In 2072, the TV networks’ biggest shows are reality competitions like Killbike and The Danger Game, both as nihilistic as they sound. (Isn’t that crazy? I don’t mean those shows, but the idea that TV networks will exist in 2072. Oh, that Lucio Fulci — such a kidder!) The webs’ ante gets upped when the floating station WBS makes plans for The Battle of the Damned!

To be played in Rome’s Colosseum, where the bread-and-circus gladiators once sparred, this surefire ratings grabber forces death-row inmates to participate in games of mortal combat that update Ben-Hur-style chariot races with motorcycles. Among the first round of The New Gladiators (to borrow the film’s title) are Drake (Jared Martin, Fulci’s Aenigma), in the clink for killing the three guys who killed his wife, and Abdul (Italian post-apocalyptic flick staple Fred Williamson, Warriors of the Wasteland), who practices kung fu under disorienting strobe lights.

It’s a terrific idea, not fully realized until the release of the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle The Running Man three years later. The New Gladiators gets too caught up in prepping for the games, as Drake and friends — including Doctor Butcher M.D. himself, Donald O’Brien, as a severely burned ol’ pal with fiber-optic eyes — plot to destroy the show and WBS from within.

Known alternately as Warriors of the Year 2072, the movie certainly bears appeal, yet has more ambition than director and co-writer Fulci (The New York Ripper) has means. This is evident from frame one, when a pan across the cityscape at night aims to evoke the “wow” factor of Blade Runner — unachievable when said cityscape clearly is a model in miniature, akin to a backdrop from your cousin’s Lionel tabletop train set. Fulci gets in one good effect, when a woman’s face melts like a candle. —Rod Lott

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The intergalactic pirate Divatox — whose name kinda sounds like a feminine hygiene product of some sort — is chasing a little person dressed in an ill-fitting troll costume through the woods on a swirling green planet; back here on Earth, however, a young kid named Justin is feeling a little blue because his mom is dead. It doesn’t help when a random Power Ranger, right in the middle of a training sesh, spin-kicks himself right out of the ring and into a broken back. Ouch!

Meanwhile, the typical mutants-on-ice monsters are cutting off their hands and such as the caustically attractive Divatox explains the film’s main plot points for those who walked in too late to catch the opening Star Wars-esque crawl as Lerigot, the mini-wizard who reminds me of Gwildor from Masters of the Universe, sadly, shoots himself to Earth and lands in a wildlife preserve in, presumably, Africa; he immediately meets a lion and shoots pleasant-enough fireballs from his hand. Also, monkeys throw feces at him, which I can fully understand.

As area losers Skull and Bulk are kidnapped by Divatox’s fish-shaped pirate ship, Power Rangers leader Tommy wrestles somewhat convincingly with a rubber anaconda in the jungle. Once they find Lerigot and take him back to PR HQ, that spazzy robot Alpha gives the Rangers new powers which, if you can believe it, turns out to be some new cars … turbo cars, but still.

Now, it’s up to the Power Rangers to not only stop Divatox before she marries an incarnation of Satan, but also rescue retired Rangers Kimberly and Jason before they are sacrificed to said demonic being. Mind you, this is just the first 30 minutes of the movie; sure, it sounds like a lot going on, but keep in mind that the next hour is just wholly repetitive fight scenes, with the mostly basic cars offering very little turbo-charged power for these anonymous Rangers.

While the budget has definitely been given quite a bit of high-octane Nos, this new cadre of superheroes is, sorry to say, an unlikable crew that might have worked well on the small screen, but in a movie theater, lacked the personality that made the original team so much fun. But, then again, I am a 40-year-old man that just watched Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, so what the hell do I know? —Louis Fowler

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While I have never been a fan of the Power Rangers — I was in high school during its original release and knew better — I went to a screening of the gritty remake a year or so ago, mostly disappointed and dismayed how they got rid of everything that made the original even remotely watchable: the bright colors, the cheap monsters and the generally jovial atmosphere.

As a matter of fact, when the Black Ranger shoved his sword into Rita Repulsa’s chest and said, “Eat Zord, space bitch!” I walked out of the theater in disgust.

But, settling in to watch the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, I was taken back to a time where I sat in the living room, agitated, trying to coerce my brother through bribes and threats into changing the channel to What’s Happening!! Youth truly is wasted on the young, isn’t it?

As the 1995 film starts, immediately we’re introduced to the fun teenage heroes — all in their signature Power Ranger colors, natch — about to skydive as a part of the Angel Grove Jump-a-Thon to benefit the observatory, which will probably come in to play later, right? (Oddly enough, the gang is jumping with the two local bullies, Skull and Bulk, who they’re always hanging out with, for some reason.) As the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ version of “Higher Ground” blasts on the soundtrack, rest assured we’re not in Fox Kids territory anymore, thank Zordon.

After landing at the drop point, they all immediately go rollerblading through a dangerous construction site, when, as they pass by, the hardhats find a mysterious sewer cover with a lion’s head on it; you know it’s something important because the operatic chorus unleashes an important swell in Latin. Instead of calling the experts at the local college to help them figure out what it is, the workers get a crane and open it themselves, unleashing a glowing purple egg.

A couple of the film’s monsters break the egg and unleash a 6,000-year-old demon named Ivan Ooze, who both resembles and acts like a tween-friendly version of notorious child murderer Freddy Krueger, right up to saying “Welcome … to my nightmare!” during a fight scene. Ready for war against the Power Rangers, Ooze launches an all-out early CGI-filled assault.

After a punch-up in a parking garage with the Ecto-Monsters (or whatever they’re called), the Power Rangers lose their super-ninja powers and, when their father figure Zordon lay dying, they decide to go to a distant planet that looks like the California desert to get said powers back. On that planet, a half-naked warrior woman named Dulcea shows up to help and gives its intended audience their first real erections.

The special effects are state-of-the-art (mostly terrible) computer graphics — Ivan Ooze and his liquidic sequences are ghastly even for a kids’ movie — but the Power Rangers themselves, here not replaced by their Japanese Super Sentai variations, remarkably, pull off some impressive fight moves that the children of the ’90s really didn’t deserve and probably didn’t know what to do with in the elementary school playground.

Regardless, it’s still far more watchable than the aforementioned reboot, Saban’s Power Rangers, but probably not as good as the official sequel, Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, I’m guessing. —Louis Fowler

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If you thought America has the market on dystopic futures mostly cornered, here’s White Chamber, a surprisingly non-YA tale of Great Britain under civil war (I think mostly because of Nigel Farage).

Waking up inside a white room (with, sadly, no black curtains), Dr. Elle Chrystler (Shauna Macdonald, The Descent) is slowly tortured by the mysterious room, which generously has the ability to heat up, freeze down and, gunkiest of all, drop acid for a sprinkler system. The man holding her hostage is apparently rebel leader Zakarian (Oded Fehr, 1999’s The Mummy), who we thought in the first few minutes of the film was a reputable leader of the people.

Then, surprise, the film backtracks five days and we learn that, originally, it was Zakarian who was the prisoner, with a whole team of scientists controlling the white chamber. They aren’t torturing him for fun and games — instead, they’re testing a wide variety of drugs to see what works and what doesn’t in order to create the latest and greatest of super-soldiers to make Britain safe for those who supported Brexit. Science!

As much as I like the idea of White Chamber, for the most part, it’s a little too repetitive given its two-room budget. We’re either in the chamber or the lab, making the film very rinse, torture and repeat for its own good. Additionally, it has a believability-pushing ending that almost made me feel like this might turn into a notorious comedy of manners, right down to the mistaken identities. Gorblimey, luv! —Louis Fowler

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If the Jeremy Renner vehicle Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters deserves scorn for anything, it’s for inadvertently encouraging the mockbuster Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft into existence. It’s so bad, you’ll want to shove yourself into an oven.

In this flaccid effort at a contemporized fairy tale, orphaned siblings Hansel and Gretel Jonah and Ella (real-life siblings Booboo and Fivel Stewart, respectively) are sent to an elite private school that turns out to be — bleached shades of Suspiria! — founded by witches. Although on the surface overseen by Mr. Sebastian (Eric Roberts, DOA: Dead or Alive), the institution is ruled by a secret society called The Circle, constituted of magic-makers and spell-casters who have gone on to be presidents, CEOs and other captains of industry. Hansel and Gretel Jonah and Ella are destined to join so they can help fight a character who is revealed to be an evil witch, but whose identity you would guess far before the reveal. (I say “would,” because I implore you to avoid watching.)

Bearing the production values of porn, the obviously rushed Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft aims for that teen-dream Twilight feel (a franchise being Booboo’s claim to fame) and succeeds, in that it is boring to the point of depression. The young Stewarts seem to be vying to out-not-act one another, and their bid is threatened by every young member among the compact, cost-efficient cast. Although leagues above in talent and screen appeal, Roberts, Vanessa Angel (Kingpin) and former Runaways vocalist Cherie Currie (Charles Band’s Parasite) can’t help but be tainted simply by association.

Not even on his best day would Daniel Day-Lewis be able to salvage such a stupid script by first-timer Larson Tretter (“Ella! I read in the paper you like pizza, right?”) or the lazy direction of the legendarily prolific David DeCoteau, whose bottom-drawer/bottom-dollar filmography includes Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, 1313: Giant Killer Bees! (exclamation his), and the cult curiosity A Talking Cat!?! (exclamations and question mark his). I know his budget for H&G:WOW had to be tight, but couldn’t he have grabbed three establishing shots of the campus instead of re-using the same one?!? —Rod Lott

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