Boom, she appears floating over Trini, face to face. She talks calmly and ominously over Trini, but then Trini tries to use her superhuman strength, remember that? Editing bother here, they cut right to a point in Trini's offense, to Rita now on the offense, bringing her to the ceiling. That cut really exposed a cheapness to this special effect, which for a big budget movie, is damning. When Rita brought Trini back down to her bed, that sequence features two shots, another quick cut that sucked. It should've been one good shot, again the cheapness. I'm nitpicking, I really did enjoy this scene. This cutting tactic also happened when she brought Trini to a brick portion of the wall, I'm assuming the chimney. She kept asking if Trini could morph. She said if she can morph, they'd be having a different confrontation. She bragged about killing the previous Yellow Ranger, I guess Rita could tell already Trini's the Yellow one. I didn't spot any yellow on her, unless you count the very light brown parts of her hair. I questioned why nobody heard this shit go down, but there was a shot of a car leaving the house, so it indicates that all of her family went out...in the middle of the night. What time was it? Considering this followed the nighttime campfire scene, I would assume it's at least 10PM. What's so important for the parents to drive off, with their little kids, at 10PM? The kids should be getting ready to go to sleep at that time for crying out loud. Okay, nitpicking. Nice line by Rita, when talking about showing the armor...





Rita's green armor finally comes out, which isn't like the green Ranger suit in the prequel section. She probably hates that suit, I don't blame her. Trini tried to use the super strength you can't forget about, but Rita still ended up with the advantage. She said she felt like an outsider on Zordon's team. That is actually more interesting than one would think, because when Tommy Oliver was introduced to the show and became the Green Ranger, he was fashioned as an outsider. He was the new kid at Angel Grove, he went up against the Rangers after being put under Rita's spell, and even after he is turned to the good side, he still was an outsider. This was Ranger/Sentai tradition where the 6th Ranger usually stands back, and when trouble escalated to the maximum, the 6th Ranger is contacted to help settle the score. In the original series in particular, Tommy had a funny habit of being late to the fights, so that was an instance of maintaining that outsider tradition originally from Super Sentai. A bit off-putting, Rita ends up having a gold tooth. Given her goal of bringing forth Goldar, it makes me wonder why she didn't use her own tooth to help in that conquest. She asked Trini where the Zeo Crystal is. Trini doesn't know, she believes her, which spares that cliché “I don't believe you” deal that would lead to torture. A running gag through the movie is actually how people get Trini's name wrong. It's a small one, but during their first scene together at the quarry, Zack called her “Dee-Dee,” Rita in this scene also calls her that. I don't really know why, it's easy to remember “Trini.” Anyways, she tells Trini that she expects her to meet up later and reveal the location of the crystal. Rita specifically said she will destroy Angel Grove. Oh, what about the world? I feel like that's cheesy and goes into Angel Grove being the epicenter of everything, no other city exists, except maybe Stone Canyon (that's where Adam, Rocky, and Aisha are originally from, that place isn't mentioned in this movie by the way). That's something from the show, again, props to Rita, to me she represented the original show the most, and it's why she's one of my most beloved characters in the movie. There may be a bit of bias because I personally adore Elizabeth Banks, but ah don't worry about that.


Alright, so time to zero in on Kimberly. Okay, I'm ready to really dig into this. Kimberly, as I said earlier, reveals herself privately to Jason. I gave a synopsis of this, but going back to this scene, I need to be very detailed because I want to shred it. Good placement by the way, having this be right after Rita's scene, it does give a false jump scare a bit, how Kimberly puts her mouth over sleeping Jason, teasing that it's Rita, but it was actually her. Anyways, here we go. Kimberly said the reason she punched some dude named Ty in the face is because he told everyone at school that she was the meanest person he ever met. She said he was right, I should back up a bit as she said before this that she believes she is the reason they can't all morph. Alright. Jason doesn't believe this, Kimberly then shows that phone picture I told you about. Oh yeah, they mastered their superhuman strength so well, Kimberly, last seen with a phone, accidentally crushed it, here she has a new phone and doesn't crush it. Fucking Hell, you're telling me they're so good with their unmorphed superpowers, or did you the writers forget that they have those abilities in the first place? Ugh, they should've scrapped that idea altogether. Of course that means Trini would have no chance in Hell in that Rita encounter, but come on, she could still try, and it's not like anyone would've guessed Trini would come out on top of that. So Kimberly shows a picture on her phone, to Jason. Again, we as the audience never see this picture. The picture was taken by Amanda Clark, not by Kimberly. I assume it's a very lewd selfie that involves her doing a dirty sexual act. Clark shared that picture with Kimberly, privately. She shared that picture to Ty, with a text that said “Is this the girl you want to bring home to your mom?” She didn't realize how mean it was until she saw Amanda's face. Jason tried to downplay this, which honestly I'd rather that be the case than this crap. Kimberly said she doesn't care about the fact there are thousands of pictures passed around in school, she's too dead set on the fact that she shared this one picture. She had to sit in the principal's office, along with Clark and her dad, and watch as they showed him that photo. She saw his eyes and saw what she had become. She lied, blaming everyone else, saying she wanted to die, and that's why when they first talked at the quarry, she was totally down with running away with Jason. Are you kidding me? To me this is the worst story of the bunch, it's vapid to me. Jason said she should start over and erase the picture, she doesn't want to because she said it can't be erased. Uh, yes it can, I know she meant it in a figurative sense, but still. Jason said to live with it and that it doesn't make her an awful person, just be the person she wants to be. Fucking shit, I basically typed out the dialogue verbatim from Jason. That goes back to the funky dialogue. If it was delivered in a cheesy tone, that rated G with extra cheese tone, I'd be totally fine with it. I'd rather risk a cringe than actually cringe! In Q&As, the actors from the show admitted that they would cringe at lines they have to deliver and not really take it seriously. The problem is that these actors took it too seriously, and that's more the fault of the writers and the director, trying to maintain a very serious tone, but failing with the dialogue in some places. They either should've made the movie more campy and have this kind of writing meld more into that tone, or write the damn dialogue better to accompany this heavy and serious tone. They did neither, and this was one of the scenes that exposed this. I can be back and forth on nitpicking. I can do that for any movie and either it doesn't hurt the film overall, or it does. The last movie I watched, Bloodsport is so open to nitpicking, but I backed off because the movie was so awesome and was some blatant 80s badass fun. This movie is not really badass, and the fun factor is at a serious low. Also, serious movies do lend themselves to more nitpicking, if you present a serious product, I'm more prone to seriously nitpick and have that affect the proverbial final grade on the product. I'll nitpick this, I'll shred it. I believe it's vapid because it doesn't really paint Kimberly as a complex individual, nor is she nuanced in any way. She made one mistake and made it seem like she's the worst person ever. Uh no, now if they gave her a history of misdeeds, now we'd be talking. As in, the habit of sharing these private photos to people in school and basically being a very transparent representation of the Fappening hackers. You get a stronger sense of why the girls in school hate her, and her redemption story is thus even better. The problem is that this is fashioned as the last secret revealed to the crew and she only revealed it to Jason. This not only undermines the developing friendship between all 5 teens, but it leads anyone to really have a hard nose over this budding relationship between Jason and Kimberly. That such undermining is done at the expense of a contrived love affair is a major shot against the whole movie, it makes Kimberly actually unlikable. The more I think about it, the more I just don't like her. That's not really all on Naomi Scott, I still think she did a decent job, although compared to the other actors, not so hot, and definitely with RJ Cyler and surprisingly to me Ludi Lin, she's so far behind. She verged on being a hated character. In the show, Kimberly's worst quality was that Valley Girl persona, but saying “worst” in her case didn't mean it was bad. It was cliché, and slowly but surely, she got out of that, character development! Kimberly's character development in the movie is thus a problem because the foundation itself is a problem. I stress this is just my opinion, if you feel that being all mopey and almost implying being suicidal over this one sin is justified, fine, but for me, it's absolutely stupid. If this had to stay in the story, this should've been shared during the campfire scene, and before Trini's revelation. The response there would've been a detailed, but not too long “Don't worry about it, move on.” With that, Trini would respond, debating that maybe they can't morph because of her constant battle with her own identity. You strengthen Trini's issue at the same time, while also toning down Kimberly's for the sake of togetherness. This movie, like the show, is about the bond between the 5 or 6 teenagers. This movie to me committed a cardinal sin by undercutting this bond with how Kimberly revealed her secret. Going back to the show, it was really no secret about Kimberly and Tommy's relationship, they confided in each other here and there, but that's fine because they grew into an item, and the chemistry between the first 5 was already rock solid by this point. With Tommy added, after he turned back to the good side, the 5-person chemistry became an also strong 6-person chemistry. Nothing was scarified, nothing was undercut, it was simply added. Oddly enough I'm legitimately praising a creative aspect of the show, even though it was super cheesy. In comparison to this, the show got that friendship aspect, 5-6 diverse individuals coming together and being a team, down to a science. This movie almost got it down really well, but to me this Kimberly angle messed it up. Also Trini's story's legs were cut because of interviews and the director blurting out this lesbian thing. Sigh.


Man, I'm really flustered now. Actually delving into this makes me dislike the movie more. You know, rather than improve on this, a simpler solution would've been just to lighten the tone of the movie. With that, I wouldn't be tasked to take this seriously as the people behind this movie did. With the state of superhero movies, the cheesy kinds are appreciated since there's a trend of them being too serious, mainly by DC. Marvel at least has that cheesiness, but can also make it super serious and compelling, the best example being the second Captain America movie. Power Rangers not being like that, people can argue that it's a good thing, and I gave the movie a chance to be serious. While it succeeded in many ways, it really bombed on a very potent minority. This kind of goes into a review I watched a couple times from Doug Walker (Nostalgia Critic). He reviewed this movie and brought up two major flaws with the movie, that while in number, makes them the minority against more than two praiseworthy things about the film, they're just so huge that it clouds that majority. Personally my “major flaws” are his two, plus this nitpicking filled thing over Kimberly, and a bit of the Trini thing. Actually, I'll just give out one of the flaws because I touched on it in my own rant on this Kimberly/Jason scene. One of the big flaws he brought up is that the dialogue, in his opinion, is awful. I totally understand that opinion, and would agree in a couple instances, especially this scene. The second major flaw, I'll save until it actually comes. If you've seen the movie, or even read this review, you probably know where I'm getting at. To put a nail on this rant, I hated this. I hate it more after the fact, sometimes these reviews can really bring to light things that had a certain effect on me. Eventually that effect grows, in this case, exponentially. What I disliked, has now generated to hatred.


So they all get a text from Trini, and they meet up at the football field. They learn of Trini's ordeal with Rita. I had a problem with what Trini said to the group, she said Rita had her keep a secret and tell the Rangers to meet her at the place where dead ships live, as in the boat dock. The problem was Rita didn't say any of that to Trini, but I have to remember that their scene together didn't end with Rita leaving the house. So, for all we know, that stuff was said, but off camera. However, looking at this scene again, a new problem arises. Trini didn't really sound scared, or she hides it too well. I didn't really like that, it comes off as bad acting. Jason steps up and tries to rally the troops. Billy said they should go back to Zordon, this is when Jason reveals what he overheard, Zordon's intent to come back to life. He gave off mixed messages, which again goes back to the bad dialogue. He said they are all screw-ups, let's stop pretending they are a band of superheroes. Uhm okay, totally not like the show. Then he said he hates Angel Grove, but he doesn't want to sit around and watch it be destroyed. Sigh, fine, honestly that's some childish, silly stuff. I'm like that too, I hate Kanye West, but I don't want to watch him die for example. However, you don't say that in a big budget superhero movie, and if you do, the dialogue would have to be better for the actor to deliver. Besides, it's not like Angel Grove is Gotham. Sigh, see when I really stop and think about it, quoting and picking out the dialogue, I realize more and more that the bad dialogue flaw is bigger than I thought originally. Still, the troops are riled up. Slow motion them gathering up chains and one of the girls having some bat, with some heroic music coming on. Now that's cheesy, but not in the 90s sense, the modern movie sense, so, blah!


They head to the docks, think Rita's sitting at a chair. No, it was a tied up man, water drips from the ceiling, it's Rita. She attacks and kicks the teens' asses! I loved that, Rita in the show doesn't get this kind of shine. She hardly ever shared the screen with the Rangers, the most of that is a projection of her in the sky in season 3 as she talked to the Rangers. This was after the Zyuranger footage was all used up, and Carla Perez being the suit actor for Rita. By season 2 they had that opportunity to have the main villain and the heroes be in the same setting. Nope! It's just something to accept, but while I'm on that subject, Lord Zedd did actually share a scene with Tommy, who was the White Ranger at that point. They even fought! It went to a stalemate, though it can be argued Tommy won as Zedd's staff turned into a snake, randomly, and he retreated. I loved that scene by the way, so you can imagine me enjoying this scene. Yeah there's a bit of CG trickery, slow motion crap, and I'm pretty sure Elizabeth Banks' stunt double did the fighting, but man it still was really good. It's the best one could get in 2017. If this was the 90s, it'd be even better, but ah well. Rita then has them bound against a fence. Rita at this point is talking a lot, and it's through that dialogue you can really get the sense of her not really fitting the serious tone of the movie. And really, I like that! Again this represents her being pretty damn close to the Rita Repulsa character in the show. Actually, that she's called “Rita Repulsa” in this movie is similar to the Putty name, it's like the filmmakers just had to use those names. “Rita Repulsa” isn't even a good name for a serious movie, and considering that she was a former Green Ranger, it makes one wonder why anyone would hire someone with that name, to be a Power Ranger. My suggestion if this was an issue, rename her “Rita Bandora,” you pay homage to both Power Rangers and Super Sentai, since Rita's name in Zyuranger was Bandora. She openly shares her plan, which is a case of her underestimating the Rangers, for good reason. Despite Jason saying they don't know where the Zeo Crystal is, she said one of them does. A very smart person, she singles out Blue, Billy. Oh man, I actually bought into this. The facial expressions being on point. Rita threatened Billy by using her staff on Zack, and you can see his face having black veins or something, changing more pale, and basically a virus looking effect. She gives a countdown of 3 for Billy, ah man, Billy's face, the struggle. Maybe I'm too into this, but considering the bullshit that came up before, and hell, even the bullshit that came up after, this particular scene and the one that follows it really tug at me. Oh wait, I forgot, this scene is soiled when Billy caves in. I'll just make a GIF of this...shudder.





PUKE! Then Rita said that it must be a special place, the source of life is buried there. Are you fucking kidding me? Get off your high horse Krispy Kreme. I will admit Rita's dialogue in that is hilarious, but it's still brought on by horrendous product placement. Also, I'll be fair, Zack's facial expression at this point is hilarious, see...





Now is the time for spoiler territory.


SPOILER: Believing that Zordon would lose respect for Rita if she didn't kill the teens, or at least one of them, she blasts Billy with green mist, and it causes him to fall into a body of water that's underneath them. A long rope attached to him, as it untangles and then it goes stiff and straight. Billy died by hanging and drowning! This is similar to the original movie where there was a death in that, Zordon. Holy balls, Rita takes care of business, unlike her TV counterpart. I was stunned by this scene. Now, I went in knowing that Billy died, but I didn't know how. So, the shocking effect still had a hold on me. It was very impressive. Actually, back to the acting, Trini...ugh, Becky G could've shown more of a distraught face, this was where Naomi Scott as Kimberly actually edged out Trini. I'm being hard on Becky G, maybe, but dude, one of your friends die, show some more emotion. Maybe it's me being Latino too, I have to single out a fellow Latino, though I'm not a Mexican, we're not exactly the same. I'm Dominican, so yeah, totally not the same. Anyways, that nitpicking goes away because they all carry Billy's body to the Command Center. That was very powerful. Jason tries to get Zordon to do something, but he said he can't, and that he and Jason were both reckless with their teams. Yep, very blunt but true. Jason said “Sorry” to Zordon, and then he apologized to the team. This is actually consistent with the Jason character in the show. When Tommy lost his powers from the Green Candle, Jason blamed himself, and couldn't really be convinced otherwise. It's that struggle with leadership, in that story Jason had to choose between saving Angel Grove or saving just Tommy. He went with the former, made the right decision, Tommy himself even saying that to him via a letter. To be specific, Tommy had already lost his powers from the Green Candle, then regained them as a temporary thing thanks to Zordon's own energy. When that ran out, Jason went intro a retrospective and traced all this back to the first instance of Tommy's powers being drained. After this, Jason was confronted with his fellow Rangers having their candles prepared and at the risk of burning out. Jason had to rise to this challenge, and was able to save Angel Grove and save his friends, redeeming himself. That's good storytelling, and some of that comes through here, which I liked. Jason in this movie said he was so angry, which is also a character weakness of Jason in the TV show. You can really replace Billy with Tommy from the show and it would really match up. You would have to scrub the death thing, but the drama generally is maintained. He apologized to Billy, saying he'd trade his life for Billy's. Kimberly said he traded his life for them. Uhhh, not really, you think he gave away that Krispy Kreme info knowing he was going to die? No, but he did give it away because he didn't want his friends to be hurt. Get your facts straight bitch. By the way, Kimberly had a shirt that said “It was all a dream.” I don't know why, it's kind of distracting given what's happening in the story at this point. Anyways, each one of them express how they would also trade in their life for the team. My man Zack started that by the way, he seems to be the ignition for this team. The campfire scene and then this, that's what's up! This goes back to me liking Zack more than I expected. Kimberly steps up, and while this is fine on paper, given my stance on the character in this movie, I'd rather it be Jason or Zack. She said that “this” is the only thing that matters, my guess is by how she pointed her finger, she meant the friendship, the bond between the teens. They agree, and with that, the Morphing Grid opens. This was Zordon's time to resurrect himself. He disappears from the wall, lights go dark, Alpha said it must mean that he stepped through the grid. Zordon returned to the wall, and he said that only one can come back. Billy was the one, Zordon resurrected Billy! Ah, feels, it was extremely well done. He told Jason that there can only be one Red Ranger, and that it's Jason's team. He thanks Zordon, and he reunites with Billy, as do the others. Ah, Billy and Jason hug it out, so great...until Billy said that they have to go to Krispy Kreme. FUCK! Product placement bullshit. Yeah they have to go there, but ugh, product placement! It seriously ruins the weight of this moment. When Rita mentions it, that's funny, when anyone else does, it's cringe inducing. This disgusting use of product placement makes me never wanting to eat a Krispy Kreme product ever again, and I think I only ate from there once or twice.


Out of the spoiler territory, after two really heavy scenes, it's finally time. This leads to the other major flaw of the movie, according to Doug Walker, which I agree with, the teens do not morph until 1 hour and 30 minutes into the movie! I repeat, this film is 2 hours and 4 minutes long. The last fucking quarter of the movie is the actual Power Ranger portion. That is bullshit. Walker made a good point though that if you're not a fan of the show, then this might not bother you, but as a fan, it's kind of offensive. Furthermore, if you compare it to other movies with origin stories, you'll notice that the main characters get in their costumes pretty quickly. Spider-Man for instance, 30-40 minutes in? Consider also he had that initial costume for his wrestling match in the Raimi movie. Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, 40 or so minutes in? Here, 90 minutes! That's fucking stupid. Also, the music that plays in this scene was I guess the main theme of this movie, it plays in the ending credits too. This particular theme got on my nerves during the credits, and it dawned on me that this would've been a perfect time to play a part of the vintage Power Rangers theme song. When the teens morph in the show, they would call out their Dinosaur, and backing that is the opening instrumental of the show, the riff that kicks it off, and the rest of the instruments coming in. Then when they bust out in the suits, typically from the ground's point of view, looking up as they flip in the air, the music swells and sometimes you get to the chorus. In fact, in the original movie, when they first morph, that's exactly what happens. The opening instrumental plays, then they do their big flips, you see from below, and the epic chorus plays, “Go go Power Rangers!” rings at least twice, then “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” hits your ears. It's glorious, it's audio sex, it's Heaven, it awakens the child in me, it can give me goosebumps. A completely missed opportunity! GAH! Also, Jason said “It's morphin time,” which is lifted right from the show. However, when it's spoken, it's done so really emphatically, with purpose, power, yelled even. Most of the time they yell out “It's morphin time!” Especially Jason in the show. They do their roll call which includes yelling out their dinosaur. Quickly, Black, Pink, Blue, Yellow, Red. So that means the following: Mastodon, Pterodactyl, Trieratops, Saber-tooth Tiger, TYRANNOSAURUS! Yeah, see? Jason really yells that hard, and in season 2 when Rocky becomes the Red Ranger, he also yells out his dinosaur, following suit. Honestly, if I had not have given that roll call, you might not even tell all of the Dino Zords here, as nobody runs down the list. Jason's is obvious, as is Kimberly's, the rest, not so much, especially with Zack's mastodon having 6 legs and straight tusks. It's really sad that Jason's “It's morphin time,” is spoken, with such a low volume, I could barely hear him. The original Jason, Austin St. John brought up this flaw, and he admitted that he missed it the first time, people had to clarify for him that his 2017 counterpart did in fact say “It's morphin time.” It's just almost inaudible that it can easily be missed. Also, it took a while for me to catch the similarities, but that main theme song when they morph, sounds like the Stranger Things theme. Consider that Dacre Montgomery soon after was in the second season of that show, it's quite insane.


And don't even get me started on the suits. I was not down with the suits when they were first revealed, or maybe I was okay with them. If so, I change my mind, the suits suck. Okay, I'll be nice, the suits are not really that good. One thing Power Rangers/Super Sentai did was give identity to the suits. In the original MMPR era, the suits differed not only in color, but helmet designs. They maintained a theme and the suits followed that, while also offering visual differences. When you see the original MMPR Red Ranger suit, you know it's the Red Ranger suit, not just by the color. Even in the movie, which updated from spandex to metallic looking armor, the helmet differences are maintained, but also they took it a step further with medallions on their chest, coinciding with their Dinosaur, and then Ninja animal spirit. Here, the only thing separating them are the colors. Sure, the helmets look different, but not so blatantly, you have to pause and squint your eyes to really tell the differences. In the show, the helmets would be fashioned out of their respective animal, like Jason's helmet had T-Rex teeth surrounding his visor, Trini/Aisha's Yellow Ranger helmet had Tiger eyes on the top of the helmet. You see what I mean? Also, their chests in this had a gray spot, perfect to have the medallions placed there, like in the first movie. But no, instead I get the impression that they're like Tony Stark's Arc Reactor without that thing being in place. That goes into the Iron Man comparisons, these suits look like rejected concepts of Iron Man suits. If Tony Stark were to design Power Ranger suits, it would look like this. Ugh, and the slow motion walk they do to show their suits off is nothing compared to the slow motion flipping in the original movie, or the regular motion flipping in the show! When they get in the Zords, they actually have their visors removed. In the original movie, that was an idea 20th Century Fox wanted to roll with as a permanent gimmick, where the visors would retract, giving them “emoting” scenes. It was scrapped because it went against the spirit of the show, superhuman fighting force when they have the costumes on. Later seasons do have visor-less scenes, but from what I've seen, they're done pretty well and there's not an overabundance of it. Now, when they are in the Zords and go without the visors, I'm fine with that, until I remember that their time before the Zords was so fucking short, therefore them with the visors on was so fucking short. By that logic, they aren't even fully wearing the fucking suits for the last 30 minutes of the movie. Actually, I'll clock it. At around an hour and 30 minutes, the suits come on fully. At 1 hour and 51 minutes, that's when that time ends. Specifically it concludes with Jason going to the Command Center and returning his Power Sword. Yeah that just popped out of his suit basically during the big Putty fight. So you have 21 total minutes of this third...or fourth act, and note how those 21 minutes is not Ranger suit footage from top to bottom. You have shots of destruction, scenes with Rita such as the one that follows this suit-up scene, all these other things. I don't want to be exact and clock in the total amount of suit time in the movie, I'll just end up disappointing myself. This is essentially another case of hindsight, the more I think about this, the more it pisses me off, but even while watching the movie, I was not really happy. I offered my suggestion of how they would debut the suits at around the 50 minute mark, I would also add to extend the Rita confrontation. Have them fight without the suits, then come together and fight in the suits, but then their team effort is not strong yet, so they unmorph, and Rita is just dominant throughout. You continue the tease while also building up for the permanent suit up at the 90 minute mark. Instead, you have to wait 90 minutes in total, and if you don't connect with the story, then you'll feel like the movie is a total slog. I admit the slow pace is kind of an acquired taste, it risked dragging on for too long. If it meant the suits coming in at an earlier time, I'd honestly trim the movie by at least 15 minutes. Going back to the morphing scene, Trini's shirt said “1973.” I didn't need IMDB trivia to get the reference, that's the birth year of Thuy Trang, the original Trini. I liked that nod.


Moving on to Rita awakening Goldar the quarry. I've been holding back on this for the longest time. Before I get to that, you see here that she uses the gold apparently buried in the quarry to bring forth Goldar. So all that gold hunting she did in the movie was a waste? I guess she planed to form her staff first, and with that and the Power Coin, bring forth Goldar, being able to attract more gold with the boost in magic power. Alright, so while that happens, the Rangers come out into the pit and Putties make their presence felt. I should've been more specific, these are pretty much rock based creatures, not like the clay ones from the show. They battle the Putties underwater as they rose up to the quarry, and the fight is on ground. Ugh, these Rangers are pussies. Okay, randomly Jason was able to bust out his Power Sword, which I mentioned earlier. After only battling the damn Putties for about 2 minutes, Zack takes one down off a cliff, saying that he had an idea. They admit that there's too many Putties. Bullshit, the Rangers took on Putties...unmorphed, and there would be up to a dozen at one point, all taken care of at a park (though sometimes if more came, yeah they would morph but that'd be after 5 minutes of fighting or so). Then the monster of the day would show up, they'd then have to morph. Whether using Sentai footage or not, they are in the suits and try to battle the monster. Then Lord Zedd or Rita Repulsa, or both, would use their magic to make their monster grow. They grow, and that's when the Rangers call upon their Zords. It's a tried and true formula, and in the span of about 10 minutes, you get total, nonstop action basically, that spans all the awesome qualities of the original series. The teens fighting, then them in the suits fighting, then their Zords coming out to make the Megazord and an epic giant robot vs. monster fight comes about. Unfortunately this movie pisses on that.


Before I elaborate on that, Rita said “Make my monster grow!” YES! That's the exact line Rita in the show would always say when she used her magic to enlarge her monster. BRILLIANT! I loved it, more proof of Elizabeth Banks being the closest to her counterpart than everyone else, as well as being the closest in tone with the original series. I'm still holding back on something, I'm really close to it.


Wait on that, back to Zack, he comes back into the fray with his Zord. Bullshit! The Rangers never used their Zords to take down the Putties, and that goes against their training from earlier. They were training with Putty simulation, and while they did fight some, they bitched out too early and resorted to the Zords. Zack being the first to do it is especially disappointing because he was my dark horse of the movie, no pun intended. So basically, if you pit these Rangers against the original Mighty Morphin crew, these suckers would go down easily. Funny thing, Zack asked if any of them wanted him to pimp their ride. Haha! Early 2000s reference. Oh for fuck's sake, I forgot, they went visor-less already after this entrance from Zack. As if it was necessary, to just see Goldar marching to Angel Grove. They then hook up to the Zords, and they take the linking thing much more literal here than in the show, as a cable hooks onto their backs, connecting them to the Zords. They then got Joycons (Nintendo Switch reference) to pilot the Zords. Billy even tried to be all John McClane with “Yippee ki-yay” but he didn't say “motherfucker.” Just, “mother.” It's bad enough Die Hard went PG-13 and butchered that legendary line, don't remind me of that here. It's funny though, since Billy did it. Then suddenly, cut to Alpha saying “Go go Power Rangers,” and then also sudden, when they ride out, a wide shot showing all of them riding by Zords, the movie version of the “Go Go Power Rangers” song played. It played for a grand total of 16 seconds, you fucking assholes! Also, they jumped away from the “Mighty Morphin” part of the lyrics, so you only hear “Power Rangers” in the chorus. In comparison, the 1995 movie played their theme song twice, the first instance doubled the time of this particular instance. Over 30 seconds as their morph sequence was morphinomenal (yes I said that), and then it plays for a shorter time when the Zords come together and form the Ninja Megazord! If Saban had full control over the movie, that theme song would've played even longer in this movie, I know this for a fact because they really love that song. To the point where their Neo-Saban seasons (the seasons following Saban purchasing back the rights from Disney) had their theme songs inspired heavily by the original MMPR song.


Alright, so, I've been holding this back for a long time, and it's not really because I want to explode in anger like with Kimberly, I just wanted an opening to get on with this. It's about Goldar. In the show, he was a humanoid cat clad in a gold armor, with red eyes. I had to go to the Power Rangers Wiki to get a definitive description of Goldar because I go back and forth on whether he is a pig, a bear, a monkey, all that. I leaned towards monkey because of the Wizard of Oz comparison, flying monkey, he had wings. Also Rita in Alien Rangers, while that's fresh in my mind, called him “monkey breath” a few times. Goldar in the show was the size of a big human, think of a stacked NFL linebacker, or even an 80s pro wrestler. In some instances, he would grow into a giant monster thanks to Rita's magic, so him being gigantic is great. Him being made entirely of gold, while not part of the show's canon, is a good change from the show. There's just one massive problem. Goldar talks in the show, and his voice is one of the most memorable of the entire franchise. Admittedly it's really inconsistent in the first season, I thought two different people voiced Goldar, in fact it was an apparent rumor that this was the case. Kerrigan Mahan and Robert Axelrod. Mahan is most famous as the voice of Goldar as he gave that amazing gravelly voice. Axelrod voiced Finster, Rita's monster maker. Quickly, I don't mind Rita's side bitches not being in the movie. Finster, Baboo, Squatt, their absence is not a bother. It was more of a bother in the 1995 movie since that film is basically actual show, but as a movie and with a different continuity, whereas this is an attempted reboot and re-imagining of the original MMPR. Axelrod is most known for voicing Lord Zedd, another awesome gravelly voice. This rumor was debunked by Mahan himself, which then leads me to think he was inconsistent with the voice at first. I didn't like the more cliché villain sound, and if that rumor's true, now I know the blame would go on Axelrod, which is odd because he did go on to voice Zedd, and make him a legendary character in the Power Rangers franchise. Anyways, back to the point of this aside. I think it's absolutely disappointing that Goldar did not have a voice in this movie. Goldar is a dipshit in the show, and it's so fun when he gets bitched out by Lord Zedd, but even with this all-serious Goldar, a gravelly voice would've been most appreciated. It didn't have to be Kerrigan Mahan by the way, but just some really powerful voice. This was a major missed opportunity in my opinion. Also, nitpick, Goldar looked too slim here, in the show he was a beefy beast. Also for the non-fan, you'll notice he has wings here, but never uses them. He never flies. I mentioned this as being a “non-fan” thing because in the show, Goldar rarely used his wings, so I wasn't too fussed with the lack of flying here, because it essentially was the same deal on the show.


Back to the movie, oh Jesus Christ. So the Zords approach Angel Grove, Goldar's wreaking havoc and Rita's just walking down the street, saying “Krispy Kreme,” and then cut to Kimberly saying that Rita hasn't found the Krispy Kreme yet. Shut the fuck up with this Krispy Kreme bullshit, it actually makes me drool over Dunkin Donuts! Going back to Doug Walker, in his review, he's actually eating Dunkin Donuts, and his reasoning inspired my own, that product placement just makes him want to go support the competitor. Reverse psychology basically, or just being a rebel. Tell me one thing, fuck off I'll go do the opposite. Then Jason said “Circle the Krispy Kreme.” That's three mentions of that fucking food chain in a minute! Are you guys fucking serious? I'm sorry for my swearing reaching ridiculous levels but I'm extremely frustrated by this product placement. It takes me out of the movie really.


Now we go into licensed music bothering me. At this point, Kanye West's “Power” played. I hate Kanye West, I do not like his music being used in any form or fashion. He was once a brilliant rapper, I'll give him his due as I used to enjoy his songs, but in the late 2000s, he turned heel on me (wrestling jargon, I mean he became a villain to me) and became a real douchebag. That said, I don't really like this stuff. I honestly want to blaze through this section of the movie, at this point I'm just done. My negativity already peaked at the Kimberly/Jason scene, and despite it being wiped out by emotional scenes, a new batch of it has come out and been rather consistent since the Rangers suited up. I mean, let me put it into perspective. You have the suits which look like CG, now that I think about it. Either way, Iron Man ripoffs. You have the Zords which should've been bigger. I can understand why they're that size, because it shows how they really struggled and paled in comparison to Goldar, but you could've jacked up their sizes and still have them hang off Goldar if necessary. You have the product placement that is just so toxic, it makes me want to vomit, even though I admit that Rita's uttering of “Krispy Kreme” is entertaining. You have overall the CG being so unimpressive. I don't watch these kind of movies, I never sat through Michael Bay's Transformers for example, so I don't actually expose myself to this form of CG buffoonery. Despite that, I still am very numb to it, it just goes to show that even a little bit of exposure of this bland CG, desensitizes me. I'm just done, I'm not fussed with the special effects here. Even if I didn't watch the series, where it's cheap, but charming practical effects, it doesn't tune me into being automatically salty at this CG. No, I was destined to be salty, or, more like apathetic. That's probably worse than having a strong dislike or hatred towards it. I just don't give a fuck. That they ditched the visors gave me more emotions, inasmuch that I don't like that decision. You basically got less than 5 minutes of them fully wearing the suits and helmets. Talk about pissing on the Power Rangers legacy. Sigh, really the only good parts here was Rita. Elizabeth Banks just walking in the middle of a street, saying some very animated villain lines, it's like she really got into the role. I wonder if she watched and studied Rita Repulsa from the show. She hammed it up and rocked with it.


So more Putties come, this is when the Zords coming out against them fits, because they act as speed bumps as they chase after Rita and Goldar. During this part, Jason takes a yellow car with black stripes, hurls it at Putties with his Tyrannosaurus Zord, and said “Sorry Bumblebee.” I interpreted that as a dig against Michael Bay's Transformers. Wow, so basically, a middle finger to Transformers...by being Transformers. This is total Transformers at this point. So, that dig just falls on deaf ears at the end of the day. I was surprised when Rita found the place, she didn't say “Krispy Kreme.” Instead she said, “The crystal.” Oh yeah, the Zeo Crystal is buried underneath that place, I totally forgot. Next time you see her, she's in the place, notice how I'm refusing to say the name of that establishment unless I'm quoting the characters. She is eating a Homer Simpson donut (pink frosting with sprinkles). She enjoys that despite Goldar punching through a bit of the building, that's just how AMAZING their damn donuts are, you don't pay attention to the destruction surrounding you. The song playing in the donut place while she enjoyed corporate shilling, was “Survivor” by Destiny's Child.


Sigh, the Rangers try to gang up on Goldar, and they struggle with it. Cut to Jason's dad driving in town and calling Jason on the phone, leaving a message specifically since his son is busy after all. Neat little nods, his dad said he's at the corner of Mariner Bay and Reefside. Mariner Bay is the main city in Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue, and Reefside is the main city in Dino Thunder. I missed this, but there's a street sign that said “Ocean Bluff Rd,” which was a reference to the main city in Jungle Fury. Jason's dad gets some melted CG gold on his truck and it leads to him having a crash and being trapped. Jason gets out of his Zord, which they don't show, just see him slow motion run to his dad. He beats on a few Putties along the way, and he extends his hand to his dad. Of course, his dad doesn't know the Red Ranger is Jason, his voice is modified a bit so you don't hear Jason's natural speaking voice. Therefore he couldn't recognize the voice belonging to his son. That's an acceptable change, as in the show, they don't really mask their voices, which actually reminds of Spider-Man, more than his movie. Ain't that funny? Jason did a good deed, saved someone, that's more than I can say for Superman in Man of Steel, ugh. Oh, this right here is another example of disgusting product placement.





Some teamwork comes with Kimberly carrying Billy's Zord and dropping it through Goldar. Billy then pushes a button, and boom, some form of an explosion sends Rita flying, and Goldar falling down and destroying some business. I can't really tell what it was, because only that donut place matters in this movie. Somehow Rita going down meant all the Putties disintegrated, which is not like what happens in the show, they just get their asses kicked, and in season 2, as I said earlier, their Z emblems have to be hit hard for them to explode into pieces. Lame! Sigh, it gets lamer, trust me.


Goldar's hot CG gold I guess brought Rita back, woke her up let's just say (I refuse to believe it was a resurrection job). Goldar plows through that donut place, revealing the Zeo Crystal. Well, a green light, you can't really see the damn thing, think of it as the suitcase in Pulp Fiction. So the Zords line up by the crater where the Zeo Crystal lies in, and Jason said “Hold the line.” I want to fast forward through this, so I'll skip over details. Basically, Goldar dominates the Zords, and the Rangers struggle big time, and the heat from Goldar's fireball attach, as well as the heat from this makeshift pit, and all the fire around, they are just sweating. Jason said “No one dies alone,” they all seem to accept defeat. Sigh, Jason and Kimberly reached out to each other, boo. Billy said “Thank you for being my friends.” Nice final words. Only that they weren't. Well, the Zords barrel down a fiery pit. During this, you can see some gears moving, the exteriors changing shape and whatnot. So, you know what will happen. It was hard to tell this was happening because of the overwhelming fire color of reddish orange, it's just bad visuals in my opinion. Well, what I originally thought was that because Goldar smashed them seemingly into a bit of a pile of metal, that Goldar unintentionally formed the Megazord. No, seeing the scene again, it's clear that with the Zords in close proximity, and going down the pit, that they just combined by themselves. So it rises from the pit, Rita is stunned. I'm stunned too, this is not the Megazord. It's Optimus Prime with wings...


Ugh, my problem with this is basically the Zords came together on their own. Since they are linked to the Rangers, you can say the Megazord came forth because of the Rangers uhhh coming together...again? I don't understand, and they made this reveal out to be like a last ditch effort, a new trick up the sleeve. How can I compare this? I can only think of anime. Bear with me, in Dragon Ball Z, when Goku turns into a Super Saiyan for the first time. This was after Frieza did some unspeakable acts, killing his best friend Krillin, and what looked like also killing Piccolo, but that turned out to not be the case, I'll define it as being put into a coma. So, with his back against the wall, Goku suddenly tapped into a vast new source of power, and boom, get ready Frieza. That's what it was like here, and I didn't like that, it's not consistent with the show. In the show, they yelled out for their Zords at first. “We need Dino Zord power now!” Then when it was time for the Megazord, they yelled “Megazord power!” or things of that nature. They yell, this movie falls into that sad modern movie trope where yelling for things other than fear or being excited about some trivial thing, is nonexistent. With that said, the Megazord just came out...because? In the IMDB trivia, it claimed that mastering the Megazord transformation takes years, yet the Rangers were able to do it in the course of one afternoon. I find that to be a bullshit story, whether it's true or not. I never heard that in the show for example, so I don't see why the movie had that angle, if it actually did. In the movie, Alpha 5 and Zordon gave no indication about the Megazord, I don't recall, and in the show, episode 1, Zordon outright said that the Zords can come together to form the almighty Megazord. The Megazord thus was never some plot device to come off as a surprise. You know it's coming, there's no grand illusions. This movie changed a very crucial fundamental element from the show and it didn't work. Even if this Megazord looked impressive, there's still that poorly done plot device. So yeah, not a fan of how the Megazord basically came out from no yelling, commands, or anything other than well, luck. Isn't it just luck that the Zords all fell down the pit together? Okay, convenient, and as a result, the configurations were automatically made, with no calling out by the Rangers or even some punching of keys and buttons from them? Yeah, ugh, this movie...can you tell that I was actually high on it during the drama part? However, I wanted the action, I craved it, finally it came and it fell on its ass. It's such a weird thing, the best parts of the movie were the ones I expected to be just a fraction of the movie, and that the real highlight would be the action, much like it was in the show. That's not the case, and the balance is just really bad too, 3/4s for the damn movie is drama, and in hindsight, that really does wane on the viewer, especially with the Kimberly angle, and questioning the acting of the main female protagonists here and there, as well as not liking the leg chopping over Trini's sexuality.


Sigh again, so Rita fuses with Goldar, cool. Actually, it was funny how their first movement was a botch, Optimus Prime moved and it tripped and landed face first. That's realistic actually, you expect them to automatically know how to pilot Optimus Prime? That being said, in the show, they just automatically know how to pilot the Zords and Megazord, but that never bothered me. At least the alternative here was nice. Optimus Prime is also different from the show in that each of the Rangers in this movie are spread across it, looking like each control a limb, with Jason as the head. Coincidentally that setup is like the giant combined mech (they don't call it “Zords” in Japan) in Uchu Sentai Kyuranger, which was the series running during the theater run of this movie. Actually, Kyuranger debuted in February 12, 2017, while this debuted on March 24. So, just a coincidence. I wouldn't know this without the Power Rangers Wiki by the way. In the show, they are all at the chest or center of the Megazord, in a hub basically. Both setups actually make sense, but I prefer old school, them all together in one hub.


That bit of positivity turned right back into apathy. Optimus Prime and Goldar grapple, and then they exchange fists and kicks. Goldar forms a sword out of CG gold, and Jason said “Remember the pit.” No! Remember the sword?! Yeah, Optimus Prime in the show, actually in all 3 seasons, had a sword that would always deliver the final blow. In the first season, that sword would fall from the sky and then the Megazord gets it, does a cool pose, one slash, the monster goes down, and it explodes! Yeah, that doesn't happen here sadly. Instead, a full circle moment with them doing the slip, grab, and flip, the German Suplex looking thing. Goldar's not a fucking Putty though! Also, they should've done that to Putties in their fight scene, but no! Well, okay, let me back up because I did forget, right after that takedown, Optimus Prime pulls out the wings of Kimberly's Pterodactyl Zord, and uses them as swords. It drives them through Goldar's chest, which was nice and CG. Yeah, that's a bit of a paradox. Anyways, Rita comes out of Goldar, which I should mention that in the fusion, Goldar's appearance does not change. The fusion reminds of the first movie where Ivan Ooze (Paul Freeman) fused with his big mechanical bug. The difference is that its appearance changed to look like a giant mechanical Ivan Ooze. That makes sense. Here, no change, Rita basically just disappeared. Rita said that she came for the crystal, and that others will do the same thing. Oh that sounds like sequel building. Actually the director expressed interest in bringing in Lord Zedd as the main villain for the sequel, and him wanting the Zeo Crystal sounds logical. Rita then said “It can't last,” which I assume she meant the Rangers and their bond with each other. Jason ordered Rita to give up the staff and the Power Coin, and let Zordon be the judge. This offends Rita (“Never!” Oh that delivery is awesome.), who makes one last offense, leaping up from the ground, to the Zords, and she got pimp slapped all the way to the sky. Even further, as it's seen soon after, out of the Earth. She was last seen in space, turning to ice as it's cold up there, and she gives a tiny grin, and in the background is the moon. Note, in the show, Rita and eventually Lord Zedd's base of operations is at the moon, so it really indicates that if a sequel happens, Rita will pop up. That pimp slap is also a full circle moment, as basically the beginning of this 5-person relationship was through a pimp slap by Jason to that ginger kid who bullied Billy for a few seconds. Even though the logic is kind of silly, not really ensuring Rita would die, which should've been the case because Rita made things really personal, Zordon himself wanted Rita dead basically, but ah well. It's certainly a unique way to defeat a villain, even though it was all CG.


One hilarious aspect of the show is how they save Angel Grove from a monster every episode, and with that comes dozens, hundreds of Megazord battles. While they hardly made contact with buildings in MMPR, the fact of the matter is it's still giant entities battling in a city. Sure, the setting tends to be an open area, with the cityscape in the background, but still. Knowing about this, it's really funny how the damage is never seen past the fight. Destruction one day, Angel Grove is all clean the next, as if it never happened. Cast members of the show joked about that, saying Angel Grove has amazing contractors. In season 3, building contact and destruction is more of a thing, though still rare. These battles are 99% Super Sentai footage, so it's not really Saban's fault, they just have to work with what they have. The 1% where it's original Zord battle footage, actually contains building destruction. I was absolutely stunned they even did original Zord battle footage in season 3, but impressed because they didn't suck at it. I mean they were good, for that budget, it's really impressive. Beats CG at least.


The Rangers soak in the awe and admiration citizens of Angel Grove give them, as they gaze up at Optimus Prime. Billy gives Optimus Prime some personality by making it do a little jiggle, which he called “The Algebra,” which was hilarious. During this moment of soaking in victory, there are some interesting onlookers in the crowd. I present to you, the original Kimberly and Tommy...





Yeah, Amy Jo Johnson and Jason David Frank, wearing color appropriate clothes, as the former was the original Pink Ranger, and the latter was the original 6th Ranger, as well as being the Green Ranger in season 1 and part of season 2, and then the White Ranger for the rest of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Unfortunately their cameo only amounts to being like the other civilians and then bringing out their phones to take pictures or record video of Optimus Prime. It was really nice seeing them, they aged really well, especially Kimberly who looked like she never aged. It's funny looking at JDF's chest I wonder how long it took makeup to cover his tattoos. His body is covered with tattoos, so I imagine just getting his chest made up must've took them a while. I wish the cameos lasted longer, hell, I wish they got the whole squad. I'll specify, Austin St. John (Jason), Walter Jones (Zack, representing the Black people), and David Yost (Billy). Unfortunately Thuy Trang passed away in 2001, so filling in the Yellow Ranger spot should be Karan Ashley, who played Aisha and replaced Trang in MMPR. You could even go a step beyond and rope in the other MMPR cast that replaced original cast members. I already mentioned Karan Ashley, also bring in Johnny Yong Bosch (Adam the Black Ranger, representing the Asians), Steve Cardenas (Rocky the Red Ranger, and the one representing Latinos), and Catherine Sutherland (Kat the Pink Ranger). I heard suggestions of making them parents of the teens. Let me try and make this work then. ASJ would be Jason's dad, that's an obvious. He actually would fit the bill too, as Jason's dad in this movie is a big guy with a beard, and that's what ASJ is now. Kimberly's mom would be the original Kimberly, Amy Jo Johnson, and I'm giving these legends roles that don't actually exist in the movie as well. You never see Kimberly's mom for instance. You don't see Billy's mom, though you can hear her a few times, so, Karan Ashley would take that on. Since Billy's dad is dead, have some flashback stuff where Walter Jones would be Billy's dad, even though Walter is someone that hardly aged. Johnny Yong Bosch, a new character, he'd be Adam's dad, a deadbeat too, he abandoned his son and his sick wife, and have a scene where Adam confronts him. Catherine Sutherland would have to be a character not seen, let's go with her being Jason's mom. Steve Cardenas would be Trini's dad, and it would fit too because both actors are of Mexican descent. David Fielding (Zordon) would be the teacher supervising the kids at detention. Jason David Frank would be a school teacher. In Dino Thunder, his day job was as a high school teacher, teaching about the biology of dinosaurs I think. Just slap a pair of glasses on him and you're good to go. Or even make him a martial arts instructor, he could appear as an assistant to Alpha 5. It is strange that Alpha 5 basically taught the teens to fight. David Yost, last but not least, would have to be a new character. Maybe Kimberly's dad, but I was thinking he'd be someone that Trini talks to. Have a moment where she just abandons her team, she sits at a bench, and David Yost is there, let's say he's waiting for a bus. They'd talk about stuff, but be very subtle about sexuality and being comfortable with your identity. David Yost is gay, having come out in 2010, as he was interviewed about his Power Rangers tenure and the truth behind his departure, as it was thought to be a contract dispute. It wasn't, he had been harassed by crew members for all of his tenure over his sexuality, and basically he got called “faggot” one too many times, so he walked off the set. This was during the Zeo season which was right after MMPR/Alien Rangers. As a result of that, they had to use a body double for Billy, someone to be the voice, and write an episode where they sent Billy off to space. With a deep history of coming to terms with who he really is and having a mental breakdown, all this tragedy, I'm sure Yost would've taken from that and give a rousing performance in this one scene, and encourage Trini. While the movie focused on basically the teens helping each other out, and outside interference is risky, I'd rather the risk be taken for the sake of getting more cameos. I feel too that some of these names need to be immortalized in film history by having such strong cameos, fans would see that they are treated so well and it fills a void left by some of them not being in the first Power Rangers movie. Granted, Austin St. John and Amy Jo Jonson appeared in the second Power Rangers movie, Turbo, but their roles were small, the ones I suggested would have more weight to them. They're also open to cameos since these movies are union projects, and the Power Rangers show unfortunately is not. Also, nice but sad thing, based on what I heard from a few theater showings of the film, the JDF and Amy Jo Johnson cameo got the biggest and/or only reaction from the crowd. So, what does that say? The love of these cameos, but also how the movie didn't entertain the older audience that grew up on the series.


With those ideas shared, compared to only roping in two of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers show cast, it does indicate that these cameos were shoehorned at the last minute. IMDB trivia backs up this belief, as it mentioned how Amy Jo Johnson said in an interview that she only got the cameo after her agent phoned the production in Canada, where the movie was shot. Her agent in the US tried to get her a cameo, and it didn't pan out. So basically, it was because Amy Jo Johnson was in the area, she currently lives in Canada, has a dual citizenship even with the USA and Canada. Jason David Frank being Saban's golden boy, I bet he had an easier time, though I wonder if he had to call in too for a cameo. If so, it proves that the filmmakers didn't want to get those cameos in the first place, which to me is bullshit. Going back to the cameo, you can also tell JDF got some love over it, because you can hear him laugh at the end of it. You don't hear Amy Jo Johnson. Just a laugh, that's the best you're going to get. It was a justified laugh, the one you make when you see something awesome and it could be followed up with “Wow.” A tiny chuckle or something, hopefully that makes sense. A neat trivia note is that character-wise, Kimberly, Zordon, Alpha 5, and Rita Repulsa are the only characters to appear in all 3 theatrical Power Rangers movies. Actor-wise, Amy Jo Johnson and Jason David Frank are the only ones to appear in all 3 of those movies. Despite the small cameo and wanting more, I can totally see why this fact makes sense, because they are basically the most beloved Power Rangers, a Power Rangers Couple actually since they had that on-screen relationship. Not off screen, don't worry about that, JDF actually was married...at 19 years old when he first started the show, and I read somewhere that he also had a child during that time. So, damn. Actually, his daughter therefore would be in her early 20s now, right? Power Rangers typically cast actors in that age range. See what I'm getting at? If she's physically talented, she should totally be a Power Ranger! That would be neat, I think it'd be the first time a former Ranger's child becomes a Ranger themselves.


Another note about cameos and bringing up missing characters again, there was no Bulk and Skull, originally played by Paul Schrier and Jason Narvy respectively. I mean, there were the two girls that got up in Kimberly's business at the bathroom, but that only lasted one scene, and their names couldn't be Bulk and Skull. One can argue about the ginger guy being a combination of Bulk and Skull? Ah, I'm not buying that, it was also a role that didn't last long. That sucks because Bulk and Skull are huge reasons for the show's legendary status and for it being so beloved and, in my opinion, entertaining.


Moving back into the story, it's pretty much over anyways. I mentioned earlier how Jason returned the Power Sword, saying he'll come back for it. I'm sure that will happen, if a sequel comes, the other Rangers better get their weapons too. The Power Daggers (Trini), Power Lance (Billy), Power Bow (Kimberly), and the Power Axe (Zack). Trini is seen fixing up her bedroom, remember Rita and her had a scuffle there. Her brothers were arguing about who should be the Blue Ranger, because he's the coolest. The Red and Blue Rangers are painted on a wall, those kids must be talented artists. Interestingly enough, one of the kids is wearing red, the other, I can't really tell. Blue jeans, yes, but the sweater looked green to me, maybe blue. Anyways, Trini interrupted and suggested the Yellow Ranger. Really funny bit, one of her brothers said “he” is so cool, but Trini asked “How do you know it's a 'he'?” That's right! Despite the Yellow Ranger in the original series was a woman, in Zyuranger, the Yellow Ranger was a man. Yeah, that's funny, especially when you jump from a skinny Asian woman to a skinny Asian man, or a black woman with noticeable boob size, to the same skinny Asian man, who is flat chested! Classic.


Meh, Kimberly looked at a picture of her and her buddies, which begs the question on who took the picture. She looked into the mirror, as in looking at the audience, and...uhhh, yeah she made faces. Moving on, Zack is playing chess with his mom, who talked about the Power Rangers, I guess she saw it in the news, though I can't spot a TV in her bedroom. She's bedridden throughout the movie, maybe she got up and went to the living room? Actually, I don't even know if there's a TV in that mobile home. Anyways, it's a really nice moment, Zack asked if the “five warriors” were good looking. All Zack's mom said was “Checkmate.” Then they high-fived! AW! I loved that. Billy was taking down some of his strings that were part of his Zeo Crystal searching project from earlier in the movie. His mom called to him, saying his friends are at the door, and she said “Dee-Dee,” again this random running gag of people pronouncing Trini's name wrong. I don't know why that is a thing in this movie.


Despite them being heroes, they still have their weekly detention. The movie closes out with them gathering together, with Zack and Trini appearing there for the first time. Billy is seen preparing something, gee I wonder what it is? The note passing happens again, and all the while Zordon's voice is heard. He praised the Rangers and said that he will forever be in debt to them. Back to the note, very neat as it had the Power Rangers lightning bolt logo, and it was colored with pink, yellow, black, blue, and red. I don't think they ever had that colored lightning bolt logo, it was yellow in the TV show, and silver looking in the first movie. So, thumbs up for that. That ends the movie...


But wait, there's more! This movie also followed the trend where the end credits are so well done and animated, while the opening credits just don't exist anymore, which is a shame. During this, you can note some names. Haim Saban being a producer, he's the one who not only founded Saban Entertainment, now Saban Brands, he created Power Rangers, so there's that. Still, I don't think he had a lot of say in what went on in this movie. It's funny, it listed “p.g.a” next to his name. So despite the show being non-union, he's part of the Producers Guild of America. Dammit man. A rare credit in the franchise, I don't believe they were credited in the first movie, but there was a “Based upon” credit for Toei Company Ltd. That's neat, and the credit listed Super Sentai, the franchise they created and Haim Saban adapted into Power Rangers. All this is nice, but the music is stupid. It's “Give It All,” which is actually a stupid sampling of “I've Got The Power.” The show says the word “Power” so many times, which is funny, but this movie, more than the 1995 film, has a fetish for using licensed songs that have “Power” in it. I assume it was them making up for the fact that the “Krispy Kreme” is said moer times than “Power” is in the movie. The credits listed the main cast, and you can see their names appear over color appropriate rocks. Dacre Montgomery's name for example, is on a red gem, Bryan Cranston's as well since he was the Red Ranger in the prequel section. Elizabeth Banks' name was over a green gem, you get the idea. Pretty cool. Alright, this is kind of widely known, so I won't put a spoiler tag, I even mentioned it a bit, I think, in my MMPR The Movie review. So, here goes, you can skip the paragraph if you consider this mid-credits scene a spoiler.


The detention teacher read Tommy Oliver's name during roll call, but they were nowhere to be found. They actually decked out Tommy's corner, so to speak, with a lot of references. IMDB trivia helped in this, though some are obvious. A green jacket over the chair, remember, Tommy Oliver came in the show and became the evil Green Ranger, then turned good and was the 6th Ranger for the team. The jacket itself apparently has a dragon on it, though it's hard to make that out. Tommy Oliver pilots the Dragonzord, in Zyuranger his Japanese counterpart is called the “Dragon Ranger,” and he's also the Tyranno Ranger's (Red) brother. Oh, and the Dragon Ranger dies in that series, spoiler, hehe. Back to this scene, a little book titled “Better Choices,” which referenced the Tommy Oliver story of first being an evil Ranger, and the spell being broken, returning to the good side, learning about the bad things he did, and choosing to make up for it by being the Green Ranger on Zordon's side. Right behind Tommy's chair and desk is another desk that has a book on biology. Tommy ended up getting a degree in paleontology, which is a branch of biology. This also leaves the door open for a sequel, but note the way I described Tommy. That was intentional, there is no indication that Tommy in this movie continuity is a male or a female. As a result, people have lobbied for a female Tommy Oliver, and it would make her the first good female Green Ranger, since Rita was bad. That is, if you include this movie into the whole Power Rangers universe. Even some of the actors are totally for this potentially historic moment, as well as Jason David Frank himself not minding the new Tommy Oliver to be a woman. In my opinion, YES! Do that, not just because of women's history angle, but also a history making moment in balance. Typically, it's always been at most a 2:3 ratio of females to males in the various Ranger teams. Hell, one of the Neo-Saban seasons had only one female on a team of 5, this was Dino Charge. They made up for it by expanding the team to some ridiculous number, I think 8 or so, I'm not sure because I haven't made it to that show yet. They roped in another female, a Purple Ranger, which is super rare in the show, her being the second only Purple Ranger. Anyways, I just started Alien Ranger and there's only one woman in that team, though she is the leader. In their Japanese counterpart, Kakuranger, that's not the case because of the Red Ranger leader tradition, but because MMPR had established that the White Ranger leads the team, it being Tommy before the Alien Rangers came in, they kept up that continuity for the Alien Rangers mini-series. Just to confirm, the Kakuranger White Ranger is a female too, so, in case one thinks it's a Yellow Ranger mismatch all over again. So back to this, I'd like that balance, 3 women, 3 men, so let's have that visual representation of fairness. Hell if it was 3 women and 2 men as part of the team, then I'd want the 6th Ranger to be a man. That's just my opinion. To me this would be the biggest incentive to watch the sequel, the Green Ranger, Tommy Oliver. In the show he's a legendary character, one of the most well written and well developed characters in the franchise. So, this is a huge deal, if a sequel happens, it has to be done very delicately. It sounds like I'm sucking off Jason David Frank since he played Tommy Oliver, but trust me, it's not really about that. JDF or not, this is a major character. I wonder if they'll adapt the evil Green Ranger arc. It's totally possible. Going back to Rita's departure in the movie, something I didn't notice at first, when she got pimp slapped her staff disappeared. She lunged at the Rangers with the staff in hand and that has the Green Power Coin infused on it. When she's next scene in outer space, that staff is nowhere to be found. They didn't have a shot of the staff flying off on its own, so this theory is not as heavy as it should be. Still, this means Tommy Oliver could find the staff, and the Green Power Coin, and with that, turn into the Green Ranger. If Lord Zedd comes in the sequel, or even if Rita does this, that means they could turn Tommy evil, and set the new Green Ranger loose on Angel Grove and on the Power Rangers. This is just so wide open and would be great, it would also probably lead to having more action, as this movie is severely lacking in it. It could mean 50% drama, 50% action, instead of the 75/25 deal this movie gave, which by the way is me being nice. I could argue 80/20 really. So, Lord Zedd, Rita's return, Green Ranger, female Tommy Oliver, the sequel automatically on paper sounds like it would be much better than the original. Also, Gigi Hadid's name popped up as someone suggested for the Tommy Oliver role. I didn't know she's a huge Power Rangers fan, so yeah, why not?!


The credits eventually go to the standard black with white text, I was annoyed by the main theme song playing. I'm just tired of that, even though there was a sweet orchestral/rock instrumental version of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers theme! It's not from the original movie too, it's a totally new version. Why didn't that play in the movie?! Ugh, and also here, it only played for 48 seconds. Fucking assholes! Goddamn bullshit man, seriously, and closing out the credits was that main theme song (to be fair, the theme song didn't play at all in the credits to the first movie, but it certainly played more during the movie than this 2017 film). Sigh, it makes me wonder who in the cast and crew actually watched the damn show. Sure, these actors were born either when the show just started or years after, but Netflix anyone? Yeah, Netflix has every single Power Rangers season, this month they recently added the 2017 Ninja Steel season. Referencing IMDB trivia, specifically Naomi Scott and Becky G weren't fans, they only knew of the 1995 movie's theme song by family members, the latter also learned of the show from her cousin. The former would play Power Rangers with her brother as a kid. I don't know about the male Rangers, but again, Netflix, the equivalent of a public library of Ranger studies. I have a feeling the screenwriter for this, John Gatins, didn't really study up on the show. Also, there are four “story by” credits, so it's possible that contributed to the movie's problematic tone shift.


Being done with this movie, I could go into a general trivia section, but eh, I don't feel like it. That indicates what I feel about this movie. I did mention how the movie had a really hard time in international sales. I want to elaborate on that. All the credit to the Power Rangers Wiki for this, the fact that the movie really put front and center that this was the first big budget superhero movie to feature an LGBQTIA+ (full name apparently, but I'll lower it to LGBQT) hero and another on the autism spectrum, Trini and Billy respectively, there were some consequences internationally. Specially on the former, Russia actually gave this an R rating, and China has a similar crackdown on LGBQT media, and the box office there was a horrible $3.3 million. China over the last couple years has become a hot bed for box office success, movies that would tank in the US, would do gangbusters in China and keep sequel talks going for at least a while. Expendables 3 is a notable example for that, its box office was not good in the US (regardless of the reason, it was leaked before the premiere by the way), but in China it did really well. Even though sequel talks died down, with Stallone at one point saying he's done with the franchise, over the last few weeks, I read that Expendables 4 could still be happening. Also, this is a Lionsgate franchise. Perhaps they jumped on Power Rangers in the hopes of making up for Expendables flopping, but unfortunately they suffered a similar fate of lukewarm box office success, made worse by China, their big source of profit, giving this movie the beatdown. Some Russian legislators actually spoke about this and they spewed really insane things. “Gay propaganda” and calling it “homofascist ideology,” and that it should be banned in Russia. That is just crazy. Now, I may have come off as actually agreeing with them, because of how I criticized the near open advertisement about these historic cinematic moments. I'm all about subtlety though. The Mortal Kombat X example I mentioned is a case of brilliant subtlety, one that blew my mind, almost 3 years after the game's release. It seems the controversy was more on Trini's sexuality, so I won't really harp on the autism angle. I still felt Billy blurting that out was just ridiculous, but again I'm no expert on autism, so maybe people on the spectrum do that. It's just weird that he only blurts it out once, early in the film, only to Jason, and that's it. Does RJ Cycler act autistic? I think so, again I'm no expert. If he actually did, then he was surely a high functioning one, I said “savant” after all. Anyways, back to Trini, again her deal was subtle if you go by the story, one can interpret that she's a lesbian or that she is curious, questioning. The hype and interviews ruined that subtlety, with the director saying she is a lesbian. That kind of magic secret sharing to me is a sin. Maybe if all that was kept under wraps, the movies would've done better in Russia and China, before they realized what the deal was and do the crackdowns after the fact. I don't know, but even though their ideologies are ones I do not agree with, the numbers don't lie, this movie suffered from the sociopolitical statements it wanted to make. Sad, but true basically.


Continuing on with the financial success being middling to poor, it's a well known bit of sadness that Toys R' Us will be shutting down its stores. I have a Toys R' Us just outside of town, across from the mall, and I've been there a few times, so it's sad that an end of an era is approaching. Tentpole release toy sales from the movie did so poorly that during the months of March and April last year, Toys R Us reported losses on that as well as just general tentpole releases, toy sales in the UK were record breaking however. That alone refueled sequel talks for a while, but as of July 2017, those talks died down. So, who knows if a sequel will happen. As I said many times, I am totally for it.


I looked at Wikipedia, which is rare for me when it comes to movie research, just to see if there's any interesting info about the critical and fan response to the movie, as well as the box office. I'll repeat that on a $100 million budget, there was only a worldwide gross of $142.3 million, with US alone only amounting to $85.4 million, and an even more dismal international box office gross of $57 million. It opened in the US and Canada alongside, Life, ChiPs, and Wilson, movies with varying degrees of box office success. Well, quickly looking into it, only Life had apparent success financially. Critically, I read it got mixed reviews. ChiPs, I remember this too well, it bombed super hard, so it just wasn't a strong month for movies, March 2017. It did exceed a projected gross of $30-35 million on opening weekend but making $40.3 million, finishing second behind the $90.4 million weekend making Beauty and the Beast. That is such a gap though. The audience was notably diverse and mostly between the ages of 18-34, so pretty much the age group of people who watched the series. Power Rangers debuted in 1993, so these people in their 30s were watching them when they were 5-10 years old or so. The 18-25 year olds, such as myself, probably got into the show through a different season, plus this came out in 2017, and I think in 2014, Netflix started to add on all the seasons of the show, so you had a new generation of people watching the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, as well as keeping up with later seasons and whatever current one was running on TV at the time. Doug Walker, referencing him again, is in his 30s, but he was/is not a fan of the show, he still didn't love the movie overall. While I'm at it, James Rolfe, who reviewed MMPR and the first two Power Rangers movies, watched the 2017 movie and did a little review with Mike Matei on it, and they were mostly positive about it, I heard a 7/10 out of Mike for instance, so there's that. I think if you tried to gather all the opinions of those who watched it, the majority would be in the middle, that it was an “eh” or “okay” movie, I personally haven't read people who absolutely loved it. I mean, there's also the MMPR cast, and their opinions are mostly positive, but some of them are just “It's alright.” Some of their criticisms matched mine actually. The “Go Go Power Rangers” song should've played longer, the suits didn't look so good, the Zords were too small, Goldar's missing voice was not good, the action definitely wasn't like their show, other things. Some praise though, most of it was on the acting, which I believe is something that is across-the-board praiseworthy, as well as singling out RJ Cyler has the best performer in the movie. I agree with that. Funnily enough, Austin St. John in Q&As would now always say that the Elizabeth Banks version of Rita Repulsa is hot. Yeah man! Even though she had no eyebrows and a distracting gold tooth, she looked stunning!


On the second week of its theatrical run, the movie had a 64% drop. Ouch, only making $14.5 million in the US, finishing 4th in the box office. Wikipedia mentioned the thing I brought up about how Dean Israelite said that the PG-13 rating probably contributed to the underwhelming box office. No, I don't think so.


Now I'll go into critical response. I'll make this quick, I normally wouldn't do this, but I feel this is a special occasion because the movie's pretty divisive. So, I mentioned Rotten Tomatoes and their 44% approval rating based on 141 reviews, it apparently had an average rating of 5.1/10 as well. The consensus reads “Power Rangers has neither the campy fun of its TV predecessor nor the blockbuster action of its cinematic superhero competitors, and sadly never quite manages to shift into turbo for some gold old-fashioned morphin time” I love how that reeled in references to not only MMPR, but the Turbo season, which followed MMPR and Zeo, plus it had a dedicated movie in 1997. Yeah, 20 years since there was a theatrical Power Rangers movie, and was it worth the wait? Unfortunately no. More on that soon. I would say that consensus is pretty right, but I'd add that a good chunk of what came in its place, the drama, was actually really good. I read the term “CW quality,” which sounds interesting. I haven't seen CW shows really, but some of them have gotten good praise, others, not so much. I did see Vampire Diaries for a period of time, and that was decent, though I don't think that can be compared to this show. CW is the apparent home of live action DC shows, so if I watched some of them, I'd be able to have a better understanding of how this movie is like a CW product. On Metacritic, the film only scored 44 out of 100, but interestingly enough, CinemaScore's audience poll resulted in an average grade of A. Strange, maybe it's people not familiar with the show? IGN gave it a 7/10, saying “Power Rangers doesn't quite pull off everything it wants to, but it's a fun time at the theater nonetheless.” That's a bit too kind because while I agree on the first part, I wouldn't really call it a “fun time” overall. Drama isn't fun, and don't tell me the final quarter was fun, because for the most part, it wasn't. I will say that it at least gave me a glimpse of Michael Bay's Transformers, and how I should continue to stay away from that shit. I wanted to compare Pacific Rim: Uprising to this movie, but it doesn't come out until March 23, wow, a day short of 1 year since this film released. Pacific Rim has a similar theme of giant mechs fighting giant monsters, and since that seems to be a focus on that movie and the original, I wanted to see if it does what the 2017 Power Rangers movie should've done more. I guess I should watch the original Pacific Rim film to find out. Sounds like a plan down the road.


Mike McCahill of The Guardian gave it a 2/5 stars, saying “the film achieves a functioning mediocrity we perhaps might have thought beyond this franchise.” Wow, that's actually close to my own feelings on the movie. It raises a good word, “mediocrity,” that's something Power Rangers at its core, isn't. Granted, I have not seen critically panned seasons of the show, such as Megaforce/Super Megaforce, but MMPR at least is one that is almost universally beloved. One thing about that era of Power Rangers, it was never stale, it was never boring or mediocre, it moved at a million miles per hour, had a simple, repetitive, winning formula, and surprisingly, got better in writing as the series went on. You have a combination of fun 90s cheese, Tokusatsu insanity, civilian martial arts on kids TV, and endearing characters and stories. This movie was tasked of being a product that should honor that legacy, but stand on its own. It does a better job of standing on its own, but in actuality, I mean that it struggles to get a footing in such a crowded superhero movie field. It basically came 10 years too late. 2007 probably would've been the prime year, after X-Men and Spider-Man made their impacts, after Christopher Nolan got the Batman movie series back on its feet, but before the beginning of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and The Dark Knight, two entities that for 10 years, influenced the trend of superhero movies. Power Rangers probably would've been thought of as that appreciated midpoint, the drama in that would've been hailed as challenging and deep, and while I still argue that it is to an extent, following a decade of groundbreaking superhero cinema filmmaking, in comparison, it's now shallow and not so challenging, despite the history made in including autistic and LGBQT characters into superhero moves. Oh, sorry, I'm jumping to my conclusion of the review, I have to go back a bit to critical responses.


Mike Ryan of Uproxx gave it a negative review, uh oh. “Power Rangers has one of the most zig-zagged tones of any big budget studio film I’ve seen in a long time. It’s jarring at times how often it goes back and forth between 'gritty' and 'silly'." I was thinking about this, and yeah, there are silly moments sprinkled throughout the movie, but if going by the first 90 minutes of the film, I'd say there's still an overwhelming majority of the “gritty,” or the drama. Rita was offering some silliness during that part, as well as some random bits of humor and whatnot. Oh Alpha 5, he wasn't as over-the-top as the show, but he still wasn't someone you can take seriously. A more detailed quote, from Owen Gleiberman writing for Variety, "...25 years ago, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was launched as superhero fodder for kids, and there was indeed a place for it, but we’re now so awash in superhero culture that kids no longer need the safe, lame, pandering junior-league version of it. They can just watch Ant-Man or the PG-13 Suicide Squad. Safe, lame, and pandering have all grown up." Damn! He has a point, it actually backs up my opinion that this came 10 years too late. I would say though that this movie actually seemed to narrow itself down to teenagers, and only scarcely please the adults, which most would be assumed to be fans of the original series. Teen drama basically, and fundamentally, I'm just not a fan of that, at all. That was one of my biggest aversions to the movie, but since I watched the series and intend to watch the other seasons that followed MMPR, for the sake of completion and wanting my own opinion, I did give this movie a chance. I don't regret this, so that's a positive, but hold on, still not at the end. One last quote, from Robbie Collin of The Telegraph, who gave it a brutal 1/5 stars, criticizing the "abjectly embarrassing frenzy of product placement". YES! Oh my Lord, and the opening section of Wikipedia sums up the negative opinions. I'll quote that too: “Met with mixed reviews upon release, with criticism primarily focusing on its uneven tone, product placement and divergences from its source material, Power Rangers grossed $142 million worldwide, and was labeled a box office disappointment.” Yeah that's pretty much it. I would like to stress though, that if you only watched the last 30 minutes (well, 21 minutes) of the movie, you would mostly forget about the heavy teen drama tone that dominated the first 90 minutes of the movie. It just went into a CG orgy and that was the most disappointing aspect for me. All the waiting and slow burning, amounting to pure apathy. Sigh.


Going back to sequel talk, as there is a section of that on Wikipedia, Haim Saban on March 22, 2017, 2 days before the premiere of this movie, said that he and Lionsgate already had a six-film story arc. Jeez man. In May of 2017, Forbes noted that because of the underwhelming box office performance in most markets, it's unlikely any sequels would be made. Later that month though, it was reported that they could still be made thanks to “record-breaking merchandise sales,” but I read on the Power Rangers Wiki that it basically meant UK toys sales being massive. That's just one territory though, unfortunately I don't think that's enough to get the ball rolling. Interestingly enough, there was a report that the movie held the number one spot in home media sales and rental in its first week. Well, I don't think that's enough. I mentioned earlier that Dean Israelite would like to include Lord Zedd in it, and he said there were talks for a sequel. The time period of that though was before the home release of the movie, again since July of last year, talks died down. Quickly on Lord Zedd, he's awesome, I actually didn't talk about the villain too much here. He was the perfect successor to Rita, and basically did things better than Rita in terms of his evil plans, and his look being scary, instead of being silly. He took the show on a whole new level, to the point where parents complained that was too edgy for kids TV. Sadly this resulted in Zedd being toned down, and that featured him marrying Rita Repulsa. One good thing about how this movie was made, is that Lord Zedd would find a more consistent and good place here. As in, he wouldn't be toned down, he would just fit right in. If I could cast, it would have to be someone who can pull off an intense, gravelly voice and be pretty muscular. So my pick would actually be Hugh Jackman. Or you could go the Ultron route and make him all CG, and then the voice can still be Hugh Jackman. That would also expand the realm of actor candidates, so I would include Liam Neeson as one, Patrick Stewart, or hell, I wouldn't be opposed to the original voice of the character, Robert Axelrod doing the voice. But they would go for a big name celebrity, so those are my suggestions. Ian McKellan came to mind as well. Back to sequel stuff, in August of 2017, Saban abandoned its trademark for the film's logo, but in October of that year, a representative for Saban Brands stated that "Power Rangers continues to own and renew hundreds of trademark registrations worldwide, including for the 2017 movie logo. The trademark registration process is very nuanced, and the status of the single application has no bearing on our ownership of or the future plans for Power Rangers. The franchise remains as strong and enthusiastic about its future as ever." Translation, they still want to do a sequel. Yeah, good luck with that.


Alright, that about does it. So, for such a mixed bag of a movie, it becomes challenging a bit on what the final verdict should be. After reviewing it and revisiting scenes from the movie, my opinion became somewhat more negative, which isn't a good thing. I'm sure I would've had this on a second viewing. I gave a “Tl:dr” version of my review to a friend and that helped really keep my final thoughts in a tight package, easy to deliver in this full-fledged review. That being said, here's the deal. The movie's drama was really good, but had some major speed bumps, most notably for me the Kimberly backstory. I should've elaborated that test audiences didn't like the kiss to Jason, because according to the director, they felt it went over her redemption story. That is a good point, but I'm much more harsher on that. I think it deserved the cut because it was a rush job and yes it would have undermined her redemption story. It would have undermined her character as a whole, such a thing should blossom in a sequel, and keep the seeds here. If it were to happen, I still wouldn't be positive about it because I feel it would've been a case of them feeling like this has to happen. Regardless of good or bad writing, that kind of belief in me is strong. Unnecessary story elements can be a bad thing, and to me, this relationship qualifies as a potentially dangerous example. I did watch the teaser trailer again since it had been a long time since I saw it. That kiss is in the trailer. So yeah, good thing still that it was cut out. The kiss happened in the solo confession scene between Kimberly and Jason. Back to the movie as a whole, it tried to offer some challenging drama for a teen audience, and even as a 25 year old male, I did feel a bit of it. However, my feels were more centered around Billy. Because of that, RJ Cyler deserves my highest praise, he knocked it out of the park. This movie only got some award nominations in the Teen Choice Awards, but RJ Cyler was nominated for “Choice Scene Stealer.” Absolutely well deserved, he stole the movie. His acting and charm made him such an awesome character to watch, and when it comes to comparing these teens to their TV show counterparts, Billy is actually the closest to his predecessor in that regard. David Yost's Billy was someone that had an incredible arc through MMPR. He went from being a meek geek of a teenager in early season 1 to taking down a monster all by himself in season 3. The only character arc that arguably trumps Billy's is Bulk and Skull and Tommy. Kimberly also had a very notable character arc where she went from a typical Valley Girl to someone who became absolutely selfless and put Ranger duties ahead of being a teenager. Her story ended basically with Zordon and her fellow Rangers encouraging her to just keep being a teen, live that normal life, and I loved how that was explained. I went into that particular finale thinking that it's selfish of her to choose gymnastics over being a Power Ranger, but the writing actually raised really good points and it's one where I ultimately agree with. You see? Despite the “Rated G with extra cheese” the show generally is (a Karan Ashley coined phrase), it would take time to tackle some more serious issues, and that's the benefit of a TV show over a movie. Despite me liking a good portion of the drama, namely Billy and Zack, with Jason trailing behind, and the girls being more behind (I'm not sexist dammit!), at the end of the day, it was too much. At the expense of getting the action Power Rangers calls for, even by taking the name alone literally, it leads to a mess in tone and overall content balance. Judging by that minimum of 75/25 in favor of teen drama alone, this movie is not good. Again, take that alone, I'd say the movie is bad. It downplayed the true charm of the original series and that is a massive disappointment. Now, taking in my opinion that the movie's drama a majority of the time was great, you have that mixed bag. When you combine good drama with unimpressive CG, a generally lame action aesthetic, extremely questionable characters (Kimberly), horrific product placement, a piss poor treatment and usage of the “Go Go Power Rangers” song (hell, it would've been awesome if the original version by Ron Wasserman played in the movie or in the credits, especially the latter, and in its entirety), great acting almost across the board, faint nods to the original series when there should've been stronger grabs from it, and some over-the-top acting from Elizabeth Banks that was seriously the strongest sense of the original show's spirit in this movie. Other elements too, and you get such a mixed bag, but it comes down to the movie being mediocre. This movie should've been awesome, that's the thing, that it's so middling is a major disappointment. Sometimes middling is the worst, because absolutely loving a movie or hating it, are similar in that you have a strong emotion overall. For me, it all boils down to just being “meh.” Picking apart the movie, in quantity, there's more good than bad, in quality, the bad really overshadows the good though. If I'm tasked to judge it as a movie, irrespective of Power Rangers, then it's still a really middling affair, taking the teen drama angle too far and sacrificing potential popcorn movie fodder. At the same time, the popcorn movie fodder offered here pretty much sucked, “lame” is just the word constantly coming to mind. “Apathy” and its variants also ring a lot for me. Basically, its chance to deliver on action, was a dud. Power Rangers shouldn't be mediocre, it shouldn't be a dud, but this movie exhibited qualities of that. Is it bad? Not entirely, I gave my praise, and I gave my criticism, and you can see that it's not all bad. I'll quickly single out the actors. Dacre Montgomery, solid performance, but if you haven't seen Stranger Things season 2, please do because he's awesome in his role. Actually, it's quite funny now because his character's name there is Billy. This is a talented actor too, he proved that in Stranger Things more than here. RJ Cyler, what more can I say? He killed it, I'm just repeating myself, the heaviest emotional responses that weren't negative, came from him and involved him. Ludi Lin remains as my dark horse, my surprisingly person of interest when it comes to giving props. I even wish there was more to him, like maybe his mother passing, or even a scene where you see her mother really struggling, it would've been a chance for Lin to really act solo. I believe he would've pulled it off, he was really good, and likable. He was the cool teen with attitude basically. Naomi Scott really got on my nerves the more I analyzed her acting and scenes, but I'll conclude that for the most part, she did a decent job. She certainly lacked a magnetic and lovely charm that Amy Jo Johnson had, and still has in spades. Becky G, now coming out of this review and revisiting her scenes, was the weakest link of the five. I was more on her business over scenes where she should've emoted more. Basically, greenness got the better of her. I won't lie about the original Trini, she was one of the least developed characters of the original team. A big part of it though was that actress Thuy Trang left the show early into season 2. While I'm at it, the character arc of Zack in the original series also could've been better, but same thing, the departure hurt that. He was actually on the cusp of having major character development because it looked he was coming up as a second-in-command to Jason. Jason's arc in the show was also compromised by Austin St. John's departure, but he still had the most development out of these three, because of his leadership status being something so admirable and legit, and the care and concern he has for his teammates, his friends. It also helped that part of it is attributed to the great writing in the Tommy Oliver story, as well as the real life person being himself inspired by the role, the response and admiration it got, that Austin St. John ended up working a bevy of jobs, including being a fireman, a paramedic, and even a contractor for the United States Department of Defense, and going to the Middle East and being a certified EMT for various military bases, fellow contractors, basically any American soldier or worker occupying over there. He himself right before he came home from the war, was in Kuwait. So, this mean was a hero on-screen, and off-screen. Now, despite the unfortunate ends of Trini, Zack, and Jason (he in particular does return for a little period in Zeo and the Turbo movie), they and the rest of the cast created something that justifiably inspired a generation of children, to be who they are now, and just for me as an adult, provide lovely entertainment, as well as just being admirable people. I love them all, and they deserve the best. That includes Bosch, Cardenas, Ashley, and Sutherland, who replaced actors from the original 6, they all deserve great things.


Wow, I got off tangent. Back to the actors. Bryan Cranston as Zordon was very good, he was in the background a lot though, but his contribution is nonetheless impactful, great stuff. Bill Hader did to Alpha what the show did to a fault, and that's make a silly but very helpful robot. With the show, they made him too silly and annoying with that “Ayeyaiyai” catchphrase. Still, the show version softened on me. This movie version, thumbs up all the way. Small role still, and yeah the robot was CG, but still, Bill Hader did a damn fine job. Minor characters like Jason's dad, yeah, alright. Zack's mom, I mean, it's kind of weird to praise someone for acting sick in a supporting role. I just end up thinking of the character as being real and not think of the actor. That can be a good thing though, such as the case here, I definitely cared for her help. I'll give shoutouts, David Denman played Jason's dad, and Fiona Fu played Zack's mom, so, good on them.


Last, but certainly not least, Elizabeth Banks. One of my angels, sacred cows, queens, she was awesome in this movie. She was what her character needed to be, and it's easy to appreciate her as a fan of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers since she embodied the essence of the original Rita and the show more than everyone else. I absolutely loved her in this movie, and her look was just right too. Of course, it wasn't like the original Rita, but it was just memorable and strong enough given her Green Ranger betrayal backstory, that it's totally welcome for me. I thank her the most for reminding me of the show.


In conclusion, the movie barely edges into good territory for me. The crimes and mistakes it made overshadowed a heavy sense of legitimately good moments. However, I am so down for a sequel, not only because of unfinished business, but it would have a better shot of being a great movie than this one. They got the backstory and redemption stuff out, so the sequel would lend itself more to action, more of a chance to be like the show. This movie though had a chance and squandered it for the most part. The opening a sequel would create is bigger, so please, if it happens, capitalize on the chance. Make it more cheesy, make it more action packed, make it stand better on its own in the overcrowded superhero movie world. Hell, if you looked at the poster of the movie, you think you're going to get a Transformers looking action movie, and with the title of the film, something really wild, epic, fun like the original series. You only get a bulk of the action in the last 21 minutes, sadly, and that Transformers-lite quality was very lame in the end. So, don't judge a book by its cover. You just have to sit through 90 minutes of drama stuff, but you'll find some good in it, but overall, the movie misses the mark of what I believe it should've been. Something that should've had more action, as it wouldn't really sacrifice the drama, there were already loads to go around, too much really. The 2 hour and 4 minute runtime could've been filled in differently and better. From the same studio that made the disappointing mess in Expendables 3, Lionsgate is just not doing it for me now, unfortunately. It's hard to recommend the movie, given the flaws, but I will say it's worth one viewing. I don't believe it's worth repeated viewings, just one so you can maybe form an opinion of it. If it was straight up bad, I wouldn't recommend it. It's middle of the road, but you'll find some really good stuff here and there.


One thing I forgot to do, and has ended up fitting as one of the last things to address, is how this movie compares with the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers film. It's night and day really, I think it kind of goes without saying. Having given my final thoughts, I think it's obvious what I prefer. The thing about Power Rangers, above all else, is that it's fun. It's silly, goofy, cheesy, sometimes dramatic and well written, but above all else, it's fun. This movie's fun factor is really low, whereas the original film's fun factor is really high. Even though that movie has some flaws in the transition from TV to film, the spirit of the show is maintained better than this movie. Also, yeah, the actual Power Rangers from the show come in for the movie, so there's that, but it's a movie I can watch multiple times. Hell, I watched it loads of time as a kid, I can't give an accurate number as I don't remember, but let's estimate about 7 times at least. For a kid, that's a lot, for an adult, same thing because I don't make a lot of time to watch movies anymore. I'm willing to watch it again and again, go to a movie theater screening, have a pizza meal during it, have fun, watching a fun movie. There is a sense of preference here, what you prefer watching as these two are totally different, as well as being products of its time. That movie in 1995 might not fly in 2018. Maybe it could to offer a much needed alternative to Marvel and DC, it would essentially go even further down the goofy rabbit hole that Marvel tends to occupy for example. That's just enough to make it a fresh alternative. Or, the general audience may reject it for being too stupid for theaters. There are similarities, surprisingly, key deaths, use of the word “kill” and references of death itself, over-the-top villains, and CG filled climaxes. Yeah, the CG in this movie is so much better than the dreadful CG in the original movie, but that's not saying much. Also, there's a sense of forgiving the original move for that sin, whereas here, it's just a case of being of its time and not being above its contemporaries. Like the whole movie, the CG is just middling and almost uninspired. The original movie also had an unmorphed fight scene, a morphed fight scene, even a ninja costumed fight scene, Zords having some solo time and combining to make a Megazord. The fight scenes are placed perfectly in the film. You get two big ones almost back to back in the first 30 minutes, a good 30 minute calm until the third act, and that third act, the last 25 or so minutes is just nonstop action, albeit filled with that horrible CG. Still, the Rangers aren't CG, you get their dubbed voices through the suits, those suits look much better than the 2017 movie. The 1995 film is pretty much what a Power Rangers movie should be, again, except for the CG part. That being said, the 2017 film could've had that, and keep the drama aspect, but it pushed the drama a little too far, and the action was literally “too little, too late.” So, I'll stick with the original movie, loads of replay value there.


Now, I don't really give ratings in reviews, because they are subject to change. Actually, I don't remember if I gave ratings in older reviews. Let's assume I never did. I do actually keep a list of the movies I watched in 2016-2018, separated by year, and give ratings out of 10. I just never shared the ratings here, I could always change my mind. It's better to change my mind privately, rather than in public, that's just me. However, I'll make an exception at least here and maybe make this into a regular thing. The reason for this movie is so I can give a very simple, emphatic statement on something that is the purest definition of a mixed bag. That being said, I'll give the rating as I do in my list, out of 10.

6/10

[Rogerbh]

Wow! is that a record for length of post?

I watched White House Down (2013) on cable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Down Fairly unbelievable tale of a right wingish Defense Industry backed attack on the Jamie Fox's presidents administration. Channing Tatum is the "Die Hard" cop de jour who is in place to hinder the attack. His young daughter is played by Joey King who turns in a good job as his adorable offspring whom he must protect. I almost shut it off when they fired an ICBM from maybe Nebraska to down the VP's jet flying south of the great lakes. The lack of an early response from law enforcement was laughable. That aside, Channing Tatum is a likeable lead so I'd give it 3 of 5. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 62% from viewers. Just turn off your brain if you choose to watch it and enjoy the special effects. I didn't see Olympus has fallen so I can't compare them.

[Sir Honkers]

Coco. A colourful, entertaining story about Mexico's Day Of The Dead, the importance of family and one young boy's quest to become a musician. My only complaint is it's twenty five minutes too long. Two sombreros up.

[Brecht]

A Place in the Sun (1951)



Trailer

George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) quits his bellhop job in Chicago to find a better job in the company of Charles Eastman (Herbert Heyes), his wealthy industrialist uncle who's based in California. Even though he's welcomed by his rich relatives, George is treated like an outsider. He gets a factory job and is advised by his cousin Earl (Keefe Brasselle) to stay away from the female workers because that's a company rule. But that doesn't discourage George from dating Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters), a pretty coworker. At a party hosted by his uncle, he gets a taste of the local high society and meets the beautiful Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor). They fall in love and George begins to behave like a social climber, yet one torn between his own social background and his uncle's milieu. Just as he's promoted to a better position and securing the love of a rich and beautiful woman, his problems begin when Alice reveals that she's pregnant.

Albeit your typical 1950s Hollywood melodrama, A Place in the Sun is stunning to watch and reels you in with its strong characters, their relationships and the consequences that arise from them. Charlie Chaplin called it "the greatest movie ever made about America". The story is based on An American Tragedy, a novel written by Theodore Dreiser in 1925.

[Silicone Carne]

Another Sara Malakul Lane Double D Feature!

100° Below Zero



IMDB
YouTube Trailer

An American couple races to find their college-aged kids in Paris after a series of massive volcanic eruptions heralds the arrival of a new ice age in Europe.

This was total good cheesy fun!
The Asylum has made a special skill to produce mockbusters or intentionaly bad films. 100° Below Zero is one of them. A basic rip-off from big budget disaster flicks. Most of the story is supposed to take place in Paris but it was shot in Hungary so it's always hilarious when you now Paris very well.
Some stores even have stickers on the windows which contain hungarian words!

But the dialogues are pretty funny too. The movie never ever takes itself seriously and the pace is relentless. Sara Malakul Lane wears a pretty tight purple top most of the time and she's exquisite as always. Jeff Fahey & John Rhys-Davies do their job with the minimum required effort but their presence here is cool.

Of course most of the special effects are awful but it matches the goofiness of it and you definitely have to see Sara shooting on a hailstone like she was playing soccer!
100° Below Zero is not a "good" film but it's a fun one. I liked it.

Death Pool



IMDB
YouTube Trailer

A disturbed pool cleaner fights a losing battle to control his urge to drown beautiful women.

That was an interesting proposal. A slasher film set in the Valley where a young man kills mostly women and sometimes men by drowning them. Of course he has mental issues due to a weird babysitter during his childhood. So the schemes are very common here but still, Death Pool remains some sort of a new approach of a very tired genre.

Randy Wayne does a pretty good job as the young handsome murderer. The movie's also very well shot, especially the lighted photography which marks a contradiction with the subject. There's also a subtext about the craziness of this new generation who's ready to adore and worship anything and anyone, even a serial killer.

Too bad Sara Malakul Lane's in here for only two scenes but she's as beautiful and talented as always. Death Pool won't stay in the psycho killer films memories but it has its moments and overall it's a well done and disturbed motion picture which maybe needed a more focused screenplay. But I liked it too.

[Oh hi Mark!]

Originally Posted by Rogerbh

Wow! is that a record for length of post?

I don't think so, my review of The Disaster Artist was longer. Early 2016 I posted a series of reviews in one post. In fact, there's an unfinished review of all the Rocky movies. I watched them in November 2016 and never finished them. I just remembered that, and I was close to finishing anyways, I was on Creed, which was a first time viewing. I'll probably marathon them later in the future. I enjoyed them all, even Rocky 5, so that's the short version of that.

A glaring omission from my Power Rangers review, while I'm making this post, I'll share here. A trivia note. At the movie premiere, the original 5 all attended. It would be original 6 if Thuy Trang was still alive. Anyways, Jason David Frank, the original Tommy Oliver, was kicked out of the premiere because he brought his phone out to record his cameo. No more details there on IMDB, but he mentioned in a Q&A that security followed him to the bathroom at one point, so he became a marked man that night. It was pretty funny.

I just imagined the original Jason, Austin St. John, rolled his eyes at that. They have a storied rivalry, beef, whatever, but it's possible that's been squashed. When they finally appear together on a panel, that should signify the end of that beef. Quickly on that, basically JDF hanging onto words ASJ said when he was a teen at Power Rangers. Holding a grudge basically while ASJ has moved on from it, though his occasional shade throwing is pretty entertaining. "I'm not going to be at the end of the film holding a phone up for 3 seconds," him addressing a cameo in the sequel if it ever comes. That's what JDF and Amy Jo Johnson did in the movie.

If anyone cares to watch, Power Rangers 2017 is on Hulu and Prime, it should be on Netflix along with all the series but ah well.