I'll say this for starters: This is the Spoiler-Free Version of the review for the first part of the Chô Den-O Trilogy. That means there's no spoilers. If you want to know about the plot details for the movie, there's a Spoiler Version below this one.
Also, yes, there was a trailed for the Double movie, though it's the one that's also online. Looks awesome.
Alrighty then.
So how do you top the 1-2-3 punch of Rider movies from 2008 & 2009? Do 4 movies (and possibly more), 3 of which are actually part of a trilogy! So we come to the latest installment in the Chô Den-O series, aptly named the Chô Den-O Trilogy (well the real title's a lot longer, but I think most will refer back to the whole saga as that.)
I'm not going to get into a long thing about Den-O and how there's no stopping it. We've all read that enough times by now, haven't we? I'll just say that I have no problem with new Den-O movies as long as they're entertaining and offer up something new each time. They're not hurting anybody.
Double's still on TV, he's getting a movie. I'll be getting my G3-X and G4 Figuarts in the mail soon, and there's another Medicom Rider 1 coming next month I'll be needing (with New Cyclone!) Honestly, if I wanted to, I could just ignore Den-O the way I ignore Platinum Smile CDs whenever I look through the Rider section at any CD store. And even those make great coasters.
Of course, I can't ignore it, as I am obligated to write these reviews for some reason, and I also actually happen to like the crazy thing. Would I like to see another Rider get this sort of spotlight treatment? Sure, but I can admit that after Kamen Rider Kuuga The Movie 8: Amazing Ultimate Form vs. Ya Badabba Doo or Super Kamen Rider Blade The Movie II: Hajime Must Die!, somebody would still be voicing concerns about over-egging the pudding. We've got to play with the hand we're dealt sometimes. But hey, were it up to me, we'd at least get everyone in on the 40th anniversary series, and it'd be the real versions.
So, now that my long thing about Den-O and how there's no stopping it is out of the way, let's get to the movie review.
Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider The Movie: Chô Den-O Trilogy Episode Red: Zero's Star Twinkle
In short: Mostly good, but it's going to be a hard one to judge.
This is largely down to the format. It's part 1 of a trilogy, but exactly how it fits into that trilogy? I have my theories. I think that each episode will be a self-contained story with the overarching theme/person/thing being what's right there in the title, though it remains to be seen. So far, I can only judge this movie on what we've got.
Longtime readers will probably recall that the original Chô Den-O movie (from early last May) is the first Rider movie in years I actually never wrote a review for; I went on about it at length in one of those HJU Radio podcasts I keep forgetting to link to, but the short version is this:
That movie melted my brain and left me in a catatonic state for a month. And when I went to see it again before the theater stopped screening it, it did it all over again. And the strange part is, I like the movie! Quite a bit, actually. Though I think the main point of contention is that it's just an all around average movie, not soul-crushingly bad, nor anything particularly incredible. Out of 2009's fare, one movie I loved (All Riders) one I liked, even though I had issues with it (Movie War 2010) and then there was the annual Den-O offering which, really, was pure cotton candy: fills you up, tastes great, but still feels like a lot of air.
It was hard to put anything down to paper (or screen), though the one sentence I managed to continually scrawl out over and over last spring was that it feels like a Zeronos movie to me, despite pulling off the amazing feat of not having Zeronos in it. Yuuto's there, but even he's a cameo appearance. No, the movie feels like a Zeronos movie to me because of Deneb and, on every viewing after the first, Yuu.
Deneb is the glue that holds the movie together, whilst Yuu drives everything forwards. Even if we never see a second of Zeronos in the movie, it somehow still feels like he's everywhere. His aura is ever-present. Maybe that's just me, but it's interesting to consider when looking at Episode Red, which literally is trying to be a Zeronos movie.
Do they achieve it? Well, it's got Yuuto/Zeronos in it, that much you already know. He figures prominently into the main plot, though there is another plot going on revolving around some other familiar characters. It's a twisty ride. The marketing may lead you to believe certain things about that movie, and you might be surprised at how the real thing turns out. All I can say is that it is a Zeronos movie as well as a Den-O movie. It's his trilogy, after all.
It's a good showing for Yuuto. A particular plot thread from the series feels like it reaches a good ending; I look forward to seeing Zeronos as part of the 'crew in the future, but as far as this plot line goes, I think they've taken that about as far as it needs to go.
So with that out of the way... how does everything else stack up? Again, mostly good, though I should get the problems out of the way first.
Probably my biggest issue with the movie is that it feels like an average episode of the TV show expanded to 72 minutes, and there haven't been many accommodations made to fill it out. Generally, Rider movies either have an epic enough plot/concept to sustain that length, or they're not much longer than an average episode, earning their cinematic wings by making everything bigger, louder and better than ever. Sometimes both. Episode Red feels a lot like something you'd see on TV, only now at the movies. And that's about it.
Climax Deka was supposedly this, originally a direct-to-DVD feature that got upgraded to movie status (though I'm not certain so that could be incorrect.) However that film compensated with a ton of big idea- evil Den-O! Evil Taros! Kiva! Cop Movie Pastiche! Naomi in a China dress! Any TV production cheapness it might have had was mostly indiscernible.
We've got a lot of good elements here, but there's some struggling with the running time. On the one hand, I am glad that it's a movie-length movie. At 1800 yen, it better be longer than an average episode. However, it does feel like they were struggling a bit to make it a movie, which is funny to me because so far, I find that Den-O works best in movie form. The costlier effects, the larger scale and scope... even if they do tend to go back to Toei Studio Park-era Japan a lot, it's more interesting than just popping back to 2005 when... uh... well outside of a Hibiki team-up, not much of interest.
I'll take a guess and say that the budget here was split across 3 movies, and maybe Episode Red took the most hits. There's a cool-looking monster, but on the whole there's not much else here that makes me think "big budget movie!" The Den-Liner CGI is good, but I bet they could have done that on TV. As for the action, it's pretty much what I've come to expect from Den-O movies: good entertaining fun, but I'd be hard-pressed to name a particular fight I thought was really, really spectacular. It's mostly going through the motions.
There's some familiar faces in the cast. Some we've seen recently, some we haven't seen in a while. The new guest characters aren't anything special, but the regulars more than make up for it. Two characters who were important in the previous movie get some great stuff here.
I would have liked more villains that we get, but what we get is pretty good. Probably the best non-regular character of the movie is the main villain, an interesting adversary who shares a similarity to one of the heroes in a certain form, a fact touched upon.
Lastly, the music is good. Usual Den-O stuff with some interesting techno-y themes at times for the evil stuff. The ending song's alright, though I've already forgotten how it goes. The CD'll fix that.
All in all, it's an interesting little movie. How it's going to fit into the big picture remains to be seen. Taken on its own? It's worth a watch, though probably best meant for hardcore Den-O/Zeronos fans.
Next Time: Episode Blue. 3 Guess who the star is.
***
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