[Guyver Spawn]

The film has came out in the US recently, so more people have seen it now. I saw it last night and I loved it. I like that Anno did his own take by mixing stuff from the original TV show and manga. I also like the themes of humanity being added into the film too.

[TheTakoTank]

It was fine. The plot structure has the same issues as Shin Ultraman, and some of the action was completely incomprehensible. But I liked the characters more than ones from the other Shin films and the cinematography was excellent as usual.

[DH21965]

Saw it Wednesday night in a Gwinnett Georgia theater with my wife and a few friends, lighter than expected turnout (but to be fair,not as much hype as either Shin Ultraman or Godzilla’s US debut) and I’m glad I read the Manga prior,and enjoyed the fast pace,Anno’s take on this rollercoaster and well choreographed bike and fight scenes,MINUS the abomination that was that next to last fight scene…..completely in the DARK. WTF? Almost took me out of the movie,it was so annoyingly jarring to me,as storyteller, but hopefully corrected in DVD Not a huge fan of the ending, but that’s me….overall a solid B+,great acting and action, great to see all the different fans in my area. Doing a repeat showing on 6/5/2023 because the response was good!! Guess we’ll be seeing it again Monday night!!

[Bekuta]

I feel like my thoughts won't be too dissimilar from anyone else's, but overall I really liked it. The part that brings it down the most for me, besides maybe the pacing, is the tunnel fight scene that was shot completely in the dark. I don't get why they decided to make that scene as hard to see as possible; I could barely tell what was going on in a dark theater, I can't imagine trying to watch it on my TV at home. The pacing was very fast, but I didn't mind it too much. Overall, great action, great music, great characters.

[Kamen Rider Lucha]

I really liked it, but I hear what people are saying about the plot structure being too episodic. I think the episodic structure worked better with SKR than it did with SUM, mainly because it was working with stronger characters and a more coherent theme.

The action though, was great, and I didn't have any issues with darkness in my theater. I don't even really know what y'all are referring to there. Everything that was dark was clearly supposed to be that way, from what I experienced.

All that said, Shin Godzilla is still, by far, the best movie of the three.

[Kiwami]

I remembered we have a dedicated thread for this so I dump my thoughts here:

I finished watching the movie today, I absolutely loved it. I'm enamored with this film.

And the journey was an interesting one: I had a less than optimal day yesterday. Like not bad, but it wasn't good either. I had to watch this movie though! It's finally here! Eventually it was so late in the night that I had to stop, because I was getting up early today as well.

While I was going around the whole morning doing stuff I couldn't stop thinking about the parts of the movie I had already seen, I was just about finished with the Wasp Augment part. And I was thinking stuff like "It's good, but...", "It's fun, but...", "...something's missing." "It's like 3 mini-episodes of Kamen Rider so far". "Is this truly Shin-material?"

So I was a bit nervous about continuing, but when I did - oh boy. It all came together. When Rider 2 enters the fray and Ruriko "meets" the Chameleon-Mantis, that's when it all fell into place for me. All the previous scenes, all the build-up went into overdrive and finished it all up into one tight package of excellence.

What cemented this movie as good in my opinion is that beyond it being amazing Rider action, it gave me something to think about. Some of the lines spoken truly hit home, I might even dare say it changed me a little. Not many movies can do that. And it looked so pretty! So many amazing shots of just scenery!

The only thing I would truly have to criticize is that the CG-effects are janky at times. Thankfully scene composition and style makes up for it, but it cannot be denied that the effects could've been better. The suit work, the camera and the hand-made effects are excellent, but once the computer takes over it becomes a bit wonky.

All in all tough, absolutely amazing. When the end credits rolled over and the classic theme started playing I was tearing up. Good stuff.

[ShiShiLeo]

I agree with you. Amazing movie.

It depicts a remorseful and stalwart hero caught up in family drama and delivers strong and thoughtful lines without bombast or pomp. The movie really captures that Showa-era feeling of solemn dignity and profoundness in the simplest ideas.

It's a little campy, but it's filled with such heart and love for the source material. I can already feel like it will age a lot better than its contemporaries.

[Annuga]

After fiddling around trying to get Amazon Prime to actually work and needing to use a vpn, I finally got around to seeing it and wow. Just, wow. Lots of stuff taken from the original show in terms of looks, a surprising amount of manga inspiration from Ishinomori's end which thankfully got released quite a while ago, the soundtrack was pretty sweet which considering Lotus Juice and the Gurren Lagann composer shouldn't be too surprising, I felt a rush seeing the action scenes though sadly they aren't as good after around halfway through, seeing the nazi rhetoric being used by Shocker made me appreciate how different yet familiar this take felt which is a sentiment I find myself feeling on more of the movie the more I think about it.

All in all, I found myself mesmerized in the beauty of the movie as a whole, I remember reading Anno wanted to make a sequel which further adapts the manga's stuff and if so, I can only hope it's as good as hey, that manga was real good

[EpsilonX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheTakoTank

It was fine. The plot structure has the same issues as Shin Ultraman, and some of the action was completely incomprehensible. But I liked the characters more than ones from the other Shin films and the cinematography was excellent as usual.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Lucha

I really liked it, but I hear what people are saying about the plot structure being too episodic. I think the episodic structure worked better with SKR than it did with SUM, mainly because it was working with stronger characters and a more coherent theme.

The action though, was great, and I didn't have any issues with darkness in my theater. I don't even really know what y'all are referring to there. Everything that was dark was clearly supposed to be that way, from what I experienced.

I saw it in Japan (meaning without subtitles), so I only understood about half of what was going on. As such, the episodic nature of the film felt really disjointed. I'm sure I'll enjoy it more when I watch it again with subtitles. Still, I agree that it felt better than Ultraman, the pacing of which drove me crazy.

My biggest gripe with the film, however, was the action. The trailer made the film seem like it would all be practical effects, and I was extremely excited for that. Then I saw it, and the battles were so CGI that they were hard to enjoy. The worst offender was the fight with Ichimonji. I hated the DBZ-esque flurry of punches. I've never seen anything of that sort in any other Kamen Rider content that I've consumed, but I've seen it in other low-budget action films that I've never enjoyed. It really cheapened the overall experience for me, and I don't understand why that's the direction they went in. Thankfully, Ultraman didn't have this issue.

Quote:

All that said, Shin Godzilla is still, by far, the best movie of the three.

Agreed. But I might be biased because I don't like episodic-style films.