[ZeoRangerV]

With the Figuart now out now seemed like the perfect time to watch Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue. I have VERY mixed feelings about it

The characters and the pacing were dreadful. None of the characters were at all memorable, and the first 40 minutes was basically just Shin running around while people gave him extremely vague answers to questions and said "the Organisation" repeatedly. While I like the idea of a more adult-orientated Kamen Rider too, nothing says try hard like 4 gruesome murders in the first 3 minutes and nudity which adds absolutely nothing to the story.

Thankfully things picked up a bit once the first proper transformation happened. I quite liked that the organisation remained unexplained and just stayed in the shadows for now, but there were way too many things left unexplained by the end of it. I guess that's the problem of a Prologue that was never followed by anything, but a better attempt to make it stand alone could have easily been made. The ending was not just abrupt, it was pretty bad all around.

What was really amazing about this film though were the visual affects. That brilliant transformation, the gruesome fighting style, the level 2 cyborg, the weird head-splitting telepathy thing...it was all so gloriously 90s and encompassed everything I love about practical effects. If anything the biggest problem was that there simply wasn't enough of it. Oh, and that embryo was laughably bad

Certainly an interesting film worth checking out, but not really a good one.