Review: Kamen Rider Movie War Megamax
May. 21st, 2012 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acornboxI was apprehensive when I first heard of this movie and found out that they were cramming five storylines into one 90-minute movie. Essentially, Megamax breaks down to an episode of Kamen Rider OOO, an episode of Kamen Rider Fourze, separated with some featurettes about an overarching plotline that comes to fruition in the third "episode", which is the crossover segment. They even include title cards and "To Be Continued" notices at the beginning and ends of each "episode". A major problem with Kamen Rider "crossover" movies (the problem is absent in Super Sentai crossover movies, funnily enough) is that they're not really crossover movies until the last part. The movie should be about two Riders from different series in a singular storyline, not two storylines that taper together eventually.
This is arguably the most ambitious movie crossover yet, and in its rush to cover five storylines and introduce three new Kamen Riders, it inevitably moves at a hundred miles an hour. The movie has no time to spend on introducing these characters to a new audience; this is a fan's movie, for someone who has seen all of Kamen Rider OOO and is watching Fourze at the time. The OOO episode acts as an epilogue to that show and is chock-full of spoilers, making it worse for the casual fan who hasn't seen OOO yet. It's a wild ride, just don't expect meaningful stories or character development.
The plot kicks off when a mysterious space meteorite crashes to Earth, opening a time portal into the future. From the time portal comes an evil Kamen Rider (his name is Poseidon, but this isn't mentioned during the show) with an unhealthy obsession for combat. As his gear is powered by Core Medals, that's the cue for Kamen Rider OOO to return and kick his ass. Meanwhile, the agents of the shadowy Foundation X harvest some Silvery Space Goo (called "SOLU") from the meteorite, only for the goo to wind up at Amanogawa High School (Kamen Rider Fourze's turf) just in time for the school festival.
I loved the design of Kamen Rider Poseidon, whose bulky armour strikes an imposing figure against the streamlined OOO. He's sadly a victim of the format, not getting enough time to develop his character and having a backstory that makes no sense unless you've seen the final episode of Kamen Rider OOO. He doesn't even get a proper transformation sequence, which struck me as cheap for a big-budget movie. In the second half of the story another Kamen Rider called Kamen Rider Aqua shows up. I wasn't a fan of his weird techno-retro design: he reminded me of Shadow Moon- from 1987 series Kamen Rider Black- in reflective blue spandex and a jetski. However, his water-themed powers were cool, and I appreciated the attempt to give him a character arc in what short time he had.
As for the old cast, they were all present and accounted for, acting as though they had never missed a beat. It was fun to see all of these characters together again. However, none of them really get any character development here. Their character arcs were wrapped up very nicely by the end of the television series, and Megamax does nothing to disturb that ending. It worked well here though. I'm not a fan of sequels that unravel the ending of a previous instalment just so that they have somewhere to go.
The Fourze section was all right. My main problem with it was the same problem I have with the television series: its protagonist, Gentarou. He's effectively a cartoon character in the real world, a caricature of energetic school life created by someone much older than the character. This makes it incredibly hard for me to empathise with him. For example: literally seconds after hearing the words "girlfriend" and "school life" in the same sentence, Gentarou immediately declares that he's going to get a girlfriend and falls in love with the first pair of boobies he finds. It's very hard to care about his emotions (and the ensuing dilemma) when they're treated as a hasty punchline.
The rest of it was pretty entertaining. Mr. Otsugi's one-minute cameo reminds me what a great comic actor he is, and how much I miss that subplot he had with Ms. Sonada. Kamen Rider Nadeshiko, the new Rider for this section, is a fun design. Her fighting style was a mixture of ridiculously cutesy moves and horrific violence; at one point she snaps a guy's neck! The cameo of Virgo Zodiarts, who wouldn't debut in the television series for a while, is also a welcome bonus.
As I mentioned earlier, interspersed between these sections is the overarching plot regarding Lem Kannagi of Foundation X, and his attempt to take over the world by combining the power of the Poseidon Core Medals and SOLU. I love Foundation X as a concept. Introduced in Kamen Rider Double as the financial benefactors of the bad guys, they've been compared to a modern version of Shocker, the first Kamen Rider villain group. Whereas Shocker was some weird cult commanded by even weirder villains, Foundation X is a sleek, sterile business with a clear-cut goal of advancing human evolution through evil. They work really well as a plot device to explain just how the villains have the resources they do, as well as an antagonistic link between all the post-Decade Rider series.
Such villains are best used sparingly, so having Foundation X take centre stage as the main heroic target devalues them a little. But I suppose that crossover movies are the best place to "cash in" the Foundation X stock, especially for a persistent group like them. It also loosely connects them to the OOO universe, which- aside from a brief aside at the end of Double- they were sadly absent from. Lem Kannagi is your typical megalomaniac with superpowers, and if anything you have to admire how passionate he is about becoming an evil overlord.
The final crossover segment is chock-full of action, and it's great to see all of the main Riders finally interacting with each other: the best moments of the movie belong to Shotarou's reactions to Gentarou. It was also great to see some of my favourite monster designs come back for one more round of fighting, even if they've been downgraded to generic enemies with few of their trademark powers. The final battle is filled to the brim with CGI to the point where it really becomes noticeable, but I give them credit for at least keeping everyone on the humanoid level instead of having the Riders face down some giant computer-generated monstrosity. On the subject of combat: there is a lot of wirework used throughout the entire film, giving the fighting a very floaty quality. However, the basic sequences are well-choreographed and shot, making them enjoyable to watch.
Overall, I enjoyed this film. It works very well as a chunk of brainless fanservice for the most devoted fans of Kamen Rider, offering another round with a cast of really good characters from previous series, and solid action sequences. It sadly offers little to those unfamiliar with the source material, but at least the movie knows who its target audience is and directs all of their resources to pleasing them.
This is arguably the most ambitious movie crossover yet, and in its rush to cover five storylines and introduce three new Kamen Riders, it inevitably moves at a hundred miles an hour. The movie has no time to spend on introducing these characters to a new audience; this is a fan's movie, for someone who has seen all of Kamen Rider OOO and is watching Fourze at the time. The OOO episode acts as an epilogue to that show and is chock-full of spoilers, making it worse for the casual fan who hasn't seen OOO yet. It's a wild ride, just don't expect meaningful stories or character development.
The plot kicks off when a mysterious space meteorite crashes to Earth, opening a time portal into the future. From the time portal comes an evil Kamen Rider (his name is Poseidon, but this isn't mentioned during the show) with an unhealthy obsession for combat. As his gear is powered by Core Medals, that's the cue for Kamen Rider OOO to return and kick his ass. Meanwhile, the agents of the shadowy Foundation X harvest some Silvery Space Goo (called "SOLU") from the meteorite, only for the goo to wind up at Amanogawa High School (Kamen Rider Fourze's turf) just in time for the school festival.
I loved the design of Kamen Rider Poseidon, whose bulky armour strikes an imposing figure against the streamlined OOO. He's sadly a victim of the format, not getting enough time to develop his character and having a backstory that makes no sense unless you've seen the final episode of Kamen Rider OOO. He doesn't even get a proper transformation sequence, which struck me as cheap for a big-budget movie. In the second half of the story another Kamen Rider called Kamen Rider Aqua shows up. I wasn't a fan of his weird techno-retro design: he reminded me of Shadow Moon- from 1987 series Kamen Rider Black- in reflective blue spandex and a jetski. However, his water-themed powers were cool, and I appreciated the attempt to give him a character arc in what short time he had.
As for the old cast, they were all present and accounted for, acting as though they had never missed a beat. It was fun to see all of these characters together again. However, none of them really get any character development here. Their character arcs were wrapped up very nicely by the end of the television series, and Megamax does nothing to disturb that ending. It worked well here though. I'm not a fan of sequels that unravel the ending of a previous instalment just so that they have somewhere to go.
The Fourze section was all right. My main problem with it was the same problem I have with the television series: its protagonist, Gentarou. He's effectively a cartoon character in the real world, a caricature of energetic school life created by someone much older than the character. This makes it incredibly hard for me to empathise with him. For example: literally seconds after hearing the words "girlfriend" and "school life" in the same sentence, Gentarou immediately declares that he's going to get a girlfriend and falls in love with the first pair of boobies he finds. It's very hard to care about his emotions (and the ensuing dilemma) when they're treated as a hasty punchline.
The rest of it was pretty entertaining. Mr. Otsugi's one-minute cameo reminds me what a great comic actor he is, and how much I miss that subplot he had with Ms. Sonada. Kamen Rider Nadeshiko, the new Rider for this section, is a fun design. Her fighting style was a mixture of ridiculously cutesy moves and horrific violence; at one point she snaps a guy's neck! The cameo of Virgo Zodiarts, who wouldn't debut in the television series for a while, is also a welcome bonus.
As I mentioned earlier, interspersed between these sections is the overarching plot regarding Lem Kannagi of Foundation X, and his attempt to take over the world by combining the power of the Poseidon Core Medals and SOLU. I love Foundation X as a concept. Introduced in Kamen Rider Double as the financial benefactors of the bad guys, they've been compared to a modern version of Shocker, the first Kamen Rider villain group. Whereas Shocker was some weird cult commanded by even weirder villains, Foundation X is a sleek, sterile business with a clear-cut goal of advancing human evolution through evil. They work really well as a plot device to explain just how the villains have the resources they do, as well as an antagonistic link between all the post-Decade Rider series.
Such villains are best used sparingly, so having Foundation X take centre stage as the main heroic target devalues them a little. But I suppose that crossover movies are the best place to "cash in" the Foundation X stock, especially for a persistent group like them. It also loosely connects them to the OOO universe, which- aside from a brief aside at the end of Double- they were sadly absent from. Lem Kannagi is your typical megalomaniac with superpowers, and if anything you have to admire how passionate he is about becoming an evil overlord.
The final crossover segment is chock-full of action, and it's great to see all of the main Riders finally interacting with each other: the best moments of the movie belong to Shotarou's reactions to Gentarou. It was also great to see some of my favourite monster designs come back for one more round of fighting, even if they've been downgraded to generic enemies with few of their trademark powers. The final battle is filled to the brim with CGI to the point where it really becomes noticeable, but I give them credit for at least keeping everyone on the humanoid level instead of having the Riders face down some giant computer-generated monstrosity. On the subject of combat: there is a lot of wirework used throughout the entire film, giving the fighting a very floaty quality. However, the basic sequences are well-choreographed and shot, making them enjoyable to watch.
Overall, I enjoyed this film. It works very well as a chunk of brainless fanservice for the most devoted fans of Kamen Rider, offering another round with a cast of really good characters from previous series, and solid action sequences. It sadly offers little to those unfamiliar with the source material, but at least the movie knows who its target audience is and directs all of their resources to pleasing them.
