POWER RANGERS || Ahead of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was by far my favorite thing growing up as a kid. If I remember correctly, new episodes aired on Wednesday afternoons. After school those days, I had religion class, which was a block from my house, so after that class, I would race home to see the new episode or if I missed a little bit of it, I would record it on VHS. Tommy, Jason, Zach, Trini, Kimberly, and Billy were the original team, called upon to fight Puddy Patrol and other creations from Reta Repulsa and eventually Lord Zedd. There were several iterations to follow, including Turbo, Dino Thunder, and RPM, but none of them quite captured the glory of the original. Now, with the reboot coming the form of a film, I can say that the teaser actually looks quite awesome.

On the surface, it’s just a group of teenagers coming across some kind of alien force that gives them powers and looks to be on par with every other origin story out there. But visually, it looks great, somewhere between Michael Bay’s attempts at bringing to life childhood classics and something a little deeper. This is only director Dean Israelite’s second film following Project Almanac and with a cast of complete unknowns, I consider this a completely clean slate. With Rita Repulsa played by Elizabeth Banks (seen briefly at the end of this teaser) and Zordon to be voiced by Bryan Cranston (who was not depicted yet), there are some bigger names attached, but overall, this will be very interesting to watch. What it does not lack is the look of a big budget, with at least the start of the suits looking exceptional. I cannot wait to see what they’ve done to update the Battle Zords and who the first villains might be besides Rita. All I can say is this will probably be my most anticipated big budget film for next year.

Release Date: March 24, 2017
Directed By: Dean Israelite