power rangers

This week’s most high-profile release is the big Power Rangers reboot (I’m sorry, that’s Haim Saban‘s Power Rangers, please nobody sue me) and the earliest round of reviews has begun to surface over the past few day or so. They are, to put it somewhat charitably, mixed. The early consensus is that the film squanders what could have been remake-ready material — a multiethnic group of telegenic teens working together to form a gigantic robot that battles evil aliens sounds like a pretty hard concept to foul up — with a generic and often painfully unfunny take.

Ricardo Medina, who starred on 'Power Rangers Wild Force' and 'Power Rangers Samurai,' admits he stabbed his roommate after an argument over a parking job.

When the mind thinks of the densest, most sprawling narratives realized over the past couple of decades, the kaiju-influenced action show Power Rangers usually doesn’t pop up first. But a quick scan online would reveal that the series has run for a mind-boggling 837 episodes (and counting!) over the course of 24 seasons since 1993. The series has assumed many forms since then, rebooting itself as a show about ninjas (Power Rangers Ninja Storm), samurai (Power Rangers Super Samurai) and dinosaur-themed warriors (Power Rangers Dino Thunder, Power Rangers Dino Charge, and Power Rangers Dino Super Charge — kids love their dinios). It is, by anybody’s measure, a lot of television.

As ScreenCrush managing editor Matt Singer recently noted, March is now the beginning of the summer movie season. That means saying goodbye to all the middling horror movies, low-concept boutique pictures, and genre films we used to see in March and cutting straight to the $100 million dollar blockbusters that are looking for any competitive edge. Last year, the big release at the end of March was the gloomy Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; this year we’re going to get the gentler kid’s version of that movie in Power Rangers, a film about people in bulky suits and flying machines fighting CGI monsters. It’s kind of a nice parallel.

The high temperature in New York City last Sunday was 44 degrees. The official start of summer is still 113 days — almost four full months — away.

The trailer, featuring Becky G. as the Yellow Ranger and Elizabeth Banks as Rita Repulsa, proves the franchise is campy by nature.

Superheroes don’t have to come from the brightly-colored pages of American comic books; the Power Rangers series that captivated youngsters during the ‘90s and early 2000s had roots in Japan, stemming from their tradition of kaiju films. It’s a powerful bridge between cultures, the universal desire to watch a team of teenagers with extraordinary abilities team up to beat the stuffing out of gigantic monsters, And now it’ll connect generations, too, as the official trailer arrives today with the promise of the same spirit of teamwork and towering-menace-fighting that made them an unlikely cross-Pacific sensation two decades ago.

In case you forgot that the Power Rangers movie is happening, Warner Bros. has rolled out an international trailer to drum up interest here and overseas. There’s a good chance this movie will be way bigger on the other side of the Pacific than here — after all, the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers TV show came from Japan. This is the first big blockbuster live-action movie adaptation of the characters, so it makes sense that it’ll trace back to the original TV show’s roots a little, but not without some changes. The new trailer features angsty teens, mysterious alien rocks, and symbolic hair-cutting.

Last week, NYCC gave us our first official look at the new Power Rangers movie: five teens happen upon alien artifacts that give them super ninja powers, which they must use to fight off evil. It all looks pretty Power Rangers-y, but also very serious. It’s the dark and gritty Power Rangers reboot nobody was asking for, but we’re getting one anyway. Luckily, we have YouTube, and an evil genius with enough time on their hands to recut the new trailer with footage from the original show.

Amy Jo Johnson, David Yost and Carla Perez tell PopCrush how the franchise has expanded over nearly 25 years.

This weekend, New York City Comic-Con has come bearing gifts for Power Rangers fans. As if the brand new character posters released on Friday weren’t enough, LionsGate has also given us our first theatrical trailer for the movie, giving us some background on the assembly of the current Power Rangers team  —  and one quick look at Elizabeth Banks’ Rita Repulsa as well.

Aye-yi-yi-yi-yi! The new Power Rangers has Zords, Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Banks, and now Bill Hader as the robot Alpha 5.