[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER X KAMEN RIDER GHOST & DRIVE: SUPER MOVIE WAR GENESIS




Hard to believe a Ghost/Drive movie this inept and lazy came from a writer who a) never wrote anything for Ghost; b) never wrote anything for Drive; c) never wrote anything for Kamen Rider before; and d) never wrote anything for Kamen Rider after.

It’s the laziness that’s the worst part, I think. Ineptitude… I mean, it’s a crossover movie. Most of them are fairly inept. But the amount of stuff in here that no one even tries to justify is what keeps me from trying to find the good in it. There’s such a blatant disregard for the audience’s intelligence (and time!) that I’m honestly shocked. I disliked this movie the first time I saw it, and I think I might actually hate it now.

Like, they find Mister Belt in the bushes. What is that? What even is the point of that, beyond getting Shinnosuke back in a superhero suit with zero effort? It not only undercuts the end of the TV series, but they don’t… they don’t even do anything with the return of Mister Belt. Shinnosuke’s like Yay Team and Mister Belt’s like I Don’t Know You, and that’s all we get in the couple exchanges that bother to acknowledge their intensely personal bond. And then, for the finale, Krim’s just like I Knew I’d Be Needed For This Winter Crossover Movie But Also Goodbye Again Forever. It’s… someone worked on a Kamen Rider Drive series. They worked so hard to craft a compelling emotional arc for Shinnosuke, and a compelling emotional arc for Mister Belt, and a set of consequences that helped solidify their achievements and heroism. And then this movie’s like Nah.

All of the Drive stuff is pointless, except for maybe the Shinnosuke/Kiriko stuff, and even that’s weirdly diminished and compromised. The charisma of the actors helps the final hallway scene land, but it’s sort of shocking to have one of the most mature romances in Kamen Rider not really bother with a lot of dialogue for their engagement and wedding. And then there’s Team Roidmude coming back as one-note evil henchmen, Chase coming back as a hero just to die in front of Go again, the funny-but-irrelevant-and-also-very-long Kamen Rider Jun stuff… it’s weirdly insulting, as a Drive fan. I’d rather have never seen these characters again, if this is all I’m going to get.

The Ghost cast doesn’t fare much better. There’s a whole subplot about Rinna and Akari teaming-up to build a Wormhole Machine to rescue Shinnosuke and Takeru from the past… that just ends with Takeru’s dad using his magic powers (?) to open a wormhole and send them home. That’s how most of the movie is, plot-wise. Characters spend a bunch of time on something, and then it didn’t matter anyway. Stuff just keeps randomly occurring until the end credits roll.

That stuff’s mostly centered around Takeru’s feelings for his dad, and that’s another part of the movie that just didn’t work for me.

Takeru, especially at this stage in his journey, is a difficult protagonist. He’s whiny, mopey, impulsive, and tough to work with. Those attributes are by design, so that’s okay. But it means that you have to carefully calibrate the show around Takeru to make him a hero worth rooting for. He doesn’t have the easy charisma of Shinnosuke, or the humor of Shotaro, or the magnetic energy of Kouta. He’s a bratty teenager who wants to be a hero, and that’s off-putting for a lot of fans. But if you put Takeru into a show that’s trying to shape him out of those habits, and surround him with a cast that challenges him to be better, you get something really special.

So, of course, this movie splits Takeru off from his supporting cast almost immediately, and gives him a plot where he contemplates obliterating the future by changing the past, while filling in the gaps with him screaming at his past self to Get In The Belt, Takeru.

He’s massively unlikable here. The only Takeru scenes that worked for me are the one in the beginning, where he’s fighting the Ganma at the temple, and the one at the end, where he’s goofing around with Akari and Onari. The second one, in particular, is so good. It strikes this balance between Takeru as a callow teen, grumpy that he doesn’t have anything tangible to show for his time-traveling adventure, and the would-be hero who’s never going to stop trying.

Everything else is just Takeru screaming at Younger Takeru to stop being such a whiny brat who doesn’t appreciate his taciturn father and pointless hardships. (It’s maybe okay to just have hot water? In 2005?) And, man, the whole delayed I Knew You Were My Son All Along… no thanks? Dumb trope, and one that just ends making Takeru’s dad seem like a bit of a jerk. Takeru's dad waits until he's dying to tell his teenaged son that he's proud of him? Thanks for turning the emotional catharsis Takeru desperately craves into just another trauma!

Also! What in the hell is the plot of this movie, even?! Takeru’s dad uses his magic powers (?) to bring both his son and a random bystander into the past? For no apparent reason? And then sends them back to the present after they don’t defeat the villain? As he’s dying?

I sincerely, top to bottom, do not understand what the plot of this movie is. I don’t understand who’s responsible for setting the plot in motion, and I don’t understand how any of it links together. Worse, it ends up making every character in it look bad, creating a sub-par version of two shows I genuinely enjoyed. It’s relentlessly lazy, and tonally chaotic. The middle section drags, and the ending is a generic fight at Kamen Rider Quarry (which is now right next to Daitenku Temple). The early promise of Ghost and Drive teaming up to take down a Ganma Robber is tossed aside for a muddled story about Not Dwelling On Your Problems (or, as shown here, Action Is More Important Than Analysis, definitely an emotionally-responsible way of dealing with traumatic events), and a scene where a pre-adolescent boy is handed a sword and told to fight monsters.

That da Vinci Ganma design is an all-time great, though. Best movie suit, probably.