In The Loop & Power Rangers Time Force
Welcome back to Bad Dads Film Review! This week we’re spinning in circles—in the best possible way—with our Top 5 Loops in film and television. Whether they’re time loops, narrative loops, or just delightfully circular plot structures, these stories keep us guessing and coming back for more. We’re also checking out Armando Iannucci’s razor-sharp satire In The Loop and revisiting the chronologically chaotic world of Power Rangers Time Force.
🔁 Top 5 Loops in Film & TV
1. Groundhog Day (1993)
The time loop gold standard. Bill Murray’s cynical weatherman is stuck reliving the same day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, in a film that balances existential dread with comedic charm and surprising emotional depth.
2. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Tom Cruise dies over and over in this sci-fi war thriller where each death resets the day. Smart, sleek, and full of great action, it turns repetition into a high-stakes training montage.
3. Palm Springs (2020)
A modern rom-com twist on the time loop trope. Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti bring warmth, wit, and unexpected darkness to a desert wedding that never ends.
4. Star Trek: The Next Generation – "Cause and Effect" (1992)
A textbook example of how TV can do loops right. The Enterprise explodes before the opening credits, and the crew must solve the mystery of their own deaths—over and over again.
5. Russian Doll (2019–)
A nihilistic, metaphysical spin on the loop narrative, where Natasha Lyonne’s Nadia keeps dying and resetting during her birthday. Funny, dark, and weirdly profound.
🗣 Main Feature: In The Loop (2009)
Armando Iannucci’s In The Loop is a profanely brilliant satire that acts as both a spiritual cousin to The Thick of It and a standalone skewering of Anglo-American war bureaucracy. As Britain and the US lurch toward conflict in the Middle East, government officials, spin doctors, and assistants scramble to justify it with illogical soundbites and barely disguised incompetence.
Peter Capaldi’s Malcolm Tucker is the foul-mouthed puppet master, hurling insults and manipulating spin with terrifying speed. The dialogue is rapid-fire, the stakes are real, and the absurdity cuts frighteningly close to reality. It's a loop of political missteps, media manipulation, and ego-driven diplomacy where nothing ever really changes.
A must-watch if you enjoy your comedy scathing and your truth barely exaggerated.
⏳ Kids Feature: Power Rangers Time Force (2001)
Time travel, mutant villains, colour-coded heroes—it’s all here. In Time Force, the Power Rangers chase a criminal back to the year 2001 to stop a timeline-warping disaster. With a focus on fate vs. free will and even a romantic subplot, it’s one of the more emotionally ambitious entries in the Power Rangers canon.
The kids get action. The dads get time paradoxes. Everybody wins.
Whether you’re dodging aliens, reliving Groundhog Day, or spinning your wheels in government committees, loops keep things weirdly satisfying. Just don’t forget to take the exit eventually. 🎬⏱️👨
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