[Kamen Rider Die]

KAMEN RIDER REVICE: THE MOVIE



Oh, it’s pleasant enough, I guess.

Little (if anything) to talk about, though. There’s no real story to this theatrical short: Deadmans attack, Revi and Vice defeat them, bathhouse, bike, etc., the end. The only real villain arc/plan is a business guy whose name we don’t even get, whose motivation is KILL ALL PHONIES. There’s no specific theme or moral to what goes on. It’s all very Revice Sampler, in its hodge-podge of all the different elements of the series' conception. No full family scene, which makes it kind of a failure for me, narratively-speaking. Show’s built around the idea of family, so if you aren’t going to have the whole family show up even once… that’s a miss? For me, at least.

Otherwise, what’s here is fine. Pleasant, like I said. It’s not the Climax Right From The Start lunacy of the Saber theatrical short from the year prior, which made up for its lack of setup by keeping the pedal to the floor from the first frame to the last. This one just… sort of does its thing, in no particular hurry. There’s no scheme from the Deadmans, so there’s no momentum to bring us to a finale. Just, monsters showing up, and a Kamen Rider defeats them. It’s more about showing off how everything in Revice works, which is still kind of fun. I like the stamps and stuff. That’s a fun collectible for the season, mostly for how the stamp is a thing that represents the household, not a specific person, but also ‘cause they’re chunky and colorful. It’s all entertaining to watch, the Revice of it all.

(I will say that I picked up the DX Revice Driver, and I don’t love it? The stamp pad never seems to look right, is the main thing. It’s always a very faint impression of the Rex stamp, no matter how hard I slam it. Besides that, the rotation of the stamp pad frequently ends up out of alignment, and I’ve got to wrench it back into position, which always sounds incredibly bad for the mechanism. But! It’s still kind of neat to mess around with, when it works close to how it looks on the show. I like the big 5 and big 0. That's super on the nose, but agreeably so.)

(Also, the Drivers on this show are frequently shown to reside in an empty PC case, which always cracks me up. Did George just have that case lying around? Is Fenix partially sponsored by Newegg? The most intriguing mystery for me this far!)

It’s a trifle, this pre-show theatrical advertisement. It’s not trying to tell a twisty story, since there’s not even a show to twist yet. It’s a slightly more plot-heavy version of the Transformation videos that exist alongside DX Driver on-sale dates. But, within those parameters, it’s solid enough. The Decade-flavored suits are good, even if Vice forgot to do any of the Tsukasa catchphrases. Nothing to talk about narratively or thematically, but a pleasant enough viewing experience.