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Kamen Rider Die watches Kamen Rider Build
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02-22-2020, 10:31 PM
#
233
Kamen Rider Die
Kamen Ride Or Die
Join Date: Aug 2019
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 6,159
KAMEN RIDER BUILD NEW WORLD: GREASE
I… Oh my God, I remembered
none
of these people.
There was definitely a spinning up of my Build memories at the beginning of this one, trying to remember what the hell was going on and where people had been left and what their storylines were and who the hell was Takumi again (no joke, when Buildad mentioned him, I’m like,
who?
) and just, like,
90% of Build
. I feel like I should have reread this thread to bring myself back up to speed.
I got there, though. It all pretty much came back. (I even got jokes and callbacks, like Sawa’s “It’s better if you don’t know.”) It’s like riding a bike, but in this case the bike is a 49-episode TV series I watched less than six months ago. I’m… you know, I’m not sure I should’ve had this difficult of a time remembering Kamen Rider Build.
Low level troubling!
Anyway, this movie!
It’s maybe a huge disadvantage for New World: Kamen Rider Grease to kick off with the short film “I Heard the Idol Otaku is Dating His Fav”, since that goddamn thing
killed me
. Much like (my memories of) the HBV Prime Rogue short, this is unmitigated comedy, with Kazumin at his most problematic (I’m not sure him being an obsessed lunatic is as much a cute thing as this movie seems to consider it) and Misora instantly regretting trying to connect with him as a human being. It’s slight, it’s really just jokes and a setup for Grease and the Crows hiding on an island until Kazumin can face his New World of heartbreak, but it’s so fan-servicey and ridiculous that any serious story is going to feel misguided afterwards. Like a lot of fans, I assume, I’d’ve been okay if they stretched this short out to full-length.
It’s not that the movie itself was bad, though. It was good!
It was not great!
But it was good!
There’s a thing in the Uraga character that felt… not
undeveloped
, but more like it was
underutilized
. Uraga’s a guy who longs for the old world, the flames and terror and violence. He doesn’t see a place for himself in this New World, so he’d just as soon burn it down into something that feels familiar. He’s a Phantom in this world, roaming and isolated. He lacks connections, and he can’t let go of the past.
That’s a solid character (I don’t feel like the actor did much with it, though), and honestly, a great villain for an epilogue. The story he wants to be in is
over
, and he can’t see that. He wants to wind things back to how it used to be, instead of moving on and making a new life.
The problem for me is, so much of the climax of the film hits the lack of connections, but it ignores all of the Phantom stuff that feels like it’s
right there
. The heroic speech lands on Kazumin’s friends, and a weirdly generic Kamen Riders Fight To Protect Us All spirit, but it feels like the similarities and differences between Kazumin and Uraga, that stuff doesn’t feel like it’s integrated that well. As a villain, making Uraga’s whole thing But He Doesn’t Have Friends Like The Crows… I don’t feel like it’s enough for a movie. If they’d hit some deeper levels, or tied the hero and villain together more, I think it could get to that next level, the heights Build could hit as a show. This one, what looked to be some interesting thematic work ended up just being the Kazumin Fights For His People Not His Country story we’d already seen play out on the show.
And, yeah, for a movie that felt like it was partially telling a story about being trapped in the past, and choosing old conflicts because they feel safer than living in peace, it’s weird how repetitive it seemed. Like, you can say it’s callbacks or whatever, but a
lot
of this movie is rehashing moments we’d already seen. Metal Build, I mean, it’s Hazard Form, I love that goddamn suit, but we saw an incredible arc of Build where Hazard Form kills a Crow and draws Grease’s hatred. Doing a riff on that for the middle section of this movie, but doing it without the sick shame of Sento at its core… I’m not sure that’s a comparison you want to invite on your story.
Not going to look great playing those notes.
Using the Crows’ death and then swerving it, I don’t know. I thought they’d swerve it, I didn’t think they’d be dumb enough to just kill the Crows
again
, but that means that a lot of Kazumin’s reaction felt hollow, and the whole scheme felt overly manipulative of Sento. He gaslighted that dude into thinking three of his friends had died. I don’t… that’s like
Evol(t) shit
. Like the Miitan obsession, I don’t think it’s as cute as the story thinks it is.
In general, I was surprised how little
new story
this movie felt like it was telling. I love these characters, I’ll spend as much time with them as I’m allowed, but so much of this movie felt like it was retreading ground, and that’s a bummer. I didn’t need a movie to tell me that Grease draws strength from his friends, that he fights to protect them, and that he’s got an unhealthy obsession with Misora. (HE WANTED TO DRESS HER UP LIKE MIITAN ON THEIR FIRST DATE.) All of that was in the Build TV show, where it had room to breathe and ways to surprise. This, I know where that story goes, and I don’t really need to have it retold if there’s no new ways of telling it.
I don’t want it to seem like this movie didn’t work at all, though. Like I said, it was
good
. The new suits looked great. Phantom Build has a great Military aesthetic to it, with the army green locking in well with the black base suit. Grease Perfect Kingdom, I think it’s tricky to have all primary colors in one design, but the way they all cluster around the head and shoulders kept it from being too garish and/or distracting. And, fake-out or not, I like the idea of a Kazumin suit that’s all about the strength his friends provide. That’s such a core part of his character and his arc, so it’s nice to have it signified visually.
So, look, I think this movie has problems. I think it suffers from a lack of ambition in its storytelling, and it misses some opportunities to get at new and fresh concepts. But it’s a
Build
movie, so it’s full of great characters doing character-driven things, wrapped up in some fun fights and top-shelf humor. (Sento forgot Utsumi for three-quarters of the film! Sawa and Gentoku have couples t-shirts to tell people that they banged! Grease and the Crows went for a soak on an irradiated island because the hero of the movie had his heart broken!) Every Kamen Rider gets to Henshin, and the big explosive climax is centered around Peace and Love defeating the horrors of war. Even when it’s not great, it’s still exciting and funny and very
very
Build. I just know they
can
be great, so it’s a shame when it isn’t.
__________________
Currently working on: Go-Busters is next! Archive of previous shows on
KamenRiderDie.com
!
Last edited by Kamen Rider Die; 10-13-2023 at
10:26 PM
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