The MEGA MAX Review

It's that time of the year again, when the annual "Movie War" team-up comes out on home video at last (and naturally, hits the 'net within a day.) Even though I ordered it on blu-ray (coming next month probably) I've already watched it like a dozen times. What follows will be a fairly exhaustive review, but if you want the short version, where other Rider movies end... this one begins. In other words, it's great.

Truth be told I've been mulling over this review for over a week. When the movie came out earlier this month I immediately watched it and got to work, but found I was just summarizing rather than actually getting to what I really wanted to say about it. Now that it's been subbed and the rest of the universe has likely seen it, I don't feel as obligated to cover every single detail (there will be a podcast for that, eventually.) So it's really more my jumbled, immediate thoughts and impressions. There's spoilers aplenty, but if you haven't watched this movie yet, I'm pretty honored that you felt checking my website was more important! I'd still recommend watching it before reading further though.

So let's talk about Kamen Rider x Kamen Rider Fourze & OOO: Movie War MEGA MAX

What a change from last year! With Movie War CORE, I felt like they were just going through the motions, making a film that, while enjoyable, seemed to be made just to uphold the annual tradition. We learned that Skull once had a different mask for like 15 minutes, and that no matter whose characters he's dealing with, Inoue Toshiki is still writing in full-on angst-bucketing, wealth-corrupting, face-punching, river-falling-into-ing, insert-other-tropes-here mode. The most enjoyable part of the film for me was the end, where the headline Riders got to finally share the screen together and fight a giant flaming CGI guy.

With this one though, it's a completely different story. The signs going into were pretty good. It's written by Kobayashi Yasuko, the main writer of OOO, and Nakashima Kazuki, the main writer of Fourze. The latter also wrote one of the cleverest stories from W. It's directed by Sakamoto Kôichi, of W FOREVER fame (among others.) I know he can be an acquired taste for some, but not having seen any of his Power Rangers stuff, all I can go by is what he's done for Rider, and I've liked everything he's directed. This movie sets out to do a lot of things at once: giving closure to plot threads from OOO, developing the cast and world of Fourze, following up on a concept established back in W (and alluding to almost all the movies made since), introducing a new character with tons of future potential, and acting as the grand finale to the 40th Anniversary year by bringing back the original Legendary Seven Riders for one more go. And it does them all really, really well.

It's hard not to engage in hyperbole, but I think this really is going to go down as one of the best Kamen Rider films yet. It's definitely top 5 material, and probably even top 3. That's a list of mine that seems to change almost every year now, but the truth is that as more and more of these high-concept Rider movies get made, they always find ways to improve somehow over the previous effort. Remember when the best team-up we could get in the 2000's was Climax Deka? Remember when the closest we thought we'd ever come to seeing Rider 1 & 2 in action again was those other guys in THE FIRST? Not any more; this is the Kamen Rider universe firing on all cylinders, and it will likely continue to evolve from here.

While many will draw immediate comparisons to MEGA MAX's predecessor, OOO, Den-O, All Riders: Let's Go Kamen Riders, I honestly enjoyed both films about the same. They have differing strengths and do great things in different ways, though I can admit that this is objectively the better-made film overall. In writing, directing, and action choreography, it's going to be really hard to top this. It raises bars on how you do a team-up movie and involve past Riders, how you handle action scenes, how you do series-to-movie continuity, and so on. It's made for fans, and yet I think the casual viewer could easily enjoy this one- it's truly got something for everyone. And as stuffed as it is, it never forgets the title heroes. This is an OOO and Fourze flick through and through, with everybody else joining in on the fun.

Where it really succeeds over its bigger All Riders cousins is in that it's scaling back in some areas (less characters to worry about, a much more simple but straightforward plot) while beefing up in others (the action in this is some of the best action Kamen Rider's ever had, and you'd probably need to go back to the 70's and 80's to find handling of guest Riders this good.) It's aiming lower, but ultimately hitting higher, since it's not setting up as many expectations for itself. As it is, this movie could probably have not even featured W or the Legendary Riders, and it'd still be really, really good. Their inclusion just pushes it into being absolutely great.

What also really helps is that whereas past Movie Wars were more like two separate films tenuously linked together with a final third act, this is really one cohesive movie. It shakes up the format with a prologue and "bridging" sequence between the OOO and Fourze sections, giving us five segments in total, but each one flows into the next with ease. No Toei logos here except at the beginning! Plot elements arise at the start of the movie which don't come in again until later on, but they always feel ever-present. I think it's telling that with the other Movie Wars, the Directors' Cuts could rearrange the two main sections of the movie (so for example we now see the W part before the Decade part.) I don't think you could do that here. Everything works in a particular way and the sequence of events act to build up the anticipation.

Almost immediately, we see Gentarô and Eiji reacting to meteorite storm that kicks everything off, so we're already introduced to the stars. The opening few minutes then features the classic Riders battling all around the world against the various W/OOO/Fourze-era henchmen. It's a good thing the remainder of this movie's hand is so strong, because it plays an Ace right up front! I could spend the rest of this review just talking about those opening 4 minutes (which I dubbed "the greatest thing ever" on twitter) but I'll hold off on that for a the moment and focus on the titular Riders' portions first.

As a big fan of Kamen Rider OOO, this movie was something I've been looking forward to for what now feels like ages. The OOO series conclusion was a particularly intriguing one in that it was simultaneously sequel-proof while also being very, very open-ended. That is to say, it'd be hard to give it a proper follow-up since on the one hand, it ended pretty conclusively, taking all its toys with it into a big 'ol vortex. Ankh, a character who by the end of the show we didn't want to see die, had to die for the story to come full circle. Everybody still went home basically happy, and Eiji's "someday we'll meet again" mantra gave an uplifting feeling to a pretty bittersweet ending. That could have been the last time we ever saw him or any of the OOO cast, and I'd still be okay with it.

At the same time, though, I think it's part of Kamen Rider's DNA that the show must go on and at the end, the hero is somehow always able to return, because, invariably, they always do. To me the overarching tragedy of Kamen Rider should be that they can never stop being heroes, but they also never really want to stop either. When you get down to it there's a billion ways you could write a sequel to the OOO ending, although most of them get pretty hokey, running the gamut from silly alternate universes to Eiji just super gluing the Core Medal back together. But this is Kobayashi, the woman who somehow wrote a great Den-O ending, then another great Den-O ending, and they still kept coming after that! If anybody knows how to write a sequel to a shut-and-closed story, it's her.

So with this movie, we get something pretty clever: a sequel to OOO that also doesn't exactly cancel out anything that happened in the ending, because it builds directly off of what happened in in. We even get stock footage flashbacks! Because there was a gap of a few months between when the series ended and this movie came out, the story almost plays out in real time. It works with the audience's own emotions and desires. Just as Eiji has been traveling the world, trying to find a way to restore Ankh, so too have we in a way (not literally of course.) We miss him and we want to see him come back no matter how impossible it may seem. Time has passed, although most everybody's in the same place. That makes it easy to reacquaint us with everybody, and get right to the action.

The action for OOO begins with another big 'ol vortex, caused by a meteorite storm which will also be responsible for something in the Fourze portion. I really liked the more low-key approach to time-travel here, where it's not only accepted instantly, but acts as an easy way to bring in both a new character, and easily bring back Ankh.

It might be cheating a bit to play the "Ankh from the future" card, but I thought it was pretty clever. It avoids the goofy explanations theorized about above, and makes Eiji a stronger character for it, as he leaves this movie now knowing that some day, some how, he'll find a way to restore Ankh, even if it isn't today. It gives him hope and reaffirms his belief stated at the end of the series. They make this whole revelation slowly, not telling you where exactly Ankh came from at first, but by the end of the OOO segment it all becomes clear.

Speaking of which, Eiji gets to kick a lot of butt here, but then so does everybody! Sakamoto-directed films and episodes always seem to involve more out-of-suit fighting than usual, which is most welcome. It adds to the intensity. Eiji comes across as more powerful and desperate than ever, fighting for his very life in each battle. Watanabe apparently wanted to get as physical as possible this time, and they obliged, as he's running from explosions and beating the crap out of Scrap-Yummies like there's no tomorrow. The fight in the Cous Cousier is jaw-dropping in its brutality. There's one scene later where he's thrown into the air by a blast and lands on his head. That sounds pretty funny, but it looks painful. When the heroes take bumps in this one, you almost feel it. The whole movie has a real high-impact thing going on to it that I dug.

Of course having Ankh back is great. The whole "Ankh-becomes-Eiji" power was interesting, but it made a lot of sense given how here, Ankh's doing the whole "I made this body out of Medals" thing he did later on in the show (thus, no need for Shingo.) This is important as it also neatly explains something this portion's villain does. While he's only featured in the OOO portion of the movie, every second Ankh's onscreen it's an absolute joy and a reminder of why he was my favorite character last year.

Everybody else is in top form. Date and Gotô are inseparable as Team Birth, and I liked how they got some jet ski action (when you've already got one in the movie, might as well have some more.) I always enjoy Hina and Chiyoko, and of course Kôgami himself. As usual, he's kind of sinister, but never too much so. Kôgami reminds me a bit of how Owner was back at the start of Den-O, when he was a more aloof, mysterious figure. Not an antagonist, but not exactly a Tachibana or Tani either. Even still, he kinda warmed up over the course of the series and he does so here. His impassioned words to Eiji to save the day (and subsequent abrupt hang-up) made me chuckle. Satonaka gets a ton of fighting time too; this movie has a fairly high quotient of long-legged ladies kicking somebody.

This really is the OOO continuation I wanted. It has everything I loved about the series, bringing back all the major players and giving them their moment to shine. While the story is shared with one of the movie-original Riders (more on him later) it doesn't come at the expense of the OOO cast at all. This really does feel like OOO episode 49.

And the Fourze segment keeps up the momentum. This has everything I love about Fourze, highlighting all the main characters with their signature tics and quirks. Considering how early on in that show's run this was written, everybody still manages to feel just right. This is Opening Credits Sequence Fourze, with the Rider Club all acting like best friends forever. Even when the others go behind Gentarô's back and inadvertently bring Foundation X into the picture, we get to see just how unbreakable the bonds of friendship are. The part towards the end where they ALL do the countdown is so good, I really hope they can come up with something to top it in the Fourze film proper or series finale.

The much-awaited sequence where they dress up as the Legendary Seven Riders was short but worth the wait. Nozama steals the show of course, but I liked Gentarô recreating the Stronger Henshin pose. Of course the costumes are wonderfully low-budget and yet still manage to look better than the rip-offs from the Chaiyo Hanuman movie (but what doesn't?) This is what I mean about plot elements coming and going in this film. Even though they only show up at the beginning, middle, and end, it still feels like the old Riders are a big deal. They're ever-present, always seeming to hover just off screen thanks to little moments like this. But I'll get to them later, I'm trying to exercise some self-control here.

There isn't a whole lot else to say about the Fourze regulars, as while OOO was wrapping up dangling plot threads from its series, this part's really just having fun with a new character and putting things into place for the grand finale. That was something I really appreciated about this part: while OOO has a villain specifically created for that segment alone (with the Medals he uses being important later on) for the Fourze section it directly involves the movie's main villains, Foundation X. Gamô and Leo Zodiarts show up briefly to sneer at the white-clad bastards for a bit, and there's Dustards everywhere, but this really is all setting up for the final act.

To go off on a tangent about Foundation X, they really needed this movie. Up to this point, my general opinion of them has been "great idea, shame about the execution." I know, I know. A lot of fans like the idea of continuous background threat linking the series together. It's just like the Great Leader, right?

Well, the Great Leader is a well-remembered, beloved villain for two main reasons. First, he largely worked through retcon. The character is the ultimate enemy in the older series, but he only shows up now and then, sometimes completely sitting out a show only to come in later and reveal his involvement in previous series. He's a great behind-the-scenes manipulator because he is a behind-the-scenes manipulator. After the original series, he doesn't need to appear every show because when he shows up later and says "Yeah I did that" you can easily believe him because he did it back then.

Second, he can be defeated time and again, and yet he's always still threatening because he remains so remote and unknowable. We still don't really know what he is, even with whatever back story exists for the character on or off screen. Half the time it's never clear if it's even truly him- in my mind, the incarnations in V3 and the first part of Stronger were intentional fake-outs, whereas the original series, end of Stronger, New Kamen Rider and Let's Go versions are him really taking the gloves off and showing us why he's still in a class of his own. And who knows what's up with the BLACK RX version. I have my theories, but that's another story.

By comparison, Foundation X doesn't really have that kind of street cred yet. They were pretty good in W, but W is still the Sonozaki Show. Kazu has the personality of a doormat, but he was sneaky and cool as Utopia, and Evil Georgie Leland there was fun (what ever happened to her anyway?) It seemed like they were interested in OOO, but that didn't exactly pan out. They did appear in the Eternal movie, but I thought that film made them look really amateurish, turning loose a bunch of undead super soldiers because it didn't generate enough ad revenue or something, and then being shocked when that ended up being a bad idea (again, only Kazu displaying any real competence in trying to bump them off and provide the movie's new action figure debut.) Their appearance on Fourze was cool from a continuity standpoint, but I think everybody was just so excited to have Foundation X back that they didn't realize Foundation X really get made to look like a bunch of clowns, getting owned by Gamô's secretary (okay his "aide", but come on. You know who has to make the coffee and it ain't Virgo.)

Thankfully this film finally makes them the masterminding threat they've been hyped up as, though with a caveat: the main villain apparently realizes how rubbish they are and decides to turn on them! But in fairness we'll still count Kannagi's crew as part of the group so this is really the movie Foundation X needed to go from "those guys" to "Rider's premier 21st century evil organization if we don't count Daishocker". I still feel like if they're going to do another one of these in a few years, the "Stronger-style finale" for the 2010-era of Riders, then Foundation X needs to up its game, but this is still by far the best use of them since W. I still believe in the promise, is what I'm getting at.

Given that the movie's enemy has origins in his series, it's fitting that Kamen Rider W shows up between the OOO & Fourze segments, and then later at the end (the "MEGA MAX" proper.) I think this is actually my favorite use of W in a movie to date! He's in just enough to please the fans that would still line up for W YET AGAIN: Shôtarô & Philip Change a Tire featuring Skull while also still being firmly in the "Special Appearance By" category (Kiriyama & Suda are credited as such.) They get all the reverence and importance of the classic Riders!

Joker's inclusion was cool, but Sakamoto always films a good Joker fight, so I don't mind if the reason for it being in the movie basically comes down to "Philip's busy". I like it as something Shôtarô only uses as a last resort, an ace up his sleeve rather than a convenience, but on the other hand it's nice that they're still getting mileage out of an idea that could have easily been a one-off. The transformation is cool; I'm sure they did in in W FOREVER and maybe the TV series, but I like how Shôtarô gets those lines on his face, similar to the "surgical scars" from the original series Ishinomori comic. I actually would not have minded if Accel turned up briefly during the Futo interlude with some sort of line about how he'd hold down the fort while the S & P brigade head off to Tokyo/unspecified Tokyo-like city. Maybe Terui was busy trying to figure out how he can get another DTV.

W playing a part in the final battle along with everyone else was great. I liked the use of the basic 3 forms and Xtreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeme, though I guess the whole "no-killing" policy doesn't apply to Foundation X? Speaking of which, this movie had a ton of collateral henchmen deaths, not even counting all those transformed into Masquerades or whatnot. There's the poor bastards in those helicopters, the other guys on Kannagi's space ship, and those flunkies that OOO drives into holding the suitcase with the Rider Medals/Switches. We don't see them get up, that's all I'm saying.

Also, I loved the muffled voice effect they gave to W and the Legendary Seven (aside from Riderman, for obvious reasons.) Reminds you of the fact that they are masked Riders.

Before I finally dive into the aforementioned Legendary Seven, let's get to the movie-original Riders. These two (three?) are probably some of my favorite movie Riders in a long time. Usually, in a film with two or more new-for-the-film Riders, I tend to favor one in particular. For me, Episode Final's breakout star is Femme, Paradise Lost is the Psyga show, and the most intriguing character of Kiva's really long-titled movie was Rey. Here though, it's pretty tough: both Poseidon/Aqua and Nadeshiko had great designs, strong characterization and a fully-realized story arc. I feel like I got the full story for both, and yet I wouldn't mind seeing either return.

Poseidon/Aqua has a greak hook. Minato Miharu/Aqua is a Rider from 40 years in the future (topical!) who felt he wasn't strong enough to save the world from, among other things, some Undead. So old man Kôgami gave him a driver and some Medals, letting him become Poseidon, but even that's not enough. However, he winds up absorbing all the Medals thought lost at the end of OOO (and apparently the dismembered body parts of Doctor Maki, though they don't get into that) and voila- evil out-of-control Rider!

Since OOO never really had a proper "evil" Rider (other than Core, who was... well, Core) Poseidon is a nice addition to the mythos. His sea theme is cool and I dig the design a lot. The whole thing with him eventually splitting off from Miharu in his own corporeal form was signposted with Ankh back in the series. While he's fairly single-minded in his ambitions, it works because he's just a temporary threat, not the main antagonist of the film.

While he's introduced to us as Poseidon, we soon learn that Miharu is in fact also Kamen Rider Aqua. I like Miharu a lot. He's troubled without seeming overly wimpy or weak. His struggle feels kinda realistic, even. He's a Rider who just isn't very good at what he does (he's a water-themed guy who is scared of water, after all.) It takes seeing a Rider from the past to get him to start believing in himself and embrace what he is.

Aqua's a great design, mixing elements of Rider 1 and W while also bringing something new to the table. No clue if Riders will actually look like that in 40 years though! His use of a jet ski is inspired and I was sort of wondering if they're implying that we're headed for a flooded future where every city is Venice. His henshin and finishers are cool and I like that he comes back later in the movie to join in on the final rumble (and give OOO his new toys.) I know some people are already clamoring for a spin-off; hey, I'm down for more futuristic justice.

Related to Aqua, I think it's pretty neat how, while Fourze is the 40th Anniversary Rider, OOO sorta is too. Aside from the 1000 episode and Let's Go stuff, there's the fact that the character now has palled around with two Riders from the future, becoming a sort of "representative" for Kamen Rider during its anniversary year. There's this ongoing subtext where Rider 1 & 2 = Rider's Past, OOO & Fourze = Rider's Present, and NEW Den-O & Aqua = Rider's Future. Maybe it's just me though.

Appearing in Fourze's section is Kamen Rider Nadeshiko, who plays an important role in his segment (and in giving him his new toys for the movie.) Nadeshiko is... well, I'll put it like this. Is she the ultimate female Rider I've been waiting for? Not quite, but is she still a very charming, likable character with some great moments? You bet.

She is simultaneously adorable and ruthless! One minute she is making cartoonish sound effects and butt-slamming Dustards, and the next she is breaking their necks or knocking shelves on top of them. She gets to bust some heads! The whole idea behind her, an the alien SOLU glob mimicking Fourze, is pretty inspired. It even makes her "death" a little more complex than usual, since she was never really alive in the conventional sense.

Misaki Nadeshiko, for a character with few lines and little in the ways of actual characterization, still has a lot of personality. She's not especially deep, but she doens't need to be. She has just the right amount of chemistry with Gentarô so that their relationship, while brief, feels genuine. I bought it. Gentarô's a pretty simple guy himself so I can see him falling for a blob of alien goo. The twist with her at the end (mimicking a real girl) was cool. Also, if there's any doubt that Gentarô is supposed to be the Stronger analogue, this movie should seal the deal (still not sure how they got "Kisaragi Gentarô" out of "Jô Shigeru" though!) Also, props to the actress (or her stunt double) for that scene where Gentarô swings her around!

Of course, even if everything I just wrote about had been a big mess, even if the OOO part had contradicted everything in the finale and the Fourze part made Nobunaga's Desire look like Oscar-bait, if W's intermission had featured a Heaven's Tornado song & dance number sung by Chiharu featuring Shôtarô getting assaulted by rabid howler monkeys... it wouldn't have mattered because this movie still has a secret weapon.

These guys:

I'll admit, going into this one I was a little apprehensive. It's always nice to see some of my old school Rider favorites, but Let's Go sort of raised the bar in that it actually had Fujioka & Sasaki voicing Rider 1 & 2, who felt like Rider 1 & 2. While everybody from V3 and beyond were bit players, the movie still made the Double Riders out to be the big deal that they are. I could tolerate all the Imagin hijinks because a few scenes later, we got stuff like that fight. Here, we were going back to the All Riders vs. Daishocker fill-in voices, and the classics were just guest stars rather than part of the main attraction. Understandably so, but what exactly kind of role were they going to have? Remember, the last time Shôwa Riders "appeared" in a Movie War, I nearly torched the theater!

Any fears were dispelled with the opening minutes of the film, where two things are immediately obvious: 1) even though they're just in brief supporting roles this time, ala the Super-1 movie, the old Riders are treated like the butt-kicking badass veterans they should be. And 2) the voice actors have been practicing!

Despite not having the original actors to reprise them (in or out of costume) you can still tell they really tried hard to make these feel like the characters, and they do. Honestly, the only way you can improve on how the Riders are handled here is to actually have the old guys appear out-of-suit next time (Hey, if Ultraman Mebius and Gokaiger can do it, Kamen Rider can!) The Double Riders still feel like the Double Riders, V3 feels like V3, and so on.

They look great. Aside from Rider 2's return to his late 70's/early 80's-style dark helmet (which they should keep forever now) I feel like they tweaked some things here and there on the other costumes, bringing them closer to how they should be. Maybe it's just me. I know V3 has different boots and Amazon feels a little darker, or maybe that's just the way it's shot (with that high-contrasty look.) The costumes are more like those from the 70's and 80's than the slightly stiffer, puffier attraction suit versions they've been using. Maybe it's just the stuntmen.

They sound great. Like I said, the All Riders VA's have been practicing and I'll admit, had I not known the cast list going into this I would probably have been fooled by some of them. It's probably sacrilege, but I prefer this Amazon to the previous fill-ins including Seki Tomokazu. It's the best Amazon voice since Okazaki himself! Riderman is also scarily good, which means there are now at least 3 guys in Japan who do a mean Yamaguchi impression. Sadly Stronger's is probably the weak link, and it's not that it's really that bad, but he 1) sounds like Shocker Greeed, for obvious reasons, and 2) doesn't really sound like Shigeru so much as he sounds like some of the other guys who have voiced Stronger over the years. Maybe it just stings a little bit more since this would have probably been their last chance to have Araki Shigeru himself voice Stronger. Given Stronger's line count, I think they could have justified it. It's forgivable point though, and Ishikawa does a decent enough job. Stronger does get one of the best lines in the movie when he tells Fourze to hold off on the verbose introductions for now.

And of course they fight great. This movie pulls off a neat trick with the Legendary Seven in that it shows us things we've never seen before, and yet everything feels true to the original characters. Each Rider has a fighting style that's right out of their original series, just magnified and played up in a way we haven't really seen in the modern team-up movies yet. Rider 1 practically walks on air, spin-kicking guys left and right. Rider 2 is the big tough tank he was always meant to be. And so on. The fights at the beginning of the film were great, as were the 1-on-1's towards the end, with some clever match-ups (Rider 2 vs. Gamel, Stronger vs. Terror.) It was nice to see Stronger in the "lead" role, like he was in the actual Seven Riders days.

The wire work is a nice modernization of the old jump-and-cut techniques, and the special effects feel less like needless flashy 'updates' and more like loving recreations. We get to see well-known attacks in a whole different way. Stronger's Electro Fire looks better than ever, despite really just having a bit of CG electricity added in. I was particularly impressed with the X Kick, which takes what was already one of the coolest Rider Kicks of all time and makes it even cooler, yet keeps every element from the original intact. Stronger's Den Kick as well, which honestly looks so good I'd call it the best-looking Rider Kick since they started adding CG effects to the Rider Kicks in the 2000's. Better up your game, 2012's Rider!

Ultimately this movie really handles the old Riders teaming up with the new guys the way you've always wanted to see it done. There's no need for any elaborate explanation involving time travel or world-hopping; they just show up at the beginning of the movie and off we go. Just like in the old days! It even allows for Foundation X to look pretty good since they manage to temporarily trap the classics with their Electromagnetic Bandaization Field or whatever it is. Whatever it was, it led to the Rider Switches and Medals sequence, which was a lot of fun. The brief interaction between the Seven Riders, Fourze & OOO was a lot of fun too. Even if they're appearing in-suit the whole time, it felt like the real deals.

Also, Riderman has been working out! I never thought I'd see the Rope Arm used to actually kill anybody higher than a henchmen-level opponent, but here we go.

If I have one real gripe with the film, it's that there's no Skyrider! Sounds nitpicky I know, but hey: the movie's star villains are two of his most famous bad guys, from his own movie! That's like having a film where Shadow Moon is the main enemy, but there's no sign of BLACK or RX (which they did, and it was weird there too.)

Well okay, the justification is that they're really different characters, so maybe you could say they're just sort of mimicking the 8 Riders movie versions. This version of Ginga-Ô is the film's main villain, Lem Kannagi, transforming via the SOLU switch and futuristic O-Medals Poseidon used. Though curiously, even before that, he seems to have super-breath powers. Guess it's part of the whole "Mutanmid" thing. While I'd still have to say I prefer the 1980 version, who is one of Rider's most bizarre and memorable heavies of all time (and one of my favorites) the 2011 rendition is still pretty cool, with a nifty look and great suit acting from fan favorite Okamoto. Speaking of that, I thought it was pretty funny that the OOO & Fourze vs. Ginga-Ô fight scene reminded me a lot of Kabuto & Gatack vs. Caucasus in God Speed Love, where Okamoto also played a super-fast villain who pretty much dominated his opponents.

Sadondas (or "Sudden Death") is played by that guy from the Soft Bank ads who has a dog for a father. Again, while I prefer the original (he is from my favorite Rider movie, you know) I liked the update, and his vocal effects did have a kind of nicely subtle synth sound to them. He was a pretty good opponent for Fourze and Nadeshiko. It's too bad Kannagi's other comrade there had to settle for just turning into a reused Zodiart, but she was fun. Not sure if she survived or not, since while everybody else W defeats just blows up, she's shown to revert back to human form, but that roll looked pretty painful. It was cool seeing the Sonozaki Dopants and Greeed back for the requisite "Revived Kaijin Army Out of Nowhere". Also, Virgo Zodiarts was nifty.

I haven't even really gotten to the final segment, which is just one great scene after another. Everybody's likely talking about the Shôtarô/Philip/Eiji/Gentarô scene. The interaction between the heroes is great. I like grumpy old man Shôtarô, now realizing that he and Philip are becoming the old guys of their generation. The action scenes all throughout the movie are great, but really kicking into top-notch near the end. OOO & Fourze's fight with all the henchmen, displaying their various powers, is one of the best fight scenes either character will ever have.

I love all the callbacks to previous team-ups. Shôtarô references OOO's line from W FOREVER, and Eiji & Gentarô already know each other from OOO WONDERFUL. I'd even say Eiji's comfort around the boys from Futo is a subtle allusion to Movie CORE, and OOO's reaction to the classic Riders came off to me as less surprised that they are real (like Fourze) and more like amazement that he's encountering them again. I'm not even going to bother with the canon/continuity debates that will probably result from this movie, and just say that to me, it pretty much makes any continuity conflicts void by being so damn awesome.

The movie also introduces a new form for OOO (the lovably ridiculous Super TaToBa) and Fourze (the lovably ridiculous Rocket States.) Both are over-the-top blasts of color and giant arm weapons, but I really dug 'em both. Massive claws and duel-wielding rockets? Sign me up. If this movie has done anything, it's make be buy a ton of Figuarts I never thought I would (crayon-colored heroes, Figuarts Zeroes, Claydoll, etc.) The actual final fight with Ginga-Ô is CGI overload, but to be honest things are so exciting by that point I didn't care. The final double kick was a delight. Something I did really appreciate is that Ginga-Ô has the same final line as the original, and an equally ironic death involving his spaceship.

And of course, Meteor's post-credits introduction is pretty neat.

I need to mention the music. This film has a great score, with variations on OOO & Fourze TV themes, the theme songs for them & W, a special musical moment for ShaUTa, and a great new version of the Seven Riders battle anthem. Seriously, I still can't get over those first four minutes. The ending theme, "Samurai Strong Style", is great as well. I'll be really interested to see the Director's Cut of this; if it was missing anything at the end, I would have liked one more shot with the Legendary Seven driving off (or well, walking off since Toei apparently can't be bothered to remake Riderman~Stronger's bikes.)

Also, I do kind of get a chuckle out of the first scene with Rider 1 & 2. Even jumping in slow motion, the Dustards can't hit them with their shuriken! Such is the power of the Double Riders.

I feel like I've written all I possibly can about this movie without just devolving into a gibbering mess. It's a ton of fun and one of those Rider movies I'll be able to watch again and again and never get tired of. Time will only tell if we'll see another film like this one, since the upcoming Super Hero War seems to be going in a totally different direction in terms of staff, goals and early reception. We'll have to see about that one though. For now, this is definitely going to be the one to beat. It's basically everything I love about Kamen Rider in movie form. Can't get much better than that.

And I'm glad that for all the 8 Riders stuff this movie brought back, they fortunately didn't use Sigma Energy. Gotta leave me with something, Toei!