Theatrical release poster of “Power Rangers.”
Photo courtesy of wikipedia.org
I’ll be the first to admit, I was never really a huge Power Rangers fan as a kid. Sure, I watched a couple of episodes here and there, but I found the show to be very campy and ridiculous. It just did not appeal to me. I wasn’t expecting much from the new film adaptation titled “Saban’s Power Rangers.” I went on a Friday afternoon and the theater was packed with young children, so I could see the overall hype for the film was high. I thought I would get a grounded retelling, that, although a little campy, was fun and enjoyable to watch. Man, was I wrong.
“Saban’s Power Rangers” is one of the worst films of 2017. There’s no denying it. There is not one enjoyable second in its 124-minute run time. It is jam-packed with cringe-worthy moments and dialogue, dumb and obnoxious characters and a generic storyline. I could tell I was in for a long and painful trip after the prologue ended and we were placed into the modern day and age.
The film opens with a joke about pleasuring a cow sexually. I wish I was making this up, but I am not. I couldn’t believe something as raunchy and ridiculous as that made it into the final cut. Because children are the main selling point, I would have thought that the writers and people involved with the actual story would try to make it as kid friendly as possible.
The main characters of the film, as I stated before, are dumb and obnoxious. The film is so fast-paced that we don’t really get a chance to fully see what they are really about. We as an audience are placed into their lives and are expected to just get them.
The film has prided itself for being the first blockbuster to feature LGBTQ and autistic superheroes, but the way both are presented is disrespectful and substandard. Without spoiling much, both characters feel fake. They do not feel like actual people with actual struggles, just fake teenage characters written in a lackluster script.
Speaking of the script, the story is your run-of-the-mill superhero origin story, complete with a dumb training montage to boot. In the first act, the characters find out they are destined for greatness. In the second act they learn to be great, and in the third act they become great and defeat the big bad villain. It is really nothing special at all and a complete waste of time. Everything about this film is just simply a waste of time.
I don’t think I will be able to recommend this film to anyone. It is not fun, it is not entertaining, and it is not worth spending any money. I wish I could say there were aspects of the film that I liked, but in all honesty I disliked everything. “Saban’s Power Rangers” is a film that should ultimately be skipped.
