Power Rangers Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Power Rangers Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 27, 2017

It’s been kind of interesting seeing a number of recent high profile films, all of them supposed new “tent poles” meant to establish lucrative new franchises, not exactly click with either the critics or the ticket buying public. Right now as this review is being written, my email, which has a number of regular entries from industry sources, is filled with data about the perceived failures of both the new The Mummy as well as the new Transformers: The Last Knight. While this year’s attempt to reboot the venerable Power Rangers franchise actually ended up raking in well over $100 million, unfortunately it also cost around $100 million, and so by the odd bean counting ethic of the Hollywood accountants, it’s officially a box office flop. On its face (or faces, as the case may be), Power Rangers wouldn’t seem to offer the same revisioning tactics that were utilized in such films as The Dark Knight or even Man of Steel, and so this particular Power Rangers, for all of its perhaps questionable attempts at injecting new material into an old story, tends to reside in somewhat the same territory as another film adaptation featuring a group of mutant heroes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Power Rangers seems to want its source material cake and eat it, too, so to speak, with both content and tone that attempt to somehow nostalgically recall Mighty Morphin Power Rangers while at the same time “modernizing” both elements for a contemporary audience. It’s a daunting task, especially with material that so easily slips into the camptastic, and so it probably won’t come as much of a surprise to many fans that this iteration tends to careen pretty wildly between sections that work, at least relatively, and other, less successful, moments that ultimately tend to drag the entire enterprise down.

Take a good long look (or at least as long as relatively brief snippets allow) at the two Power Rangers suits that are seen in the opening vignette of Power Rangers, because you’re not going to see them again for quite a long while. It’s actually a little odd that a film built on such a well known pre-existing property would deny fans the chance to see an aggregation of brightly “color coded” superheroes in action, but Power Rangers spends a lot of time leading up to the actual introduction of the focal characters (in costume, anyway). The opening sequence, supposedly set in prehistoric times, does offer the peculiar blandishments of Bryan Cranston as Zordon, that era’s Red Ranger and Elizabeth Banks as Rita Repulsa, the erstwhile Green Ranger who has gone over to the “dark side”. Seeing Cranston as a blue skinned, ridge faced alien (once the suit dematerializes) may in fact be enough of a lure to ensure some viewers’ attention, though the rest of Cranston’s appearance is relegated to a kind of high tech Skype element where his consciousness “appears” to help guide the current day Rangers. (It's perhaps worth noting that for older viewers at least, Cranston and Banks are definitely going to be the better known names in the cast.)

The conflict between Zordon and Rita of course sends ripples through the intervening centuries, but, again, Power Rangers takes its own sweet time in actually getting there. Instead, we get a frankly kind of bizarre (or maybe “bizarro world”) version of The Breakfast Club, where high school football star Jason Scott (Dacre Montgomery) is consigned to detention after a failed prank (which itself features one of the hoariest “jokes” ever about the differences between cows and bulls). In detention, Jason meets Billy Cranston (RJ Cyler) and Kimberly Hart (Naomi Scott). These two additions each have their own supposedly riveting back stories, including elements which are decidedly not part of the original television series formulations.

Nearly an hour is spent “preparing the table” (so to speak) for what is already the pre-anointed showdown that will cap the film. At least relatively early on the other (future) Rangers are introduced, including Trini (Becky G) and Zack (Ludi Lin), and all too conveniently the quintet more or less stumbles upon first the power coins and then, a bit later, a buried spaceship with not just Zordon’s psyche seemingly implanted in the walls, but a cute little robot named Alpha 5, who is kind of a cross between a mini-me version of Lost in Space’s iconic automaton and WALL•E. Even with an understanding that this Power Rangers wants to be a more or less traditional origin story, there’s an awfully long time spent on even basic plot elements, as in the characters’ (in?)ability to morph, mighty or otherwise (let’s just say it isn’t mighty to start with).

It’s probably needless to mention that Rita manages to return, wreaking havoc as she attempts to complete her somewhat delayed quest for world domination. As rote as much of Power Rangers is, it’s refreshing in a way to see Banks tear into this material with such carefree exuberance. She seems to recognize the film is already teetering precariously close to camp, and she plays to the veritable second balcony, becoming one of the few energizing elements in the film, despite the typical glut of CGI, bombastic sound design and Michael Bay style theatrics.

While the upshot of all of this is a foregone conclusion from the get go, Power Rangers attempts to inject a little post-modern content into the proceedings, with some of those aforementioned unexpected character traits (which won't be spoiled here), but also with regard to some supposed agonizing concerning Zordon's ulterior motives. It's obviously just flat out silly stuff, and the film might have played better with more of a sense of humor (at least with regard to things other than a bull's "udder").

Power Rangers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Power Rangers is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Whatever individual qualms some fans may have with the actual story and characterizations, my hunch is few will fault the video presentation here, culled from a 4K DI of a Red shot production. While a few of the CGI elements have that typically slightly soft, effulgent look at times, this is overall a really precise, sharp and extremely well detailed looking effort. While some intentional blurriness intrudes in some of the high octane action elements, courtesy of both fast motion by the performers as well as lots of peripatetic cameras, in more "stable" moments the film offers a vividly detailed presentation that typically blends real life actors with virtual elements quite artfully. Almost all of the underground material features quite commendable shadow detail, and even some of the heavily graded sequences don't really suffer from any major diminution in detail levels. The palette is occasionally a little on the muted side (even with regard to those iconic Ranger hues), but there's a wide variety of tones on display, all of them well saturated and often quite distinctive looking. Compression is solid and both contrast and black levels are consistently maintained throughout the presentation.

Power Rangers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Power Rangers offers yet another extremely impressive Dolby Atmos track, one that blasts off from the get go and rarely looks backward, sonically speaking. The opening battle scene sets the stage for what are recurrent uses of overhead effects, often with some almost startling panning that tends to sound like it's heading downward. Even relatively quieter moments, like some of the opening high school scenes, regularly dot discrete channels with individual effects, creating a good and near constant surround environment. As expected, the climactic battle offers a glut of LFE and other thundering, crashing effects which almost cascade through the surrounds like aural avalanches. Dialogue (such as it is in this film) is presented cleanly and clearly, and both it and the intermittently fun score are presented with excellent fidelity and prioritization.

Power Rangers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director Dean Israelite and Writer John Gatins


• The Power of the Present (1080p; 2:20:12) is a set of nine featurettes which explore quite a bit of material, including the history of the franchise, casting, special effects and music.


• Deleted / Alternate / Extended Scenes (1080p; 33:39)


• Outtakes (1080p; 3:41)


• Theatrical Trailer (With Audio Commentary by Director Dean Israelite) (1080p; 2:21)

Power Rangers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's perhaps indicative that my older boy caught Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in what was probably one of its first syndicated rerun iterations, whereas my younger boy, only two or so years younger, wasn't really a fan just that much later, anecdotal evidence that the "Power Rangers phenomenon", as long lasting as it undeniably has been, has also had certain ebbs and flows. There were obvious good intentions with this proposed reboot, but too much modernizing can actually end up defeating what is typically a prime calling card for a franchise like this: namely, nostalgia. The film is resolutely, even relentlessly, predictable, so at least in that way it recalls the original version (and, yes, that's more or less a joke). This is one of those Blu-ray presentations where the video and audio are reference quality, but the film itself probably isn't (so to speak).