[Fish Sandwich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

SUPER HERO TAISEN GP: KAMEN RIDER 3

This is the only Super Hero Taisen I remember being actively excited for, probably in large part thanks to how generally excited I was about Drive. It just kinda seemed fun, and pretty shockingly, it actually lived up to that when I got to watch it? I'd honestly just call this a solid Rider movie without any further qualification. It's not exactly a masterpiece, but it certainly doesn't feel like a guilty pleasure, either.

I even found it still held up on a rewatch!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich

Toei's next attempt to get their crap together went even better, because they remembered they already did this right once, and just decided to make Let's Go Kamen Riders again. Don't you dare think I'm knocking it for that either. I love Kamen Rider 3.

And what better place to start than with... Kamen Rider 3! They really went all out to make this a character deserving of such a big part. Digging up an obscure bit of Rider lore, and basically totally retrofitting it into this new thing. His suit design is stellar, being agressively modern, yet mixing in so many classic design elements, as well as its own inspired new ones, like the straight up broken shackles on his wrists and ankles. Kuroi as a character is fleshed out enough to be legitimately interesting, with a proper arc, and the clever spin on the "friend or foe" angle where you're fed so many mixed messages it legitimately becomes hard to guess exactly what his deal is, all backed by a pretty strong performance. I especially love the emphasis on the body language of him clenching his fists throughout. Plus, his theme song is great, and he's got a sweet car.

The plot surrounding all this is, as I suggested at the start, a blatant reuse of Let's Go Kamen Riders' central concept of Shocker winning, and the altered timeline that would create. It's hard to call this a bad thing. It wins some points right away by having an opening done in 4:3, and in general, the attitude the movie has towards the franchise lacks that weirdly detached, borderline cynicism that defines your average spring movie. The different cast, and unique angle of Rider 3 also prevent it from truly feeling like a bland repeat of Let's Go, too. But like that movie, the plot is actually fairly digestible. Not as much, mind you. There's still a fair amount of weirdness, to be sure, but you won't be scratching your head constantly trying to figure out what's going on, and who thought it was a good idea. It's a focused enough story that the thing that stands out most is how pointless and random Ninninger's inclusion in the climax feels, and at least the reason why they put that in the movie is obvious.

The guest stars here are all pretty good again too. You've got all the Riders from Blade back (mostly as voices, but still), Zeronos as the obligatory Den-O representation, Black, who actually evolves into RX as part of the narrative, in case you needed proof how much tighter this movie is compared to normal, and of course, Takkun. He isn't very important this time, but it's always a joy to see him, and he says something about protecting childrens' dreams at one point, so what more do you want?

The point about the detached cynicism is definitely key here. I think (and this would also apply to Let's Go) that the movie actively treating the concept of a Kamen Rider as something with meaning and weight inherently makes it more successful as a big celebratory crossover.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

D-VIDEO SPECIAL: KAMEN RIDER 4

This one, I'm admittedly not personally all that fond of, but I'll spare you the quote from that same post as above, because it's pretty snarky and that seems like sort of a mean thing to share in response to you writing so passionately about Faiz one more time.

Instead, I'll mention that the crew for this one, which is completely separate from Kamen Rider 3. Instead of Yonemura and Shibasaki, we've got Nobuhiro Mouri writing and Kyouhei Yamaguchi directing. Mouri seems to make working with other people's shows his specialty, so that's probably a huge reason this gets as close as it does to capturing more than just the surface level of Faiz. He's writing a belated epilogue to OOO now too, a show he actually DID write for originally, so thinking about it, this kind of makes me more hopeful that V-Cinema is going to turn out to be a worthy addendum in its own right. Yamaguchi was also an assistant director back when Faiz was airing, so that'd also help explain the attention to detail when it comes to stuff like doing that new take on the final shot of the entire show.



I've never been 100% satisfied with how this works as a Faiz story, and the rest of it honestly drags a bit too much for me, but I'll absolutely acknowledge the effort and care you can clearly see went into it.