Opinion Piece- Why Power Rangers will be awful but in the good way

In about a month, we are going to be blessed burdened with a big budget, gritty Power Rangers reboot. We still have no idea what realm of quality it's going to fall into but that doesn't mean we haven't had hints. From those hints, we've picked up that really, it's going to be a fairly shit film. I mean, Power Rangers worked as a children's show because it was laughably low budget, fully cheesy and fully aware of how naff it was. Plus, it was made for seven year olds who could watch just about anything for half an hour. A lot of that gets lost in a self serious remake but I have hope that it'll be enjoyably naff. This years Nine Lives if we're lucky.

The bit that has me equal parts worried and excited is the odd moments of humour from the most recent trailer. A "stand out" moment would probably be when the girl is telling her mum that she's a superhero, at which point the mother asks her to piss in a cup. It's a drugs joke. Because she's a teenager. She might take drugs. This total willingness for a light tone should be respected though, we have seen last year the damage an overly serious tone can do. That very silly tone is echoed in the same trailer with the use of Kanye West's "Power", a song last seen in Saints Row the Third. So if nothing else, it can't go down the same path as Fant4stic and that is only good news.

What shocked most people with just the announcements themselves was the big name cast members. The biggest name was Bryan Cranston, an actor who I have nothing for respect for and have never seen him in a bad performance. Sure, he's been in bad films (someone saw the Total Recall remake) but he is never bad in those films. His role as the mentor figure/face in a wall Zordon will be one that is hopefully just as wonderfully weird as Christopher Walken in Nine Lives, although hopefully a little less humiliating for all involved. Elizabeth Banks fills the villain role of Rita Repulsa (that's genuinely what the villain is called) and her performance is currently harder to predict. She's great in Wet Hot American Summer and pretty good in The Hunger Games so we'll see. I am delighted to see Bill Hader here though as (the voice) of Alpha 5, the robot companion of the Rangers. He's one of my favourite comedians so hopefully he'll bring flair to a weird character. As for the actors actually playing the Power Rangers, they're unknowns so they will make or break their careers with this defining feature.

There is one main reason that I think this film could be great though is the concept: it's robots punching monsters in the face. Think Pacific Rim without the subtlety. Transformers may have proved that it's possible to make dumb action too dumb but I remain hopeful. Every time I see the bits of the trailer where the Megazord assembles and then punches whatever the gold monster is, I break out in a big stupid smile. Like, seriously, we have all kinds of action in this film. Martial arts fighting, big robot fighting, even bigger robot fighting. How can it go wrong? Well, many ways but I remain hopeful, despite how crap the film will probably be.