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Power Rangers

5/10

Stars: Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott, R J Cyler, Becky G, Ludi Lin, Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Banks, David Denman. Voice: Bill Hader

Director: Dean Israelite

Better than previous 'Power Rangers' movies, if not by all that much, this junior superhero adventure starts off pretty well. Five misfits and/or rebels-against-the-paths-expected-of-them come together at high school, where the creations of the nerd Billy (Cyler, the film's only really interesting character) help them find a mysterious rock formation, which yields five different-coloured 'coins': these endow the youngsters with super powers.

Before long, they find themselves dragooned into the service of Zordon (Cranston) in a bid to foil the earth-threatening plans of fallen angel Rita Repulsa. 'You must protect the zeo crystal and life on Earth,' intones the head of Zordon from behind a ticky-tacky screen.

But since Rita (terrible name, guys) is played by comedy actress Banks, we needn't take any of this too seriously, unless we're five to eight years old, as our quavering quintet attempt to morph into rangers and foil her little schemes.

So far, so decent, but the film grinds to a halt while the kids swap their naughtiest secrets, and descends into total silliness when Rita assembles an army of rock monsters to lay waste to the rangers' home town.

The kids are all OK without standing out as future film personalities, while some lines - Billy, after an uncomfortable hug from leader Jason (Montgomery) yelps 'Can you stop touching me now?'; while Trini (Becky G) is rebounding from 'girlfriend problems' - could get the film banned in Malaysia.

David Quinlan

USA 2017. UK Distributor: LionsGate. Colour by FotoKem.
124 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 12A.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 1, Drugs 0, Swearing 0.

Review date: 22 Mar 2017