[Switchblade]

Movie Wars Megamax (Mega Max? MegaMax?)

I'm going to focus on just discussing the Fourze elements, since that's the part of this that's most relevant to my current viewing. If you want my full thoughts, you can still read them here. My original opinion is largely unchanged: movie good; Super TaToBa bad.

Anyway, the Fourze section.

It's the old, old story. Boy meets girl. Girl turns into chameleon. Chameleon turns into blob. Boy gets blob back again. Blob gets turned into switch. Switch gets turned into monster. Boy defeats monster. Blob turns into starlight. Boy loses blob, chameleon, and girl; switch doesn't show up again until near the end of the series. How many times have we seen that story?

So yeah, I think I liked this part more now that I'm watching it in its proper place in the show. Gentaro is at peak Gentaro, but I'm still not sure how well Nadeshiko works. I'm just going to ignore the sailor fuku-inspired costume, the overabundance of twinkling sound effects, and the camera zooming in on the suit actor's butt. It's a Koichi Sakamoto film, you have to expect some of that shit (also, so many women doing kicks while wearing a skirt; so, so many). As a character, I'm not sure how well she works. She kinda gets a personality by the end, but she's very much an intentional blank slate. I have to credit the actress for really doing her best with just body language but there's not a lot there to work with. I'm going to be interested to see her return in the next Movie War, because I honestly don't remember what she does all that well (because twinkling an obnoxious amount).

All of the scenes with Gentaro and other Riders are still fantastic, especially the all-too-brief moments of him interacting/shouting with Shotaro. The "It's space time!" "What the hell, man!?" moment is still fucking gold.

Has Yuki gone crazy yet? Negatory. As per usual, this was filmed well in advance of the episodes I've been watching. Yuki's still sane in the show so naturally she's fine here, too.

Oh, hi Ryusei.