40 years is nothing to sniff at, very few things can say they have lasted till 40 and remain strong in the pop culture landscape, and that was kamen rider was celebrating in 2011, not only 40 years strong but also were celebrating their 1,000 episode, an episode that also ended up airing on the exact day that the first episode of the original series aired back in 1971, but the circumstances that brought it their were less than ideal. On March 11th, 2011 in the early mornings, japan was hit by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, that triggered a tsunami that then proceeded to cause a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The damage was astronomical, the total damage was estimated to cost 37,166,400,000,000.00 yen or 360 billion dollars in USD, nearly 16,000 people lost their life, over 6,000 people were injured and 2,529 people went missing after the tragedy. To say this was a difficult time would be an understatement, supplies were scarce, many people were displaced from their home and debris was everywhere in affected places. But at the same time is was a time where hope could shine through, this hope was most shone to the children to show that no matter how bad things got, you can always pick yourself up and keep going, and whether this was a miracle or just coincidence, one notable monument that survived the disaster was a statue or the original Kamen rider. While yes, I do consider a show like rider and sentai to be more all ages, the shows are often targeted specifically at kids. Now I should make note that let's go Kamen Riders was not made in response to the event, in fact the film was ready done and ready for theatres and had an opening day of March 15 2011, but that got pushed back to april 1st following the disaster, which meant it premiered in between Rider's 999th and 1000th episode. So was this the right movie for the right time, or was it time for a rerun of other rider films.
The film starts with Eiji fighting some mole like monsters as Ankh comes up wondering what the holdup is and figures that what Eiji are fighting are not Yummies, these are Imagins, the main enemies of Kamen Rider Den-o who after Eiji bashes away hop into an unsuspecting kid as the Den liner appears as Kotaro Nogami, the grandson of Den-O's protagonist Ryotaro Nogami who couldn't be here because actor was getting serious about acting after Den-O, and what he went on to do after he...retired, semi retired from the role Ryotaro (seriously, notable adaptations of highly praised manga, the amount of rewards he's either been nominated for or won, dudes gone pretty far in his career). But back to the plot, so Kotaro and his imagin partner Teddy pinpoint what point in time the Mole Imagin had gone to, April 1st, 1971and head off with Eiji and Ankh following along and told not to go beyond the Den-liner. Which Ankh immediately breaks to go grab the other core medals from his fellow Greeed but is stopped by Eiji, Kotaro kills the three mole imagin and movie over right?... Not really, see when Kotaro destroyed that last Imagin Ankh was caught in the blast and dropped a singular cell medal which is left in the past, and if you know the rules of time travel, even the smallest thing can cause catastrophic changes, and when Eiji and Ankh return to the present to find a world far different from the one they left as Shocker now controls most of the world and most shockingly, the original Kamen rider's 1 and 2 are fighting for them. Turns out with that singular cell medal, Shocker was capable of creating a monster strong enough to defeat them and finish their brainwashing, allowing shocker to conquer Japan and branch out to the rest of the world, now OOO's and Den-o must return to 1971 to fix the timeline and stop shocker.
I say that OOO's and Den-o go back in time to fix it, but really, its only Den-o who goes back in time and the only really OOO's representation is Ankh who clearly didn't learn his lesson the first time. With that the second act is more a cross-over between Kamen Rider Den-o and the original Kamen Riders, oh right and these two kids from the crappy future also come with them though its not just a, hey kids were a big factor in the Showa era, they are named after the founders of the Kamen Rider Kids Corp. this is not the only major instance of fan service, the big one is the amount of returning villains either as cameo's or a role as minor villain. If you have been a fan for a while, there will likely be a lot for you to go ah, its that.
But of course continuity nods and of flashy fan service don't make up enough time for an hour and a half movie, there needs to be a story to fill it out, and our setup is pretty dumb, you'd think considering what could go wrong the den-o crew would ensure Eiji and Ankh don't go with them to ensure nothing happens, heck Eiji should know since Ankh has done some more amorally wrong things for his benefit, and look at that Ankh decides to cause a time paradox by stealing the other core's and in doing so causes another one likely worse, and you'd think Ankh, being the smart person he is would realize how stupid that was, but I guess desires won out on this occasion, and does so again where despite getting it and hopefully fixing the timeline, Ankh starts a fight to get it back that ends up losing him four medals in the town that forces them to go searching again, so in other words this movies entire existance is because ankh was a greedy idoit. Also, the story just has too many Hah, tricked you moment, so near the end of the second acts first major action between new den-o, the double riders and shocker, its revealed that the double riders and the kids corp tricked Shocker into taking a fake medal with transmitter in it. Now the obvious question on hand here, is wait, how would they have created a fake medal if they have only been in the past for barely a day? And to that I say...you clearly put more thought into that plot point than the writer did. But Uh oh! turns out the medal the real medal turned out to be a fake and shocker had the real one all along. The third act is rife with this deus ex machina stuff. Oh no, our heroes have been captured and will soon be executed alongside the rest of humanity, hooray, the double riders were not brainwashed and were waiting for the right time. Oh no, their still outnumbered, hooray, V3 and the rest of the primary riders up until ooo's show up to. Theirs other stuff like Ankh just pulling a medal out of Momotaros...because, most of the non-secondary riders show up to assist in the final assault out of no where, and then there's the ending...will get to that.
But let's quickly discuss the two major aesthetics, the shocker Greeed looks fine, the addition of the gas mask as a reference to the reboot film series is a nice touch though I am not a fan of the color, its looks too washed out and looks like a certain bodily functions. The Tamashiy form is...underwhelming all in all, its just the taka helmet with rather large shoulder pads and golden boots, it feels less like a combo and more like a combo of different medals, considering this form was made from a mish mash of medals, I guess it makes sense. None of the action scenes really stood out and clearly the coming together of all of these riders was one of the big points about this. Though I have to give credit for getting back Hiroshi Fujioka and Takeshi sasaki to reprise their roles of Kamen riders 1 and 2, its only voice overs seeing as how much of the film takes place in the 70's and lord knows their is no time machine to go back to film them in their youth. Other notable cameo's include Kamen rider V3 and probably since they were around for movie war core, Kamen rider W has a larger cameo when they are going through all of the riders up to OOO's, and I do have to say, seeing stuff like all the rider's standing together and the motorcycle ride into Great leader is pretty epic. Oh yeah, a bunch of other Toei toku shows just show up to help the heroes, neat.
So yeah, the ending, spoilers for those who care so skip to the next break if you care. So the day is saved, Shocker has been defeated and everyone's happy. But wait, what about Naoki, he is still stuck in the past when he jumped out to help the riders against the shocker greeed, what happened to him. Get ready for this, so after the riders were defeated he and the rest of the kamen rider kids hid their uniforms and went into hiding, he ended up forming a relationship with the main girl and ended up having a kid...who turns out to be Mitsuru, oh yeah by the way, he became the scientist who prevented the brainwashing of the double riders just letting you know that.
...So umm, yeah that's a thing, granted it is sort of easy to explain that seeing as how the Den-o and crew arrived after the first one was part of this new history so that Naoki would always be in the past to stay their, essentially creating a stable time loop, but man is this ending to the subplot about Mitsuru's missing father really dumb. Making him a scientist that tries to fix the double riders, fine, having him be his best friends father crosses a line of questions that I don't know how to handle, and this is technically the end, we don't go back in time to fix the timeline again but they must have since their is more of ooo's unless that is an alternate continuity than that just...(Calm down Zach, its just a movie, it'll never be brought up ever again, it doesn't matter in the long term, just end this)
The movie getting drunk and bowling over the space time continuum, Let's go Kamen rider is fine, its okay it fills a lazy afternoon, theirs a lot of fan service for a lot of people, but the story is filled with a ton of plot holes and deus ex machina's that makes the story at points feel forced. If your not a Den-o fan than this may be a harder sell since they are a primary focus of the movie, and while I did find their comedy fine, I will need to see the whole of Den-o to form an opinion. All in all, its a fine movie that you really only need to see once in your life
FINAL GRADE: C
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