... Yeah that is definetly a head turning title. Yeah so the next Rider movie is going to involve soccer of all thing... I mean yeah Riders kick a lot but this is definitely a move to make. I am not a sports person so I never really was cared for Football (What soccer is called in some locations like in south america.) About the only Fifa thing I know about is that terrible film United Passions that is essentially a vanity glow up to a rather shady group in the time since 2014. But regardless yeah, Gaim's summer movie was to take place in an alternate universe where instead of the inves games, the armored riders instead were the star players of teams in Zawame. Look this movie could be the most average movie imaginable, but after having to relive Kamen Rider Taisen I will take anything at this point.
While fighting off some Inves (in a much more ruined looking Zawame than anything the show had, budget I know but consistency is still a thing) Kouta comes across a weird young lad who questions him about a ball. Kouta than explains the goal and way to play soccer and this kid decides to base his dream world off of it Walking off. Kouta soon finds himself in an alternate Zawame city where the inves invasion never happened, and instead the city has been invaded by soccer fever, with the beat riders now soccer teams fighting for the grand prize of the golden fruit, Kouta initally enjoys the new world especially since his old friend Yuya is now alive but their is something sinister hiding beneath all of this, something that may end up finally being the thing that breaks the poor man.
So yeah in a way this movie has a similar structure akin to Gaim's inital arc, being a bit lighter and softer before dipping into much darker material later on, but instead of mediocre dancing that the show felt like it wanted to get rid of, the movie puts it all out for this soccer focused new world in its aesthetics, they brought in notable japanese soccer players at the time, Zawame got a big Rio de Janeiro makeover for the whole thing. To some the whole film can feel like a bit of mood whiplash, especially since this film takes place around the time of some of Gaim's biggest wham moments, including the likes of Kaito going from a social darwinist to a friendly rival, Takatora and the rest of Yggdrasil reimagined as a team bent on ruling the world of soccer.
I mean, rider's are known for their kicking prowess, Kouta's just using his ability to its fullest.
But as I stated, its like the inital arc of gaim so after about the mid point and the shift in tone, soccer becomes more a background detail outside of being used for the final encounter, and it is a shame since you can tell everyone here is having fun with this soccer stuff when its happening, but the film becomes a more standard rider film affair afterwards, I guess they thought people would not want to watch a film of riders playing soccer but I don't know I do kind of want to see that. Anywho the plot main villain then focuses on Kohgane, an artifical golden fruit that Ryoma, in standard mad scientist affair, unleashes in this new world who goes about corrupting the various riders in Zawame to fight for him which I will give credit leads to some actually nice scenes like more of Oren and Takatora getting some vengeance against Syd for the main timeline, but for some of the good characterization there is the under utilized aspects, Mitchy for some reason remembers the previous world which may make for some interesting aspects of him potentially coming to grips with what he has done, but nothing much is done with it and DJ Sagara shows up for some exposition later on after he started with the thing he was known for, just kind of showing up to explain what is going on, and the original characters are fine to say the least, Kougane is a fine if forgettable antagonist and Lapis... is there, he exists. I like the lore that they add regarding the history of the overlords of Helheim, but their not to say the levels of Katsumi, Paradox in terms of film original villains, and is an unfortunate trend of Gaim adding lore, but really not having time to expand on it.
Kouta deciding to give Mitchy his just dessert for all he has done
That being said if their is something that the film expands on its the amount of new forms and riders, Kouta gets to go through a few of the arms of his armored rider rivals, which just sees the upper parts of Gridon and Bravo's suits on Gaim's underbody, he also gets an evil jimber form in Gaim Yami that I kind of like for the new body language that Kouta is sporting during it. But of course it is not just kitbashing and recolors, new suits like Mars and Kamuro also look great, though I would get sick of them and we will get into that next time, but I do think that these do look great, Mars apple exploding for gold as Kohgane is a false golden fruit, while Kamuro, for what little we get before he becomes a soccer ball has this nice regal look, sort of reminding me of a rider version of Redyue. But yeah he is probably in this form for all of a few minutes and is transformed into a ball for the final conflict. Which afterwards Kouta returns to his world and just wanders off never to mention what he has just witnessed, outside of the epilogue where Kougane returns.
Fruit Sentai Armorider
CONCLUSION
On it's surface, Gaim's summer movie seems to be one of those jumping the shark kind of films, I mean Rider and soccer, and innately yeah it sort of is that kind of dumb goofy fun that the concept will initally make you believe. Unfortunately, Golden fruit cup uses it soccer premise as a smoke screen for the actual movie, and unlike the main show which had a deep, character driven, dramatic deconstruction of rider shows as a whole, this is just a rather standard affair for rider movies, interesting concepts that are not fully fleshed out. It is worth it for that opening portion for what is probably something you would not expect, but at the end of the day, instead of gold, golden fruit cup feels more like a fool's gold rather than something truly outstanding.
FINAL GRADE: C
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