So this reboot among reboots made me real skeptical at first, but when the trailers came out I got excited enough to have some hope. After seeing it I'd have to say the first act was all pretty successful. I thought the acting was good enough and the characterizations of the teens felt appropriate. It was a pretty slow build up that could have been cut down a bit, but I was enjoying it. The problem is when it was finally MORPHIN' TIME everything felt pretty boring and contrived. I didn't get that big hero rush that usually happens when the heroes finally start kicking ass. The original series was famous for this because as soon as they morphed their heavy metal theme song would lend additional power to the battle and it just made you want to jump off your couch and do karate moves along with them. Scenes like this can go a long way to redeeming a lackluster movie in my eyes, for example when Wonder Woman shows up to the fight in Batman vs Superman or when The Beastie Boys' Sabotage is used to kill aliens in Star Trek Beyond. Power Rangers 2017 didn't have one of these big hero moments, so as a viewer it made all that build up feel wasted with no payoff. Having them just morph in their base and walk out in slow motion (albeit to an awesome song) was really disappointing.
Time for the ole list-of-thing-I-wish-had-been-changed:
-I didn't really like their armor, but I was willing to let it slide. I would have rather had them wear suits more like their original movie suits which were just slightly bulked up versions of the TV costumes. These ones looked a little too bulky and curvy at the same time or something. I'm not sure exactly, but I don't like them.
-However the new suits weren't as bad at the new Zords. In their animal forms they were pretty good (except the mastodon's design was too complicated. If I didn't know it was supposed to be a mastodon I probably wouldn't have been able to figure it out.) Mainly I didn't like the Megazord itself. It was too skinny, I prefer a nice heavy, clunky, robot. I also don't recall them ever actually mentioning the names of their Zords even though they're on their helmets and are supposed to be a part of their power. The way they finally formed the Megazord was kind of stupid too. We all know damn well they're going to do it, why bother acting like their going to die in a pit of unnecessary drama? Just have them form up and win! Another missed opportunity for a big hero moment. I will say I really appreciated that they spent some time fighting as individual Zords before combining though; this was something I always felt was missing from the original series.
-The Putties looked pretty cool as giant stone golems, but I wish only a few were huge like that. Being so much bigger than a human meant normal martial arts wouldn't really work on them and there goes your chance to put in some classic fighting stunt work. Even though the rangers had super powers without their armor they were still basically worthless against the enemies until they were able to morph.
-Lastly, Rita and Goldar were pretty boring but I can let that slide.
It seems pretty obvious that Rita will return (probably along with Lord Zedd) and use her green coin to make Tommy an evil green ranger. I'll probably go and see that one too. And it will probably also be lackluster. I don't really fault Hollywood for all these reboots because a lot of these franchises really deserve a proper blockbuster treatment (especially Power Rangers) and I really felt like this one was so close to nailing it, but they just couldn't pull it together well enough for me to be satisfied in the end.
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