I’ll be blunt. I was not a fan of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers TV series that aired during the early 1990’s, but my kids were. So, being a dutiful parent, I watched the TV series with them and took them to the 1995 movie when they asked. When they fell out of love with the series in the second season, so did I. So you can imagine my hesitation about going to see the 2017 movie reboot of the franchise. I shouldn’t have hesitated because the Power Rangers is a fun and very entertaining movie.
You’ve probably read many reviews that talk about what the movie got wrong and for the most part I won’t disagree with them. However, it got many more things right and that’s why I’m high on this film. For starters, it tells a complete origin story that was simply missing from the TV series. Yes, five teenagers from the town of Angel Grove, California have to prevent the destruction of the world by the villainess, Rita Repulsa. Yes, they are assisted in this task by a mentor, Zordon and an android, Alpha 5. But that’s where the similarity ends. These kids are not teens in spandex. They are heroes in armor.
The Power Rangers movie gives a very good back story to both Zordon and Rita Repulsa, who more than 65 million years ago were at one time both Power Rangers themselves. The movie spends most of its two-hour length fleshing out the five teens and their relationship to each other and their own individual view of their world. I believe the movie profits from this. Yes, at the end of the day, they become a confident winning team, but the movie spends, what I believe to be the right amount of time, showing this confidence comes at a price they initially weren’t prepared to pay.
The bottom line is that the new Power Rangers movie is an enjoyable treat that tells the story better and more completely than the TV series ever did. It lays the groundwork for a franchise that will be worth following.
