The Power Rangers reviews are in... and they're a mixed bag

The movie reboot of 90s kid’s action series ‘Power Rangers’ was a pretty odd proposition.

Appreciated by a cult audience, it’s a film perhaps few were crying out for, but once somewhat baffling roles for Bryan Cranston and Elizabeth Banks (and Bill Hader), as villain Rita Repulsa, were announced, it piqued interest among fans and non-fans alike.

Now the reviews are in. And what’s perhaps most surprising is that they’re not universally bad, but that they’re a bit of a mixed bag.

Calling it ‘a reboot that works’, Scott Mendelson on Forbes writes: “At its best, ‘Power Rangers’ is a throwback to a time when getting a darker, more serious big-budget feature based on your favorite kid-friendly property, one that felt like a real film, was a rare and splendored thing.

“It does work as an engaging teen coming-of-age drama, a kind of Breakfast Club-meets-Chronicle mash-up that turns into Pacific Rim in the third act. Maybe the movie shouldn’t work, but it more or less does. It is also rooted in a nostalgia for a time when movies like this were less commonplace.”

Justin Lowe in The Hollywood Reporter also heaped praise on director Dean Israelite.

“Israelite, building on his experience with teen sci-fi feature Project Almanac, orchestrates a vastly more complex array of characters, action set pieces and technical resources for a combined effect that maintains dramatic tension even while teetering on the brink of excess,” he writes.

“CGI characters and special effects sequences by Weta Workshop and a variety of other companies are seamlessly integrated and consistently thrilling.”

Alex Welch on IGN added: “Power Rangers doesn’t quite pull off everything it wants to, but it’s a fun time at the theater nonetheless.”

Of course, not everyone loved it. Or even liked it.

David Erlich on IndieWire described the $120 million-budgeted movie as ‘a mega-budget reboot that’s embarrassed of the TV show it’s bringing to the big screen’

“’Power Rangers’ feels so distant from the zeitgeist that it seems like NASA should be forced to hold a press conference every time it comes into view,” he adds.

Tim Grierson for Screen International writes: “A teen group therapy session disguised as a superhero movie, ‘Power Rangers’ is numbingly predictable and cynically made, recycling myriad blockbuster tropes but draining their adolescent pleasures in the process.”

In a four-star review (that’s out of 10), Mike Ryan on Uproxx added: “It’s jarring at times how often it goes back and forth between ‘gritty’ and ‘silly.'”

Most of the UK reviews are still set to come in, but currently it’s boasting a 50% approval rating on reviews aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.

It’s due out here on March 24.

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