Who asked for this?

Everything you need to know about the Power Rangers reboot film can be figured out in the first ten minutes of the movie. Maybe the first five. Now I loved Power Rangers as a kid and you know what child me would have never wanted in a Power Rangers movie? High schoolers chatting about jacking off a bull and making it cum. That happens in this movie. Now I don’t want to be overdramatic, but I feel like the kind of writer who adapts a children’s franchise and writes about a teenager jacking off a bull should probably never be hired to write a dignified film.

And that’s exactly what happened, because Power Rangers was written by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, two guys whose biggest claim to fame is not caring about their scripts. And those two dudes went on to write Morbius and Madame Web. Their filmography consists of Gods of Egypt, The Last Witch Hunter, and Dracula Untold. I’m starting to think they might be talentless hacks who keep getting work because they’re cheap and have no spine. Directed by South African “director” Dean Israelite, whose career can best be summed up as “generally mixed reviews from critics,” Power Rangers is a movie that powers the mediocre train of taking something fun and whimsical and making it gritty and serious and dark so the studio can lose millions and murder a franchise.

Power Rangers stars Dacre Montgomery as Jason, a super hetero bad boy who is right good at the football and then screws up his life by pulling a prank with a classmate who is so stupid that he doesn’t know the difference between a cow teet and a bull penis. The latter of which he jacks off. Now with an ankle bracelet and a very disappointed dad, Jason joins the Breakfast Club and meets Billy (RJ Cyler) who subtly tells us he’s autistic by saying “I’m on the spectrum.” Aren’t we all, Billy.

Let’s go over the Burger King kids club of nogoodniks. We’ve got Kimberly (Naomi Scott) who in this world was kicked off the cheerleading squad for bullying by committing sex crimes on a fellow student, sharing her nudes without her consent. Trini (Becky G) is the sulking new girl in town who is also maybe a lesbian. Trini doesn’t really like Kimberly until Kimberly explores her cave and makes her wet. There’s probably a better way to explain the scene where Kim throws Trini down a cave into a lake but that’s what I’m going with.

And there’s Zack (Ludi Lin) who is the silly comedy guy who loves his mom, not an asshole. While out committing crimes at a local mine, the crew comes across some power crystals and gain super strength and the ability to be super sulky. They meet Alpha 5 (Bill Hader) and Zordon (Bryan Cranston) and become the Power Rangers.

Naturally for most of the movie the relationship between Zordon and the rangers is contentious, and the teens hate Angel Grove, and everything sucks because this is a gritty angsty teen movie written by out of touch middle aged dudes. They spend most of the film failing to transform because they don’t understand the power of friendship. Of course this is all building up to a fight with Rita Repulsa (Elizabeth Banks) who spends the first half of the movie as a raving lunatic homeless lady. There’s product placement with Krispy Kreme.

Rita is of course a disgruntled ex-Ranger who betrayed the team because of course she is. Second half Rita Repulsa is much more interesting as a character than the first half though. Gonna be honest if Elizabeth Banks showed up in my bed dressed like that in the middle of the night and menacing me seductively, I’d probably at least hear her out. And the fight at the end of the movie is pretty good, and then Rita gets bitch slapped into space.

I’m not joking. If the rest of the movie had the silly tone that the last thirty seconds of the big fight at the end had, this would be a much better film. Goldar is pretty cool, but a very generic CG character.

Which kinda brings me back to my point. Power Rangers came out at a shitty time, that being 2017 the year of Arnold in an era of dogshit grimdark superhero movies. Had it come out five years in either direction, it probably would have embraced the silliness of the franchise more and been all the better for it. And sure, Power Rangers has had its more mature moments. And I say mature, because joking about jacking off a bull isn’t ‘mature’ as much as it is a sign that the writer should be on a watchlist.

At two hours, Power Rangers is crap. Incidentally the TV series is still going on, so if you want that Ranger fix you can just watch the show and see where that’s gone in the modern times. I think Zordon is dead, I honestly haven’t watched since Power Rangers In Space.

Rating: D