Jason David Frank’s 2022 death is a tragedy. For members of Gen Y and beyond, he’ll forever be remembered as the White Ranger of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers TV series and movies. His posthumously released passion project, Legend of the White Dragon, is doomed to evaporate.

Frank plays Erik Reed, aka superhero White Dragon. (Overlook that his costume is more silver and gold.) Reed’s been in hiding for three years since the day his battle with the squatty demon-faced villain Ashtagor resulted in 1,263 lives lost. So haunted by the toll, Frank has the digits (but not the comma) tattooed on the side of his head. Imagine having to explain that one on the regular: “No, they’re anything but my lucky numbers.”

Ashtagor (David Ramsey, TV’s Arrow) recruits pharma bro Jai to help locate and liquidate Frank. Jai (co-director Aaron Schoenke, resembling an on-markdown Milo Ventimiglia) will stop at nothing to do so, in order to avenge the death of his wife (Power Rangers alum Ciara Hanna) on that fateful day. Jai possesses half of the crystal that fuels White Dragon’s superpowers; Frank, naturally, holds the other. Realistic hand-to-hand combat ensues, as does a Chris Daughtry rock ballad.

Meanwhile, Frank’s wife (Cerina Vincent, also a Rangers vet) sits at home, nervously fiddling with her necklace while watching cable news and wondering if he’ll ever come home.  

Legend of the White Dragon plays like Power Rangers Mid-Life Crisis. In other words, a labor-of-love fan film, the kind that litters Schoenke’s CV, here expanded to a cosplay feature while respecting copyright law so it can be seen outside a convention hall. Highly Marvel-inspired (right down to Easter-egged, sequel-teasing credits), it sports pretty decent effects for a Kickstarter-backed, green-screened endeavor. It’s also flat, dull and sunk from the outset by some dreadful performances.

That doesn’t apply to Michael Madsen (Arena Wars), who cameos as Frank’s imprisoned father, or Mark Dacascos (China Strike Force), who appears as a monk. One of the latter’s lines sums up my feelings for the enterprise as a whole: “Well, that was not necessary.” —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

This much is true: In 1972, a Benedictine monk named Pellegrino Ernetti wowed the world with news of his invention, the Chronovisor. Developed with the aid of a dozen physicists, this gadget could pull audio and visual memories from the ether — in essence, able to capture any image from history, including the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.

Or so Father Ernetti claimed.

In Jack Auen and Kevin Walker’s debut feature, Chronovisor, a Columbia philosophy professor named Beatrice (Anne Laure Sellier) learns of the device one lonely night at the library. She can’t pull herself away from the rabbit hole of her own research, especially after she reads of the monk’s and machine’s vanishing act, so she follows the breadcrumbs of a conspiracy.

Naturally, she’s obsessed. So, too, will you. 

There’s a reason one of the initial bits of media Beatrice’s eyes consume is a lobotomy. Chronovisor cleverly erases the line between fact and fiction to fashion a one-of-a-kind, genre-bending mindfuck — all to the music of Gustav Holst. (Who knew the year’s best score would be more than a century old?) It’s a picture that rewards patience (not to mention a lot of reading, which they make absorbing), even if the conclusion can’t possibly satisfy half its audience.

Succumb to its considerable spell. The warm, amber glow of the Kodak 16mm film sure as hell helps. —Rod Lott

In theaters; see Grasshopper Film for schedule.

BBC’s Doctor Who program was still in its sophomore season when the not-yet-iconic character leapt to the big screen. Whereas William Hartnell essayed the stuffy title role on the telly, Dr. Who and the Daleks got name value with Peter Cushing. It also gained one other out-of-this-world asset: color!

Dr. Who’s just hanging at the house with granddaughters Susan (Roberta Tovey, The Beast in the Cellar) and Barbara (Jennie Linden, Old Dracula) when the latter’s new beau arrives. His name is Ian (Roy Castle, Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors) and he’s one clumsy suitor. As Dr. Who shows off his Tardis (a fancy term for a garage-cum-time machine) and its hodgepodge of bleep-de-boop machinery to the lad, Ian pratfalls onto the big, red button that sends the foursome to an undetermined point in space.

They emerge on a planet with a petrified forest and loads of radiation. They’re also stuck until Dr. Who can locate enough mercury to refill some sparkle baton on the Tardis wall. Venturing toward the nearest building, which resembles a tribute to geometry, they run afoul of the Daleks. To non-nerds, those are cyborgs on rollers with voices that sound like speaking into an oscillating fan, but only. One. Syllable. At. A. Time.

Our human heroes subdue a Dalek by covering its eyehole with a clump of breakfast pudding. Meanwhile, little Susan’s sent on some godforsaken errand to score drugs. (Yes, to cure radiation sickness, but it’s fun to leave that detail out.) What follows would become part and parcel for a great many sci-fi TV series, like CBS’ short-lived Planet of the Apes: Encountering someone who’ll help you out. In this case, that’s the Thals, a race of humanoids distinguishable for their close-cropped haircuts, costuming you might find in an Andy Milligan production, and eye shadow so heavy and lid-consuming, Sophie Ellis-Bextor would be green-glittered with envy.

Regrettably, aside from those primary colors and the set for the Daleks’ lair, little is cinematic about the doctor’s first of two adventures that kids have to leave the house to catch. Not even genre god Cushing’s stumbling-buffoonery take is worth the trouble. It’s a wholly inoffensive confection, best consumed as Saturday-matinee fare. Just grab your nearest time machine. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.