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05-20-2021, 09:03 PM | #251 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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i don't want to skip ahead too much, but my scathing review of this one is basically "kobayashi does an inoue film for den-o"
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05-20-2021, 10:18 PM | #252 |
I got nothing
Join Date: May 2016
Posts: 148
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yeah Climax Deka sets the trend of Den-O "crossover" movies to be Den-O movies with the cast of another show in cameo roles.
I also have the feeling that this movie was in production in some form since almost straight after I'm Reborn considering the Den-o forms used in this movie. |
05-20-2021, 10:33 PM | #253 |
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Huh I didn’t know climax deka had a plot, I thought it was just “we’re police and we’re hunting negataro, better fight him in the factory set for bit with the new hero”
Well I guess turn about is fair play? I can only imagine Kobayashi and Inoue getting into fist fights over their stories tbh.
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05-20-2021, 10:55 PM | #254 |
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KAMEN RIDER DEN-O & KAMEN RIDER KIVA: CLIMAX DEKA
Okay, here's what I liked about this movie: -Hana was the MVP of this entire ridiculous enterprise. From the intro sequence, where she used a rocket launcher on fleeing monsters, to the finale where she foretold one of Kenny Omega's greatest matches by single-handedly demolishing a group of henchpeople, Hana was fantastic. Seeing that little girl act as the muscle in a group of imagination monsters from the end of time was always a highlight from the Den-O series, and they absolutely found a new level to that gag in this film. Her in that cute but severe uniform! Adorable. -The production designer clearly had a blast, judging from the insane background details and jokes. There's a point where Urataros is in the bullpen, and he's reading a magazine called Men's Ura with a picture on the cover of him possessing Ryotaro. That gag alone forgives a huge number of this movie's sins, and there're plenty more like it. For a movie that steadfastly refused to take its cop homage seriously, the DenLiner Police were perfectly built to take the piss. -Negataros says "All of you will merely be the opening performance” as he's about to Henshin, which is a perfect inversion "Right from the start, I'm at a climax!” That is one of the smartest lines in this movie. -Deneb apologizing to a monster (that he's about to detonate!) for deceiving it in the course of an undercover operation was... DENEB! So great, unfailingly. He doesn't get a ton to do, but that joke and the little epilogue thing where he embarrasses Yuuto are pretty great. -It was very considerate of them to put Kiva's name in the title. That's about it? Everything else was... not to my tastes. If you had told me that Kobayashi was contractually obligated to deliver this film to Toei, and her hope was that she could make it so off-putting and borderline grotesque that she'd never be forced to make another Den-O project again, I would absolutely believe you. Everything about this film feels ill-advised and coerced. I think I liked the Den-O crew less at the end of this pseudo victory lap? It's seriously hard to put into words why this movie rubbed me the wrong way. It's like... it's like it was easier to list the few things I actually enjoyed, and then gesture at the rest of the movie and go Not That. I didn't like how it used Ryotaro. I didn't like how it used Kiva's cast and themes. I didn't like how it took a poignant and heartfelt Den-O finale and then chucked it in the bin to do a big dumb cop parody. I didn't like how even the tenuous rules of Den-O seemed to be suspended for the sake of breezy comedy. I didn't like the villains, any of them, all of them. I didn't like Suzuki, the character this entire story was about. I just top-to-bottom did not enjoy the story being told. Suzuki would've been a halfway interesting side character, but he probably should've gotten top billing. It's his story. He's the lead character, by far. He's the only one with anything approaching an arc. If I had never watched any other tokusatsu, and you showed me this movie and asked me to guess which two characters had TV shows, I would've said definitely Suzuki and probably Ryotaro. Suzuki is the one on whose shoulders this entire story rests. It's just, he's lame? His story is just Wataru's in miniature. He wants to make the memory of his father proud, just like Wataru; and he's so anxious to do it that he's failing at it, just like Wataru. But where Kiva expands that idea out into generational obligation and the negative consequences of looking for approval, this movie's just like He Needs One Win. It doesn't really interrogate the idea so much as take it as a given, treating the nearly-fatal blunders of a man trying to achieve at the level of his dead father as, like, youthful exuberance. It's taking a nuanced and complicated narrative and flattening it into an obvious problem with a simple solution. And with the entire film given over to that thin version of Kiva, it leaves little to no space for a story about Ryotaro. There's some fan-servicey things (it's nice to see Airi give that lunch to Ryuta, for sure), but there's no reason for more Den-O beyond We Heard You Want More Den-O. The story of Ryotaro and his friends doesn't grow or evolve. Ryotaro isn't invested in this story in any extra way. He wants to help people and prevent Imagins from taking over the world (or whatever the hell Negataros is up to), but if you condensed this thing down to a third the runtime, it'd've been a funny but slight episode in the early 20s of the original episodic run, or maybe the late teens. Nothing special, narratively. Nothing that really broadens Ryotaro's character or really digs into the show's themes. A cute adventure, nothing more. But it is not a third the runtime, it's over an hour, and there's a shocking amount of nothing to the plot. All of the setup for the cop stuff happens offscreen, as does everything related to Negataros. It's no backstory and no character. Negataros's scheme is vague to the point of self-parody (he recruits people by saying Hey Do You Want To Join An Evil Organization), but he's missing the very specific flavor Kai gave the same schtick. Which, Negataros's shtick is one hundred percent Kai's schtick. The next villain the Den-O crew faces after defeating Kai is just palette-swapped Momo doing Kai's dialogue! It's uninspired. The whole movie is sort of uninspired. It's just one joke, Den-O But Cops, stretched to the length of a film. I dug it as a series of Wizard Net-Movies, but over an hour of it? Yikes. No thanks! It runs out of steam incredibly fast, which is probably why this sixty-five minute movie has a twenty-minute fight scene at the end. There's just nothing it's trying to say, and then there're no other ways to say it? This movie... ugh. Not to my tastes.
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05-20-2021, 11:14 PM | #255 |
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This made me realize, shinnouske would make an actual good father figure to Wateru since they’re both trying to live up to their fathers’ memory. Also Suzuki sounds like a less interesting shinnouske, since he lacks any sort of depth it sounds like.
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05-20-2021, 11:19 PM | #256 |
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Quote:
Also, yes, team Shinnosuke up with any other Rider, every other Rider, more Shinnosuke, thanks.
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05-20-2021, 11:38 PM | #257 |
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Quote:
Suzuki's a less-interesting Shinnosuke because he could credibly say in an interview that his greatest flaw is that he tries too hard. Shinnosuke at least had some fun quirks to humanize him, and some charismatic acting to put his goals into context. Suzuki is just Wataru's daddy issues given form and a necktie.
Also, yes, team Shinnosuke up with any other Rider, every other Rider, more Shinnosuke, thanks.
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05-20-2021, 11:47 PM | #258 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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Kiriko trying to make lunches for thirty-eight different self-sacrificing pretty boys, while Shinnosuke and 60% of the Heisei Riders all work on Tridoron in the driveway for an afternoon.
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05-20-2021, 11:51 PM | #259 |
I have a problematic type
Join Date: Jan 2012
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So the good news? The Den-O movies are all uphill from here. This one has absolutely no lasting impact at all: the next film is back in the regular Denliner and nobody ever mentions being police again.
I've always found this film to be really weird in generally bad ways. It doesn't really fit with anything we know about Den-O, a lot of running time is devoted to incorporating a new character that never comes back, and Wataru is clearly written by someone who only saw the first episode of his show. There are some nice moments, but the whole thing is kind of a mess. I'll give props to the Kintaros vs. Bad Guy fight, that was really fun. The bit at the end where they're all posing and goofing around while the criminals they're trying to stop are just sitting there in confusion was really good, too. And for trivia, this is not the last time you'll be seeing Suzuki's actor. He'll be back in Decade. |
05-21-2021, 12:32 AM | #260 |
Kamen Ride Or Die
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It was! It's another thing I just plain enjoyed, and I forgot to call it out. Specifically, I like the tactical way Negataros used the Form Changes? He keeps switching his Form to counteract what his opponent is doing. Axe Form kicking your ass? Go to Rod Form, get out of range. They switch to Rod Form? Switch to Gun Form. It's a way of using the personality mix of the Den-Liner Imagins against them, where one strategic mind is able to overcome their charming tomfoolery.
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