The Power/Rangers Fan Film: Does it Suck?

     So, if have been living under a rock, we were blessed with a Power Ranger fan film. This wasn't not just your filmed in the backyard fan film. This was a fan filmed that featured talent like actors James Van Der Beek and Katee Sackhoff, producers Joseph Kahn, and Adi Shankar. The film has currently over 12,000,000 view on YouTube. Saban and the creators of this fan film have been in a bit of dispute this week as Saban has shown disapproval with the gritty fan film and has threaten to take legal action if the video wasn't taken down. Apparently a deal has been made and Saban has agreed to allow the video to stay up, for now. Good? Probably so, unless it sucks. But does it? Let's find out.

Story
     The fan film opens with an epic battle with good and evil to get you in the mood and let you know just how intense this battle is. The setting is in an Angel Grove a la Blade Runner. Everything is futuristic and robots of the Machine Empire are running everything. The Power Rangers are a resistance team set on overthrowing this tyranny. The whole film revolves around former Ranger Rocky interrogating Kimberly, the Pink Ranger, for the whereabouts of Tommy, the Green Ranger. As the interrogation goes on, you get a backdrop of how gritty and fucked-up things are as well as the background of the other Rangers. Zach is your stereotypical black celeb loaded up with money, drugs, & women and Billy is basically Tony Stark. The fan film plays every cliche in every gritty and mature film. Ton of drugs, a crime boss fights, an over the top betrayal scene, and throw in a ton of really gruesome deaths. It was nice that they've kept a few things from the series like Kimberly's relationships with Tommy and Jason, Tommy's power issues being referenced, and Zach's in his parachute pants and getting his Shaun T on, just like he did in the series along with some easter eggs like Klank from Zeo, Divatox from Turbo, and Scorpina making cameos. It was also cool to see them do a nod to the actress that played Trini, Thuy Trang, who died in a car accident.

Effects
     The effects, considering who was aboard with the film, were cool. Of course it was low budget and of course we all know we will know that watching this fan film we would not be getting the Avatar treatment of CGI. For the most part, it was as good as it got. It was cheap, but it didn't look cheap at all. And we've known we've seen worse.

Cinematography
     The Power Rangers fan film has been credited as a Joseph Kahn  film, he is the director. For those who don't know Khan's work he has been the guy who you would go to to make music video all throughout the early 00s. Most of Kahn's work was filming music videos. It's interesting to see him not only do something like this, but do it well. It looked like an actual film was being made. It doesn't look like the stuff Kahn usually makes so it's nice to see a director improve or do something different.

Final Verdict
     Does it suck? Not really. Yes it does every gritty action movie cliche, but it does it well that you're not really bothered with it. The only problem I had was trying to fit everything together. There were some inconsistencies in the script, like how did Rocky become a Ranger and betrayed everyone while Jason was still there, unless he was the White Ranger or something? We've been begging for a more adult Power Rangers theme and we kinda got it. With Saban and Lionsgate doing a Power Rangers reboot of their own in the near future, this fan film show what creativity and what direction they can go or do better. This gets a 3 out of 5.

What are your thoughts on the fan film?