Power Rangers movie casts its teenagers with attitude

Waiting for Power Rangers movie news has been excruciating. Because the film isn’t releasing until 2017, we’ve got all sorts of sites releasing news from the rumor mill and none of them will have any bearing on the final product. It’s far too early for any rumor to matter, and to see reputable sites out there claim that they’ve got an inside track on the film’s story it’s pretty stupid. Crazy rumors like a movie instead of a new TV series, a film that unites every Power Ranger team, and the fact that the film’ll complete reinvent the first team. 

Seeing as how casting news was spread over a couple of months, I’ve held back on all of it until now. All we know for sure is who’s going to be part of the first five Power Rangers, and they’ve got the same names as the team from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers for nostalgia’s sake. 

As a fan, you’d think I’d care about all of this. And while I do have an investment in the property, I don’t really want this huge thing. This coming film is meant for the kids, and the kids at heart like myself who remember the show, so it doesn’t need to be overly complicated or weighed down by 20 something years of TV series canon. It’d be ridiculous to expect that from a 90 minute film. I went through all of this back when the film was first announced, so suffice to say all I need from this movie is the TV show with a movie budget. So give me bad jokes, actors in cool suits, cool fights, cool robots punching monsters in the face and call it a day. 

Here are the new set of Power Rangers. They’re awesomely all relatively unknowns: 

• Dacre Montgomery – Jason, the Red Ranger
• Naomi Scott (last seen in The Martian, apparently) – Kimberly, the Pink Ranger
• RJ Cyler (last seen in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) – Billy, the Blue Ranger
• Becky Gomez (last heard singing in the shower) – Trini, the Yellow Ranger
• Ludi Lin – Zack, the Black Ranger

This cast is pretty eclectic and includes an actor huge in China, a Latina pop singer, a young and an awesome Black actor, and none of their races completely correspond to their character names thus adding yet another layer of diversity Power Rangers has always been known for.  I’ve got all the confidence in this already.