re: Official Saban's Power Rangers Movie Thread

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Temple Hill and Saban Brands’ Power Rangers arrives in theaters this Thursday night, around three years after it was announced. The Lionsgate release was initially supposed to open on July 22, 2016 before moving to this weekend and sending the now-theoretical fourth Divergent film into summer. It was a significant move. Lionsgate put its valuable new franchise in the key Spring Break slot and banished the moribund franchise to what otherwise would be a prime summer slot.

At the cost of around $110-$120 million, there is obviously a lot riding on this one. This is a pretty darn expensive movie for the House That Jigsaw Built, up there with the Expendables films and the Hunger Games movies. But it’s obviously nowhere near as costly as the likes of Paramount/Viacom Inc.'s Transformers or Walt Disney's Captain America: Civil War. The question is whether Power Rangers is the start of a new ongoing franchise or another coulda/shoulda/woulda.

To Lionsgate’s credit, their post-Hunger Games output has been so strong that the success or failure of this conventional tentpole play is arguably less of an all-consuming measurement of success than it might have been at one point. Sure, it will hurt if it stumbles, but the Lionsgate that was wondering what they were going to do after Hunger Games is different than the Lionsgate that just released John Wick: Chapter 2, La La Land, Hacksaw Ridge and Boo! A Madea Halloween.

At the very least, it will be an interesting test case for a big-budget live-action adaptation of an ongoing TV show while that show is still airing new episodes. And, should Power Rangers not do well, it will provide another example of a studio thriving with small/unconventional offerings only to strike out with a stereotypical tentpole play. But that’s for another day.

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I’ve written quite a bit about the notion of superhero movies and/or fantasy blockbusters appropriating genre to diversify themselves amid a comparative glut of would-be tentpoles. So yes, Logan is a western, The Dark Knight is a crime drama, Ant-Man is a heist caper and so-forth. Dean Israelite’s Power Rangers does make some of the mistakes found in less successful origin story reboots, mainly in spending too much time getting to what audiences came to see. But it does work as an engaging teen coming-of-age drama, a kind of Breakfast Club-meets-Chronicle mash-up that turns into Pacific Rim in the third act. Maybe the movie shouldn’t work, but it more-or-less does. It is also rooted in a nostalgia for a time when movies like this were less commonplace.

Yes, this is a comparatively grimdark variation on the 24-year television show. The mood is somber, and the color palette is morose, which of course makes the costumes and related toys stand out that much brighter. The fantastical prologue makes a point to show a dying Ranger crawling through mud, water and blood as a villain makes their last stand. It works as both a “This isn’t your little brother’s Power Rangers” statement and a meta-commentary on Joseph Kahn’s satirical and ultraviolent Power Rangers short film that “won the Internet” for a few days two years ago. But once the story starts in earnest, we realize that Saban and friends are very much trying to make a Power Rangers movie in the vein of Chris Nolan’s Batman Begins.

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As someone with no strong feelings for the Power Rangers franchise (I hated it as a kid and came to appreciate its charms as a parent), this is an interesting attempt to craft a grounded and character-driven adaptation, one that successfully blends genre with larger-than-life superhero spectacle. And if you might find it absurd to have a somber and violent Power Rangers movie, then we should note that it can co-exist with the 800+ episodes of the more kid-friendly televised variation. At its best, Power Rangers is a throwback to the likes of Masters of the Universe and the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. It’s from a time when getting a darker, more serious big-budget feature based on your favorite kid-friendly property, one that felt like a real film, was a rare and splendored thing.

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Holy shitballs. I really wish I was a Power Rangers fan because that is a team that won't rape your childhood.

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For its majority, Power Rangers is a heavy-handed, character-forward teen drama with a little bit of Rangers stuff sprinkled in. It’s way, way less interested in the characters as color-coded superheroes than it is with their struggles to grow up and accept the responsibility of being Power Rangers. It’s not a bad story, but it’s so devoted to its teen drama it doesn’t have time for fighting and Zords and everything that makes the franchise fun, so overall the movie feels wildly uneven and, ultimately, disappointing.

As you could tell right from the characters’ muted, overcomplicated uniforms, it’s obvious director Dean Israelite (Project Almanac) didn’t want to make a bright, colorful Power Rangers movie.

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Yes, it gets to the Power Rangers stuff fairly quickly but it all feels secondary to the teenagers’ problems. Zack (Ludi Lin) has a sick mother. Trini’s (Becky G.) parents don’t understand who she truly is. Kimberly (Naomi Scott) is dealing with a bad case of cyber-bullying and Billy (R.J. Cyler) is ostracized because he’s on the spectrum. Add that to Jason’s problem of throwing his life away for a dumb prank and these kids obviously have some issues.

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But once you get past all that the kids finally put on the costumes and jump into action. At this point, the audience I saw the film with cheered, because the movie has finally delivered on its promise. It’s the Power Rangers! Zords! Rita! Goldar! Fighting! But something is off... literally. The kids don’t wear their iconic masks, so we can see their faces almost the whole time. Even in this huge, ludicrous action scene, the film refuses to fully embrace the mystique of the Power Rangers.

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Despite the fun of the third act, it can’t erase those first 90 minutes, and the harsh tonal shift between the two. It’s hard to imagine that young kids—arguably the prime Power Rangers audience—would enjoy sitting through all that talking and angst before getting to the good stuff, although maybe they will

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But walking out of the movie I had a revelation: The problem with Power Rangers is that it establishes a world where five kids in robot dinosaurs don’t belong. In a film devoted to exploring Billy, Jason, Kimberly, Zack, and Trini’s teenage angst, somehow it’s the Rangers who end up not fitting in.

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(I hated it as a kid and came to appreciate its charms as a parent

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The Lionsgate reboot of the '90s children's TV show is the first big-budget superhero movie to feature an LGBT protagonist.

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Haim Saban doesn’t do anything in a small way.

Even as he readies “Power Rangers” for its introduction to a young generation by re-introducing the characters in a new origin-story movie, he’s got a roadmap for their cinematic future.

“We already have a six-movie story arc,” Saban says.

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Now the question is whether the audience will embrace this new generation of “Power Rangers.”

Saban is confident they will. “If this film is as successful as I hope on March 24, on March 25 we’ll have the first story meeting for Movie No. 2.”

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