I'm David, welcome to my brain. Here I write to not only show that I can but to share my opinions on various topics. Mostly Video Games, Anime, Movies and Tokusatsu. Though I am open to suggestions and never afraid to admit when I'm wrong. Have a good time in here and be sure not to mess with my memory, it's bad enough as it is.
Here we are for the (delayed) 2nd part of this review of the crossover between the largest Sentai to date and their successors. Yet I'm not frothing at the mouth with rage due to Dumbluck, I know I'm as shocked as you all are and am currently seeking treatment for my lack of rage at him. Though this review has barely gotten started so there's plenty of potential anger and disappointment around the corner. Or this could be one of those very rare; good crossovers that I've heard so much about.
Where we last left off the Lupinrangers and a contingent of the Kyuurangers dealt with the Pig Ganglar and DonArkage is powering himself up with the Hyper Planesium. Dumbluck is having none of that though and charges at the Space Demon while he's bathing in the new power and grabs on for dear life despite Keichiro's protests. But it's too late as Don Arkage reveals his new terrible power!
Which manifests as a big, red stupid iron halo on his back, lame!
So Don Lameass gets away leaving Dumbluck clinging to life. It's been a while since I've seen a Sentai villain I can get behind. Back at Global Police HQ Dumbluck whispers something to Keichiro before he passes out from his injuries.
Tell... Garu....I always..... loved him. Yiff!
Nah nah, what he actually does tell him is that when he was bear hugging Don Lameass it created a weak spot on his Hyper Planesium coating. Well, what do you know, a moment of competence from Dumbluck. Well, you know what they say about broken clocks. After some convincing from the Kyuurangers the Patrangers and Kyuurangers confront Don Lameass at Abandoned field #125. Lameass nearly whips them out even with the imperfect power boost but are saved by the last 5 Kyuurangers; Spyro the Dumbass Dragon, Leman Russ, Robo Bison, Kurumi and Pine Tree.
The rest of the Kyuurangers and the Lupinragners get in to back them up and so all 20 Sentai are assembled. Wait, 20?!
Yeah that's Misao Mondo aka Zyuoh Jojo Meme. Why's he here? Cause the Kyuurangers never had a crossover with the Zyuohgers and Toei's rectifying that now.
There's no in universe explanation as to why Miaso's here, he just is though I'm not really complaining. So after the 20 man transformation and Don Lameass summoning the even lamer Generals of Jark Matter the big brawl is on. Nothing much else of note to comment on aside from when Misao runs off in the middle of the fight. Not because he was afraid or anything I'm just guessing that his paycheck for his cameo was cleared.
So the ground forces get crushed by the remaining 19, Don Lameass grows and gets his ass kicked by Good Cool Kaiser VSX (which still looks as hideous as its name), the teams congratulate each other on a job well done and that's that. So that was Lupinrangers Vs Patranger Vs Kyuuranger and I have to say, this was actually a pretty decent crossover. Yes I'm as shocked as you are. My biggest problem going into this was the character balance between the three teams. Now the Lupinrangers and Patrangers weren't my main concern as seven characters split between two teams isn't too much of a challenge, but of course the Kyuurangers and their 12 man team was the main factor.
Thankfully the writer knew that all of the Kyuurangers would devour the screen time as they each competed for attention, as was the main problem with that season. But thankfully several of the Kyuurangers were costumed so if they couldn't get the unsuited actors back they could have just gotten the VA's back to voice the costumed characters and not have to resort to the BS that Clash of the Red Rangers pulled. Though that didn't happen at least it was an option on the table so they just decided to pick which ones would interact better with which team and hid the rest until the big brawl at the end. Other then that the dynamics between the three groups worked and a fair chunk of the Kyuurangers got decent time to interact with the two teams. What really took me by surprise was how Dumbluck wasn't an over glorified asshole throughout the movie with Keichiro being the prefect foil to the Dumbass Red's antics.
Though there are some flaws such as the villain and why the Kyuurangers even crossed over to the main universe in the first place. Though I know that the Kyuurangers have interacted with the main Sentai Earth before like in Vs Space Squad and in the main show. But I'm getting at is that the ultimate power in their universe just happened to be inside some random celebrities guitar? Which just happened to go through a Tear. Because reasons.
Also Don Lameass is not very impressive as a villain, but that's sadly what I tend to expect with these Sentai Crossover movies. Now normally we see the remnants of the previous villain faction be the major focus. But the Ganglar flunky that he recruited was the one causing the most damage while everyone else was building Lameass up, only just be an overall disappointment. Basicly I believe that this suffered from Early MCU syndrome, the main focus was on the character interactions while the villains got sidelined and suffered as a result. There's situations where that type of storytelling works and sadly this was not one of those times.
But over all this was a surprisingly decent crossover. Which means a lot considering how much I despise Kyuuranger. Now since Halloween is fast approaching I have to do something seasonal, aka monster related. And I can think of nothing more horrifying than what I'm about to do. What is it, wait till next week to find out.
Super Sentai is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai. Looney Toons is owned by Warner Brothers and the Vitaphone Corporation.
Fall is here and that can only mean one thing, the Sentai vs movie is out on DVD in Japan and that means those who don’t live there can finally sink our critical fangs into the latest last hurrah for last years Sentai. But sadly this is one crossover I’ve been dreading, where our favorite game of cops and robbers have to endure Dumbluck and his band of idiots. The biggest issue I have going into this is the balancing of the character dynamics, Kyuuranger is infamous for being the largest Sentai team to date with 12 team members, most of whom struggled for screen time when most of the time all the attention was focused on Dumbluck and his dumbass Red Ranger shenanigans. It honestly got so bad I dropped the series after the 5th episode because I was so burnt out on Sentai after Wrong and Leftovers dragged down Toqger and Ninninger, but with Yamato and Zyuogher I honesty thought Toei finally decided to put the Dumbass Red to bed for a little while. And little while was right, once Zyuogher ended, Kyuuranger showed up, I invented the nickname for Lucky and I dropped it like a sack of potatoes.
So, while I do have some inkling as to the events of the series thanks to Toku Riffs, if I miss any major references to Kyuranger it's only because I never completed watching that series. We can at least assume that their big bad, Don Armage was defeated if the events of Kyuranger Vs Space Squad was anything to go by. So time to rip off this bandaid and toss it in the garbage. We open on the Lupinrangers coming back from grocery shopping when they get held hostage by a Gold skinned man with a pink boa, leopard print pants and a fake afro, oh bartender?
Keep em coming, I'm gonna need them I can just tell. Just as Kairi and the other are about to transform Keichiro and the Patrangers show up to take on Goldmember. But just before they can make their move, he shows up.
Wow, one second in and I'm already reminded of why I dropped your show like a bad habit.
Now before you can even say it, yes, yes it does get more insane as what appears to be the love child of Jealoushito and Doc Brown shows up with a van to pick up his partner Goldmember and their new hostages; the Lupinrangers. Now the Patrangers could have easily stopped them, if it wasn't for Dumbluck stopping Keichiro with a bearhug for literally no reason. So Keichiro does what any competent officer would do in this situation and arrest the idiot for obstruction of justice, assisted in three counts of kidnapping, not to mention the property damage that his landing caused. Just thank whoever that Japan still practices the death penalty! But no, sadly they remember that due process is a thing and interrogate him at the station after the title card.
Turns out that Dumbluck is stomping around in the main universe again because Don Armage's body-double; Don Arkage survived the dissolving of Jark Matter and is planing on picking up where the main man left off. Thankfully Keichiro's pigheadedness comes in handy this time and doesn't listen to the moron and rightfully points out that because of Dumbluck Kairi and the others got kidnapped. Noel then tells the Patrangers that Jurer's owner (aka Kogare) reported that the kidnappers made contact with him.
Speaking of, Goldmember is panicking over what he and his manager did. Though Kairi and the others couldn't care less since they thought they were Ganglars, but due to the lack of safes on them they decide to blow this taco joint. They two explain their deal, they were actually a performer and manger from the Kyuuranger universe until one day, they just crossed through a Tear I guess and landed in the main Sentai Universe and have been trying to get home ever since. But the thieves give the wonder dummies an idea. They call the cafe and make a list of demands, they'll hand over Kairi and the others in exchange for 150,000 yen, which if I did my math right comes out to 1,343 US dollars.
This is why search engines are your friend! While Kairi and the other chew them out they get a surprise visit from Bootleg Spock and Josuk3PO who fill them in on why they're here. Apparently Goldmember's Guitar holds Jark Matters's secret treasure in it and that's why Don Arkage's here looking for it. But since the Guitar is in Global Police custody the five thieves decide to do a job together to get it back. Kairi takes over for the next call and demands that the Patrangers hand over their Lupin Collection pieces, 100 Million Yen in cash and the Guitar in exchange for the "hostages".
Keichiro reluctantly agrees and Noel delivers the items to the exchange point. The plan goes well at first, until a Pig Ganglar working for Don Arkage shows up and grabs the Guitar. In the confusion Bootleg and Josuk3PO get away with the cash while Kairi, Tooma and Umika decide to give the Patranger's collection pieces a whirl and Morph into the Patrangers. Though it's not a good fit, while the Lupinranger powers work with their fighting style focused on mobility the Patranger's powers focus more on straight up offense and defense due to the bulkier armor. That and the Pig Ganglar having three Collection pieces doesn't help matters.
Piggy gets away with the Guitar while the Thieves are forced to power down when Keichiro and the rest of the cops show up, them not noting how the three supposed civilians knew how to use the VS Changers as well as they did, nice one Numpties! While Dumbluck chills in his cell we see that Yera Allon, Luigi Mario and Sasuke Clone #3472 are also on the trail for the Guitar, getting back on track after seeing Goldmember on the news. Back at Global Police HQ the cops are contemplating the case so far until Tsurugi shows up to post Dumbluck's bail. While letting Dumbluck go Keichiro points out that Dumbluck could have busted out of his cell at any time, so why not do that then? Dumbluck surprises me by rightfully saying that him busting out wouldn't have proven his innocence.
So the two Space Reds fill the Patrangers on the full situation. They knew that Don Arkage was in the main universe looking for something, so they sent three vanguards out to look for him but the groups got separated traveling the Tear. So now they have to go looking for them. Which may be sooner than they think since Yera, Luigi and Sauske Clone track down the Pig Ganglar with the Guitar, just as Don Arkage shows up to pick it up. And the reason why Red Skull wants this Guitar so badly is apparently it contains something called Hyper Planesium which can make him even stronger than Don Armage. Knowing they can't let him get away with something as dangerous as that the trio confront Arkage and the Ganglar just as the Lupinrangers and Bootleg and Josuk3PO do.
The 8 Morph and deal with the Ganglar and Podamen while Don Arkage goes up to the roof to power himself up with the Planesium. The Lupinrangers manage to steal the Ganglar's collection pieces giving them the clear to reduce him to Scrapple with a combined attack from the five Kyuurangers. That just leaves the fake Don and his nasty upgrade to deal with. So we'll leave it here for now as next time we'll get the big team up mash up that, a few of you were stoked for.
Super Sentai is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai. Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise is owned by Sega, Nobuhiro Suzuki and Jun Orihara based off of the Manga Fist of the North Star written by Buronson.
As much as I feel that Quinton Tarantino’s filmography is basically required to have seen to be considered a “professional” critic today; I must confess that counting OUATIH I’ve only seen 4 of his movies, only one I would consider truly loving. Those being Inglorious Bastards, Django Unchained and Hateful 8. I mention this because I’m not exactly familiar with his inspirations, motifs, cliches etc aside from his foot fetish so I don’t have a clear frame of reference for his design sensibilities aside from what more learned and experienced critics can tell me. But I do plan on rectifying that someday when I have the time. But for now I have little working knowledge of the backstory behind Tarantino’s love letter to the golden age of Hollywood and 1960's LA.
Given that I have no forward knowledge of the murder of actress Sharon Tate by members of the Manson Family and the cultural tsunami that that had on America and the movie industry I’m undoubtedly going to have a far different opinion then most older critics who if they haven’t lived that event have at least read about it at some point in their lives. So please keep that in mind as I give my two cents. But first things first, this is a damn good movie, not the best I’ve seen but if you have knowledge of the Sharon Tate murder then you’ll probably get far more out of it then I did, like this would be your “Inglorious Bastards”. Let’s face it, my generation may not know about the Sharon Tate murder so they probably couldn’t get more out of this as they would in seeing Hitler getting gunned down along with the Nazi high command in a burning theatre. You can see why Inglorious Bastards is currently my favorite Tarantino movie.
Our story is mostly a "day in the life" type of story where we follow characters and see how their day is going and all the wacky misadventures they get up to and eventually leading up to the fateful night. First we have Tate herself (played by once of the few saving graces of Suicide Squad; Margot Robbie) just going about her day and watching herself in The Wrecking Crew yet surprisingly despite her fate being the focal point Tate isn't the main focus. That honor actually goes to Leonardo De Caprio's Rick Dolton and Brad Pitt's Cliff Booth a former western star and his stunt man/best friend respectively. Rick was a western star back in the day but with the western falling out of favor his carrier is in a downward spiral with only two options left, play the villain and get his ass kicked on western shows for the rest of his carrier, or take Al Pacino's advice (yeah I know his character has a name but lets face it, its Al Pacino) and move to Rome and get back in the spotlight with Spaghetti Westerns. Cliff on the other hand has a more interesting day, starts off with driving Rick to his latest shoot, going to fix his T.V Antenna, fighting Bruce Lee and ends up with the Manson family staring daggers at him.
As this movie focus' mostly on this one day I can't go into too much detail in terms of plot. But in staging and the technical department, holy crap you'll feel like you stepped into a time machine. Everything from locations, the costumes the music it all does feel like Hollywood 1969. Even the scenes where Di Caprio's added into classic movies and T.V shows were done almost seamlessly, I haven't seen this type of editing done this well since Forrest Gump. Even the poster for the movie looks like a Drew Struzan masterpiece, needless to say the attention to detail was on point.
However a detraction for me is the Sharon Tate scenes. Without knowledge of who this person was and why her death was such a tragedy you inevitably lose something. And I'm sorry but if you have to have supplementary knowledge to fully appreciate a piece than it sadly suffers. Thankfully while the knowledge of Sharon Tate isn't entirely necessary (hence the focus on Rick and Cliff) I still have to criticize the fact that the real events have to take a back seat for the made up characters, while its nowhere as insensitive and egregious as what Michael Bay did with Pearl Harbor I still have to call it out. But it's still a Tarantino movie so you'll still be in for a good time, still wholeheartedly recommend this movie, not just as a fan of Tarantino but as a movie goer in general.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Once upon a time in Hollywood is owned by Quinton Tarantino, Columbia Pictures, Bona Film Group, Heyday Films, Visona Romantica and Sony Pictures Releasing.
Here we are at last, I've been putting this off for as long as I possibly could but I just have to treat this like a bandage and rip it off as quickly as possible. But it has been a while so here's the links for Parts 1 and 2 to make sure you know exactly where I'm coming from.
So where were we? Oh right Woz just slapped Riku Sanjo right in the face by inexplicably using the Gaia Library to get the Rider Ticket for where Futaros went to; January 29th 2000, one day before the first episode of Kuuga. Sougo takes Ataru, for some reason back with him in the Time Mazin but are too late as Futaros managed to get there first, by jumping out of past Ataru, before he was delivered by his still pregnant mother. Now I'm just imagining what the father's reaction would be if he saw this big, red demon looking guy jump right out of his pregnant wife. "Um Honey, were you schtupping Satan behind my back?!"
But before they can make a joke about this weirdness Shingo (the one from before he was kidnapped) is about to be abducted by Another W when Futaros tries to fight the Another Rider off but to no avail. And it's here where Ataru finally learns what the audience did about half an hour or so ago. Now that he knows that the kid he was paling around with is his long lost brother he charges right at Another W and gets turned into Another Den-O for his trouble, in the words of Professor Farnsworth "Ah, Paradox resolved." With the two brothers under his masters power Another W makes his escape abroad the Another Den-Liner leaving Futaros and Sougo in the dust. Meanwhile we cut to the Kurougatake Mountains where Tiddlywinks uncovers the tomb of Riku, the original Kuuga and from his remains creates the Kuuga Anotherwatch.
Geiz manages to intercept him but it's too late as Tiddlywinks uses the watch on himself becoming Another Kuuga, thus creating a future where the Heisei Riders were never real, wiping himself and everyone else in this world from existence in the process, thus never executing this plan in the first place.
Now this is stupid for several reasons but I will give the writers credit for one thing, working around the fact that Joe Odagiri refuses to reprise the role of Yusuke Godai, the modern Kuuga by having Tiddlywinks taking the power from the remains of Riku, I have to admit that was a good workaround for the problem of creating Another Kuuga. But that's hampered by the fact that this makes no sense. According to the series' lore once an Another Rider is created in the same year that the rider was born in the Another Rider overlaps the history of said rider. Now since Tiddlywinks turned himself into Another Kuuga one day before the Grongi were released and Godai became Kuuga, his history should still be in tact. Which leads to my second problem, Tiddlywinks just became the Another Rider of Riku, not the modern Kuuga so Godai will still become Kuuga because his personal history as a Rider was not changed according to the logic we've been given.
Also, Kuuga may have been the origins of the Hesiei Riders in the meta sense; but in universe, no the Riders would have come about regardless of Kuuga so even in concept this plan makes absolutely no God Dan Kuroto sense! But this all leads back to one of the biggest problems of the film; Tid is a terrible villain. Answer me this one question audience, why does he do any of this crap? To erase the Heisei riders from existence? Ok, then why, why does he want to do this; creating a world without riders isn't a motivation it's a goal those are two completely different things.
We're never given a good reason why he wants to do this. Even Paradox from Yu-Gi-Oh Bonds Beyond time had a motivation for his actions, hell, even Harvest, the king of Dumbasses from the Culling had a better motivation than this idiot. Sure they were both just as hypocritical and made as little sense as Tid but at least they had a better reason for their actions other than "because I'm evil." This guy was so badly written and his motivation is quite literally non-existent that I'm just begging for the Great Leader of Shocker to show up and say that this was all a part of his plan. As overused as Shocker is (especially with Shirakura productions) at least they have the established history of wanting world conquest and have a long standing history of hatred for all Kamen Riders.
This isn't even the first time Shocker screwed around with time travel, that was their entire plan in Super Hero Taisen GP and Kamen Rider Yongou. Sure it's lazy but you don't have to replace lazy with another brand of lazy if the result is even worse! For that matter why did Schwartz even turn Tid into a Timejacker in the first place if he knew that he'd pull something like this. For that matter where are Schwartz and his little Harem anyway? Why didn't they try to stop this if they knew that Tid was screwing up their plans, whatever they are?
Moving on, Tiddlywinks finishes transforming into Another Kuuga and he looks like if Inferno from Beast Wars became a demon who devours the souls of the guilty and innocent alike.
INFERNO, TERRORIZE!!!!
Special thanks to the guys at Toku Riffs for giving me this idea (originally I was going to go with Waspinator but Inferno works so much better upon reflection.) Ironically, Beast Wars still has better CGI than this movie. Though this Predacon is less enthusiastic about setting things on fire and is more inclined to grab his opponents and break them like the Batman. Even with Tsukuyomi backing him up in the Time Mazin Another Kuuga wipes the floor with Geiz and after trashing both Geiz and Sougo's Time Mazins retreats back to the Another Den-Liner. But the train crashes back where the movie started bringing us back full circle.
But our heroes are now stranded back in 2000 and unless they want to do what Captain America did at the end of Endgame and take the long way back they're screwed. Later that night Futaros explains to Sougo why Tiddlywinks even targeted Shingo in the first place. According to him he's a Fixed/Singularity Point whichever one you want to call them I don't give a crap. For those who don't know, Singularity Points are people who are immune to the effects of time alteration, like Den-O himself Ryotaro Nogami and his descendants. Which explains why the creep has been stalking the kid since this whole thing got started, as long as Shingo exists and remembers Kamen Riders Tiddlywinks' plan to create a world without them will never come to pass.
But this begs the question of why Futaros even wants to help Shingo and Ataru in the first place, maybe because he's just one of the rare good Imagin, good enough for me I guess. Back in 2018 Sento and Banjo fight their way though the fortress and confront Tiddlywinks in his throne room but he just sics some grunts on them. The Zi-O team nearly get lost in the time stream due to their slapdash repairs but get a lift from the real Den-Liner which dumps them off into the Fortress, conveniently next to the throne room. Sougo, Geiz and Futaros get their turn but Tiddlywinks just has Another Den-O deal with them instead. The three try to snap Ataru from his brainwashing but they're not getting through.
Just as he's about to kill the three everyone except Tiddlywinks are teleported to presumably the Station of the King-Liner terminal. This is where we get the return of the original Kamen Rider Den-O (my very first rider series I finished from start to end btw so, yay) who solos dealing with the grunts and after switching between the rest of the Taros defeats Another Den-O, saving Ataru from Tiddlywinks' control. And yes, Takeru Sato returns as Ryotaro Nogami one last time to give his farewell to the Zi-O crew before warping back to the fight (while possessed by Urataros sure but we know that Ryotaro's the one doing the talking.) Also of note this scene was supervised and written by Den-O's creator Yasuko Kobayashi. While I may have a lot of issues with her original work during her overworked, burnout phase of her carrier, this was still a nice touch and shows that somewhere deep down she still cares enough about Den-O to make sure Toei doesn't do it dirty; despite Toei milking the show like the cash cow that it sadly is.
Back to the crap, Tiddlywinks' blowing his top because these stupid Riders just won't die! But after we get some flowery bullcrap from our heroes we get a scene that is simultaneously heartfelt and dumb as all hell. See, there was another reason why we got the Den-O reunion scene, it was for Owner to re-establish the whole "as long as you live on in someones memory you'll never die" crap so that the Kamen Riders can come back thanks to the fans who remember them. This is dumb for three reasons. One, in this timeline Kamen Riders are not real so how are the fan's memories bringing them to life if they were just T.V in this world?
Two, Gokaiger did this much better during the Gokaiger VS Goseiger 199 Hero Battle, and no it's not because its Gokaiger its because it was established much better and constant with the setting of the show/movie because it took place in a world where Super Sentai was real so it didn't seem like something out of Akibaranger like this sequence does. Lastly, this is the exact same plot point that was used to bring back the Riders in Lets Go Kamen Rider and we all know how that turned out. Regardless of my gripes, the sequence that shows all of the Kamen Riders kicking ass is pretty cool, even if Ghost does look like he's standing on a Roomba during his fight sequence. After that Sougo finally gets it into his head to use the W Ridewatch to finally destroy Another W. Tiddlywinks has lost any sanity he's had left and transforms into Another Kuuga to just kill everyone.
Build fixes the Time Mazins and arrives to help Zi-O fight the giant Another Rider. But before he jumps into the Time Mazin Geiz gives him the Kuuga Ridewatch that he created by doing the same thing that Tiddlywinks did in Riku's tomb. So with the power of Kuuga Zi-O and Build defeat Another Kuuga, but he's not done yet as he pulls out his trump card.
No, no, no guys it's not what you think. He's just forcing himself inside of the little boy and pulling out something he never knew he had, Jesus Christ!
All of the phrasing! After getting himself on a government watchlist Demon Jared Fogle reaches his final form, Another Ultimate Kuuga.
AND LOOK AT HOW MUCH TEETH I HAVE TO SMILE WITH, WHILE I CHEW ON ALL OF YOUR BONES!!!
So we have an insane pedophile who has the abilities of the most physically powerful Kamen Rider to date who happens to be the size of a skyscraper, can shoot lazer beams and is screaming like a maniac who stepped on a shard of broken glass about how he's going to kill everyone on earth. How are our heroes going to overcome this beast? By everyone landing one rider kick on him. (Yes even Hibiki who never had a rider kick, hate you too Shirakura!) So yep, that's how our big bad dies, like a bitch from 20 Rider kicks, this is almost as bad as the ending of Let's Go Kamen Rider.
Oh and Shingo totally survived that blast and wasn't reduced to a pile of chunky salsa like Tiddlywinks, because otherwise there'd be a nice big ol NC-17 rating on this sucker. And just like Freddy Got Fingered this whole movie comes off as one of Tom Green's troll projects. After an actually nice, heartfelt sequence of Ataru and Shingo's revised history of the two brothers growing up loving Kamen Rider we end with Futaros walking off to parts unknown and Sento and Sougo just shrugging off the fact that their lives are nothing more then fiction. Roll credits with a horrible mash up of the previous Kamen Rider's opening themes and we're finally done. So that was Heisei Generations Forever and it's a Taisen movie in Heisei Generations clothing.
While nowhere near as bad as a proper Taisen movie this still sucks hard if you stop and think about it for even a second. The villain has no motivation for his actions and is more than a tad uncomfortable with the excessive amount of physical contact he has with most of his co-stars. I get what they were trying to go for but I think that Sonic can sum up my feelings towards this character.
Also Build really got the short end of the stick in this movie, most of it was focused on Sougo and all Sento did though out this movie were two things, jack and shit and jack left town! But another rider that got dumped on even worse was W, we never learn who Another W was, why he was working with Tiddlywinks and hell we didn't even see any of the main W cast to give Sougo the Ridewatch. Hell at the time of this review we're almost to the end of Zi-O and W and Drive got nothing in terms of a tribute arc. Though considering how most of them turned out that's a blessing in disguise as far as I'm concerned but it just seems to confirm my suspicions that Shirakura hates Riku Sanjo and is taking it out on his three series. Sure there was Fourze but his tribute arc got completely overshadowed by Faiz.
Now my theory behind this is because Riku Sanjo's approach to Kamen Rider proves that everything that Shirakura thinks about the franchise is complete horse-shit and is being a spiteful bastard about it by throwing shade at the three series Sanjo worked on. Hell that might explain how Toqger Vs Kyoryuger turned out as bad as it did. Shirakura hates Sanjo so he put Kobayashi, someone whose political ideologies are the exact opposite of Kyoryuger and she dragged the Koyryugers through the dirt out of spite as Shirakura calculated. Bit of a stretch to be sure but given what we know about the guy it would not surprise me if that was Shirakura's mindset going into this production. Going back to the W Ridewatch for a second it being the Deus Ex Machina that brings Sento and Sougo back to the "real world" is completely unrelated to W.
W at no point had anything to do with inter dimensional travel so it being the key to going back makes no sense. What would have worked better is that instead of Another W we have Another Build instead. Build's series ends with Sento, Banjo and the others traveling to the main Rider Earth to escape Evolt, hell Interdiminsional travel is the main plot point of Heisei Generations Final. But no, like a horny teenager the braintrusts behind Zi-O blew their load too early with Another Build being the first Another Rider fought in the series instead of W. And don't you dare give me the "Build's show was just wrapping up so they had to get the cameo done while they were still on the payroll" card, they knew the team up movie was coming, they knew that it was going to be a crossover between Build and Zi-O, they could have waited but no, like I said, blew their load too soon and now we have a big, narrative mess all over our pants, phrasing boom!
Like anything that Shirakura is involved with the problems could have been solved if the people in charge just stopped and thought for more then 5 seconds (but lets face it, even 5 years would be far too generous for these clowns) they could have been fixed and we could have had a much better movie. Especially since this is the capstone of the Heisei Era, the last 20 years of Kamen Rider, that just makes this all the worse. This is the way your era ends, not with a bang, but with a spiteful, disinterested sneer by someone who doesn't even know what heroism is. They say that catharsis is bad for you, and I can see why. I'll be back next week with the long awaited continuation of my review of Madoka Magica Homura's Revenge, a much better story than this one despite the sudden tone shift I assure you.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai. Dragon Ball, Dragonball Z, Dragonball GT and Dragonball Super is owned by Funnimation, Toei animation, Fuji TV and Akira Toriyama. Dragon ball Z abridged and Hellsing Ultimate Abridged is owned by Team Four Star. Batman Forever is owned by Warner Brothers Pictures and Joel Schumacher Based off the Character created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. Archer is owned by Adam Reed, Floyd County Productions, Radical Axis and FX Productions. Jontron is owned by Jon Jaffri. The Adventured of Sonic the Hedgehog is owned by DIC Animation City, SEGA of America, Hong YIng Animation, Tokyo Movie Shinsha and Rainbow Animation.
"I knew I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque."
Summer is here and after the events of Endgame it looks like the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is looking for a little bit of R&R. But sadly no matter what universe it is Peter Parker needs to suffer, c'est la vie. This suffering comes in the form of Nick Fury highjacking his class' European trip to have him help a new hero called Mysterio (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) who is totally a survivor from another universe hunting down four elemental monsters to prevent the destruction that his world suffered from occurring in Peters. Of course Peter doesn't want any part of this, but after the events of Endgame the world is looking for the next Iron Man, and since Peter is technically Tony's apprentice and the only active Superhero he's basically guilt tripped into helping Mysterio. So will Peter be able to live up to Tony's expectations or will the four elementals have their way with this Earth?
Short version of this movie, it's really good, better than Homecoming, and a decent sorbet course to wrap up Phase 3 of the MCU. But it does also help to explain how the world of the MCU adjusted to the people who were snapped out by Thanos returning like nothing had ever happened and having a little fun with it with a pretty funny gag at the start. In the case of education; the kids who "blipped" as they called it (I see what you did there, and I'm still bitter) just had to repeat the year that they were in from the start while their friends and family who weren't blipped moved on with their lives without them. Like for example your younger brother who was three years younger then you is now two years older. The only way your family tree could be even more insane was if you were from the planet Jurai or your last name was Joestar/Kujo.
But the biggest gaps to fill is the lack of Superheroes, sure there's Dr Strange but he's dealing with cosmic threats. Falcon, Bucky and Wanda are most likely on the run thanks to the Sokovia accords and T'Challa has a kingdom to run. No idea where Bruce Banner is, Thor is in space with the Guardians, Carol is protecting the Skrull and the rest of the cosmos, Cap took the long way home and is in no shape to do anything like he used to, and as for the guys like the Defenders, Inhumans and any other groups from the T.V series? They're more akin to local protectors than facing threats head on unless they're right in their neighborhoods (literally in the Defender's case.) So everyone looking to Spider-Man to fill Iron Man's boots makes sense, but on the other hand Peter's a Teenager who skipped 5 years and is dealing with the fact that his mentor/father figure is literally plastered all over the place as if in constant judgement of him for not living up to his example.
But at least since Aunt May, Ned and pretty much everyone important in his life knows he's Spider-Man anyway he at least doesn't have to worry too much about the secret identity thing. That's something I do give the MCU Spidey credit for, throughout the life of 616 Peter Parker his secret identity issues has given him absolutely nothing but grief and plot contrivances, thankfully the writers recognized that and at least took measures so that MCU Peter doesn't have to worry about his loved ones. I do want to talk about Mysterio, butter those who've never heard of him before I'll keep my trap shut. All I'll say is that Jake Gyllenhaal's performance makes this character, this really is Mysterio. As for the ending, all I'll say is that I was desperately waiting for a certain character to say this line when he showed up.
But now that Phase 3 has ended, it's time. As before when Phase 1 and 2 ended its time for me to go down the list of them and list the best to the not as good. Though make no mistake Phase 3 had no movies as bad as Iron Man 2 or Thor the Dark World, at worst they were just fun and with the main MCU Achilles heel holding them back (the boring antagonist).
#1 Infinity War (The big show stopper and finally worth it to see Thanos get his big purple ass off that chair and wreck all of the ass, just to take in that sunrise on that farm.)
#2 Captain America Civil War (This was the movie that Age of Ultron should have been.)
#3 Avengers Endgame (This really needs to be seen back to back with Infinity War to get the full effect, also never just insert Time travel, ever!)
#4 Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 (Another great Guardians movies and thank Yandu's beautiful blue mug that James Gunn is back on track for Volume 3.)
#5 Black Panther (Poignant social commentary with one of the best villains of the MCU despite said villain overshadowing most of the cast.)
#6 Thor Ragnarok (Definitely what Thor needed after the Ragnarok that was Thor the Dark World.)
#7 Spider-Man Far From Home (For better than Homecoming and helps establish the new status quo after the Snap.)
#8 Captain Marvel (Cool 90's throwback, a great female lead; though not as good as Wonder Woman but that's a high bar to reach so, fair's fair.)
#9 Doctor Strange (A good Phase 1 movie and amazing visuals but the villains sucked. Yes, an MCU bad guy was lame color me shocked too.)
#10 Spider-Man Homecoming (The plot was just there and mostly inconsequential. Though it did introduce some of Spider-Man's rogues gallery that never got decent live action incarnations before and Michael Keaton killed it as the Vulture.)
#11 Ant-Man and the Wasp (Most of the same complaints as Homecoming but with a weaker villain with Ghost. But at least she had Lawrence Fishburne backing her up so she's at least better than Kamen Rider Ghost.)
With that list done we move on to Phase 4. Maybe later on I'll do an overall list of MCU movies from top to bottom, we'll see. But this movie does raise a rather important question that needs to be answered. Now that the founding members of the Avengers are gone (Except for Thor but he's in space so whatever.) Who will rise up tot take their place as Earth's Mightiest Heroes?
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Spider-Man: Far From Home is owned by Sony Pictures Releasing, Marvel Studios, Pascal Pictures and Colombia Pictures Dragon Ball, Dragonball Z, Dragonball GT and Dragonball Super is owned by Funnimation, Toei animation, Fuji TV and Akira Toriyama. Dragon ball Z abridged and Hellsing Ultimate Abridged is owned by Team Four Star.
Well, we've had ourselves a nice little break haven't we? Now it's back to work covering how this movie blows chunks, yay. After Sento states the obvious we cut back to Tiddlywinks's hide out where his Another Riders bring him Shingo. Next is the three stooges finding Kazumi's unconscious body in front of Ataru's house. Yet Ataru didn't think to call an ambulance for the guy bleeding out in front of his house who tried to save him and the little kid from the monster working for a psychopath?
But something seems wrong as when Sento asks where Shingo is Ataru thinks that they're talking about his older brother. Yet after Sougo clarifies that they were talking about the kid they still don't think that something is wrong. Look I'm done waiting for the movie to drop the other shoe and I'm not going to insult your intelligence by going along with their poorly constructed foreshadowing any longer, Shingo is Ataru's time displaced brother. For reasons that will be explained later Tiddlywinks abducted him before Ataru was born which was one day before the premiere of Kuuga. This explains why they both have the same name, why Shingo only knows about Kuuga and how he's never seen a smartphone before when this movie takes place in 2018 and every kid who has even heard of one has racked up at least $1000 dollars on their parents phone playing Angry Birds.
Now we get to the part where we learn how Ataru caused all of this in the first place, brace yourselves and have buckets on stand by for when you either have an aneurysm or your brains are reduced to Yogurt! He invites Sento and Sougo inside and shows them his room, which is full of Kamen Rider figurines and merchandise. You name it it's there, there's drivers, posters, festival masks, toys, figurines you name it it's most likely there. After the non reaction from our two heroes after they learn about how their lives are only fiction Ataru explains how they got to his world in the first place. See Ataru comes from the real world, where Kamen Rider is just a T.V show yet one day he gets possessed by an Imagin who grants his wish to be able to see real Kamen Riders.
I repeat, an Imagin, from Kamen Rider Den-O, shows up, in the real world, to grant Ataru's wish!
First off, if Kamen Riders are not real in your world, there's no way in hell that there should be an Imagin there to grant your wish. Second, Imagins are not that powerful. Sure they're based off of the Djinn which is the basis of Genies, but like the original Djinn, Imagins don't have the phenomenal cosmic power that was ascribed to them from works like the Disney version of Aladdin but are more depicted as they were originally portrayed, as spirits summoned by someone to carry out a task. In other words, they could only grant a wish that was within normal parameters such as "get revenge on this guy for me," "bring me millions of dollars," wishes like that, usually through twisted and violent ways. But this new Imagin (he goes unnamed through out the movie but the wiki says that he's named Futaros) is just somehow able to merge worlds together to grant this wish, even though no Imagin before this has that kind of reality merging power, not even the Death Imagin, the strongest Imagin in Den-O.
And then with Ataru telling them that none of this matters since this is all his dream and that once he wakes up nothing will have happened that's strike 3 and this guy is out. So why did he even do this in the first place? Because he just wants to forget his reality where his parents focused on his 7 year old older brother Shingo disappearing thanks to Tiddlywinks and thought that the Riders would help him. Sento, after rightfully chewing him out for thinking that this was just nothing but his delusions has had enough and walks out with Sougo not too far behind. Now, allow a clown to be serious for a few seconds, because there are several things I find wrong with this scene on both a storytelling level and philosophical level.
First let's get the storytelling out of the way because trust me the philosophical side can get pretty juicy. I mainly have issues with the revelations and the characters reaction, or in this case lack of reaction in the scene. We have a set up where people who thought that their lives were real turns out to be in fact, fictitious. There are many ways and stories that touch on and experiment with this concept whether it be for a deconstruction of the agency of viewers interaction with the work or creators commenting on the nature of the meta narrative. Such examples include The Stanley Parable, Princess Tutu or most prominently in my mind, Grant Morrisons run on Animal Man.
Each of these works touch on the agency of a creation in their fictional world. Now of course I'm not saying that every story that has these ideas has to be some grand philosophical treatise on the meta narrative and creation being ruled by the creator; this idea can also be used for poking fun at the 4th wall like Deadpool, the Rocky and Bullwinkle movie and Doki Doki Literature club. But what I'm getting at is that these works took this idea and actually did something with it. But in this movie, nothing is done with this concept. It's just casually tossed in as an afterthought explanation to justify the inconsistencies of the original setting, in. my opinion this is lazy, thoughtless and wasteful.
But now we come to the probable intent of this scene, why the creators thought to include this in the first place. Now, after thinking long and hard about this scene I'm actually reminded of something. Back in the 200th Episode of Atop the 4th Wall Linkara reviewed Spider-Man One More Day, in issue three of that story Peter encounters an overweight alternate universe version of himself who went on a tirade deriding the entire concept of escapist fiction. Considering who was involved in the creation of that story, combined with the fact that issues 3 and 4 of that story were heavily rewritten he incorrectly assumed that Joe Quesada was responsible for that scene. It was later revealed that while the rewrites were a thing, most of issue 3 was written as intended by J Michael Straczynski.
How it was written could easily be seen as a message of contempt to people who indulge in escapist fiction. The overweight Peter could easily be seen as a stand-in for JMS calling the audience failures for ignoring the real world, or him venting his frustration of having to toss all of his years of work on Spider-Man out the window to appease Quesada. But having gone through the scene and given the context of the story I could see this as the overweight Peter telling Spider-Man that while he never got the spider bite and couldn't be a hero in the spandex and cape sense, 616 Peter, as Spider-Man can do so much more good. Though Tubby is ignoring the fact that there's more ways of being someone's hero then the cape and cowl routine, like working in a soup kitchen, helping a homeless person get back on their feet, or even just giving someone reassurance, comfort and hope when all seems hopeless. So yeah like most versions of Peter Parker, he's kind of a fucking idiot.
But back on track, unlike Quesada and JMS the two working on this movie; Shinichiro Shirakura and Kento Shimoyama have constant track records consisting of critically paned work, and in Shirakura's case; excessive meddling and distain towards the Tokusatsu fandom. Given this and Shirakura's hands on approach towards the productions he helms I can safely assume that he's responsible for this scene.
And he's clearly telling the fans of Kamen Rider that they're delusional, sociopathic cowards for indulging in this series. You know, the series that is a long standing Japanese cultural icon for decades, the series that he's a producer of, one of the properties that is responsible for the roof over his head, the food in his gut and the clothes on his back?! He's basically saying "the people who watch this franchise and buy my crap are losers so keep buying my crap losers!" Now while I don't have a clip of Linkara giving that spiteful ramble towards JMS (accidentally to the guy who didn't even want to do that story in the first place) I do have a clip that hopefully conveys the message to Shirakura all the same.
I honestly should end this review right here, but sadly no, there's still much more to come. Anyway, after Sento's departure Futaros asks whether this is enough since he's draining himself to keep the Riders here and apparently this is the reason why they are losing their memories. Now that Tiddlywinks has Shingo he gets started on both creating his perfect world and his perfect Kefka impression. First by doing an insane laugh that would make Mark Hamel blush, then he summons a giant castle out of nowhere in the middle of Tokyo.
And he can do all of this because don't question it or else you'll be kicked in the head by a horse!
Oh and as if that wasn't enough he literally makes it rain and then sends an army of Grunts into the city to kill everyone in their path. Sento and Sougo notice the giant eyesore and agree that fictional or otherwise, they have to stop Tiddlywinks' plans. Ataru finally notices what his actions have caused and after being chased by an Inves, Ghoul and Roidmude and finding that Kazumi has lost his memories decides that enough is enough and tells Futaros that the contract is fulfilled allowing him to assume his full Imagin from and fight off the Grunts before jumping through Ataru completing the contract. But with said contract completed the Riders return to their world leaving the "real world" at the mercy of Tiddlywinks and his army. As Sougo witnesses Futaros traveling back in time he returns to his world with Woz watching him sleep like the zealous creep that he is.
After he explains everything to Woz, Sento finds him and tells him about the photo he found at Ataru's house and the two twits finally figure out what anyone who was watching this movie and didn't huff paint as a kid figured out half an hour ago. But now that they know the score how are they getting back to stop Tiddlywinks? They use the W Ridewatch that's how! I'll get into my thoughts about that later right now it's BS time. After the trio travel though Hypertime apparently they land back in the "real world" where the minions are racking up a major kill count.
Sougo and Woz manage to find Ataru, Woz then oh lord give me strength, accesses the Gaia Library to fill Sougo in on how the Imagin operate and then pulls out a Rider Ticket out of nowhere to figure out where Futaros went!?
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai. Back to the Future is owned by Robbert Zebecks, Bob Gale, Stephen Spielberg, Ambling Entertainment and Universal Studios. See no Evil, Hear no Evil is owned by Tristar Pictures and Arthur Hiller. Half Baked is owned by Universal Pictures, Robert Simonds Productions and Tamra Davis.
Oh wowie the last of the Generations Movies! The first one was a great tie-in to one of my favorite Rider series and did the impossible by actually making Ghost look good.
Heisei Generations Final once again fills in the blanks for Kamen Rider Build while getting some of the best Heisei Riders back while giving closure to some of those riders while showing Build as just as worthy to stand along side those heroes.
I mean considering how good the last two were there's no way they can screw it up right?
You poor fools forgot that the last two movies were written and directed by people who actually knew what they were doing. Instead we have the crew of Kamen Rider Zi-O helming this turkey which means that Kento Shimoyama wrote this and the producer was the Japanese Dan Didio himself Shinichiro Shirakura. So in the words this is a Taisen movie in Generation movies' clothes. Oh and before I forget this movie involves time travel, pants to be darkened!!! So let's not put this off any longer; time for the Heisei era to end, not with a bang but with the disgusted sneers of an old bastard who hates this franchise and the people who love it with the intensity of a million Foreman grills!
After the traditional Toei logo we get an actually cute and fitting little montage of a kid growing up with Kamen Rider, from a Kuuga figure in his delivery cradle to him getting a picture with Den-O ect our torture session opens in 2018 with Sougo walking back from school where Geiz and Tsukuyomi are chasing after him in their Time Mazine. Wait, by the emperor's toes the series is starting over again!
Ahahahahahahha oh dear god no I can't do this all over again I can't!
Ok, no no thankfully Shirakura felt somewhat generous that day and decided not to subject us to Zi-O all over again because once Geiz and Tsukuyomi corner Sougo an evil version of the Den-Liner makes a crash landing; knocking the Time Mazin out in the process. Then one of the only good things in Zi-O; an Another Rider jumps out of the wreck to kill Sougo. Of course since he has the year 2007 and the name Den-O on his body and came out of a twisted version of the Den-Liner it's clear that this is the Another Rider of Kamen Rider Black.
No it's obviously Another Den-O, Black already did some time travel but we don't like to talk about that.
Before Another Den-O can kill this would be despot Geiz transforms and stops him from doing what he originally came back to 2018 to do in the first place. During the fight Geiz and Tsukuyomi know who Sougo is but he doesn't recognize them. It's only when Another Den-O knocks him around and Sougo sees the Zi-O Ridewatch does he remember who they are.
While Another Den-O deals with Geiz and Zi-O a little kid escapes from the train. (Warning sign #1, a little kid in a modern Tokusatsu movie is a good sign that Shirakura was involved with the production and that it will be bad. Nobody likes it when guest child actors are involved in a Toku movie unless they're written well. As they often tend to steal focus from the main heroes, are not compelling to watch and are usually portrayed as bratty, annoying, moody or all three and refuse to advance the plot unless the threat is staring them in the face.) Anyway he escapes before getting swept up by a green cyclone and lands in front of Kiryu Sento and Banjo Ryuga.
Hallelujah!
Before you ask, no these aren't the Sento and Banjo that Sougo met and got the Build and Cross-Z Ridewatchs from in the disastrous first two episodes. These are the Sento and Ryuga that landed on the main Toei Earth after Sento merged the Build Earth with the main Earth to stop Evolt. If you're asking how that makes any sense, then shut up the makers of the movie clearly don't care even though they wrote the damn show that these events spun off from. Ok it is kind of explained later but we'll get to that later. Anyway the kid runs and hides because "it" is coming.
You know I'd say that the design of Pennywise for It Chapter 2 jumped the shark but he is a shapeshifter so I don't know maybe the Turtle that holds the Earth or something from Dark Towers can explain it, because it's either one or the other.
No this is Another W who attacks after Sento and Banjo transform into Build and Cross-Z. We then cut back to the wreck of the another Den-Liner to see the main villain of our story, the Time jacker who created Another W and Another Den-O.
After the tittle card we see the two pairs of Riders forcing their opponents to retreat. But in both instances there was a crowd of people watching and cheering the riders on like it was a live show. Hell even Build and Cross-Z get back up from Kamen Riders Grease and Rogue, who shouldn't be there since they were killed before the world merger. There wasn't even a chance to have them be like a Jay Garrick and Barry Allen Flash situation like after Crisis on Infinite Earths where since they were so radically different the new world decided to keep both versions of the Flash like with Sento and Banjo they're just here because the Kool-Aid man is red. During the Build Riders fight with Another W a high schooler is watching and recording the fight on his phone while the kid that Another W was after escapes into the crowd. We're then subjected to I kid you not, 8 minutes of pointless scenes that can basically be summed up with "things aren't what they're supposed to be!"
Sento finally corners the kid and tries to ask why the Another Rider was after him but he refuses to trust and talk to him like the dumbass brat that he is. He does finally talk when Sento mentions that he's Kamen Rider Build and the kid thinks that he fights alongside Kuuga. But before Sougo can ask any more questions Tiddlywinks shows up to abduct the kid who he identifies as Shingo. Sento tells Shingo to run while he holds him off but Tiddlywinks uses his Timejacker powers to toy with and possibly molest him.
"slurp You have the taste of a Heisei Rider!"
Seriously Sento looks legitimately uncomfortable, I can't help but think this was ad libbed, I'm starting to get a Jerod Leto's Joker vibe now, never go full Jerod Leto. So after, that Tiddlywinks wonders what Sento is even doing here since there apparently shouldn't be any Kamen Riders in this world. But he decides to make Lemonade from this lemon and uses some unexplained mind control powers on Sento. Speaking of Jojo references we catch up with the kid who was recording the fight talking to a voice in his head who tells him that Sougo is following him, who he recognizes as Zi-O and introduces himself as Ataru Hisanaga who claims to have the power to draw riders to him, despite the voice telling him to quit acting so cocky.
Ataru decides to demonstrate this by taking Sougo out for Fumen at a stand in Futo. He says that this will lure out W, well he's half right (ha) as instead Shingo shows up being chased by Another W. Sougo begins to transform but Another W retreats before he can finish. When Sougo tires to talk with Shingo the stand owner hands him the W Ridewatch because apparently Shotaro told him to give it to Sougo when he recognized him, because he "protected the city". Wow not only does Futo have their won Kamen Rider but they also have their own plot convenience Fairy!
Sougo and Ataru decide to bring Shingo back home. Along the way Shingo says that his mother's in the hospital because she's about to deliver his baby brother, he's happy about is since he has someone he can watch Kamen Rider Kuuga with. Ataru is impressed that a little kid knows about such an old Rider series since he himself was born one day before Kuuga aired, making today his birthday. After some antics about Sougo's home not being the same as he knows it and Geiz and Tsukuyomi's memories being rewritten as what happened to Banjo, Kazumi, Gentoku and Misora he decides to look for Shingo's house with the map app on his smart phone.
And the fact that Shingo says that he's never seen a smart phone should have been a major tip off to him not being from the present day! Now, what a normal person would do in this situation would be to ask Shingo what year it was due to the two major oddities about him, but since this is an idiot plot neither Ataru nor Sougo do this. Even the two Persona Q games got this plot point out of the way faster then this pair of brain trusts!!! While we painfully wait for the characters to catch up with the audience for the solution to this obvious mystery Kazumi and Banjo show up asking Shingo where Sento went. After he tells them about his confrontation with Tiddlywinks Sento's bike shows up to take Banjo and Sougo to where he is keeping Sento, somehow!
When Zi-O and Cross-Z find him he has the still mind controlled Sento transform into his TankTank form and attack the two. After more obvious foreshadowing Shingo gets taken by Another W and Another Den-O after they beat the ever loving tar out of Grease. But not before Another Den-O shows Ataru who he really is, Ataru, wait what?! Back to the Rider fight we learn that Sento actually wasn't under Tiddlywinks control and was just playing along until he can learn what his goal is. But he never learned what that was so he wasted his time and nearly killed his allies for no reason, our heroes everyone!
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai. Superman Returns is owned by Dc Comics, Bryan Singer, Warner Bros Pictures, Bad Hat Harry Productions, Legendary Pictures and Peters Entertainment. Sam and Max: The Devil's Playhouse Episode 2: The Tomb of Sammun-mak is owned by Telltale Games and Chuck Jordan. Aliens (Film) is owned by James Cameron, 20th Century Fox and Brandy Wine Productions Based off of characters by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett Hellsing Ultimate is owned by Kouta Hirano, Studio Madhouse, Madman Entertainment, Manga Entertainment, Geneon and Funimation. Hellsing Ultimate Abridged is owned by Team Four Star.
With very little time to prepare, almost all of his resources scrubbed and all of his connections getting burned for helping him he has to find a way to stay alive for the sake of his dead wife’s memory. Now if you’ve seen a John Wick movie you know what you’re in for, beautiful and visceral fight choreography, dark humor and enough guns to give an NRA member a throbbing boner. But this time chapter 3 ups the anti by leaving John in such a bare-bones state. Since he’s lost access to the Continental’s arsenal and resources he has to scrounge for whatever weapons and supplies he can find and even then make sure nobody else has to suffer for the sin of aiding a dead man.
What you might not be expecting is that we get a slight bit of insight into John's history. One of his last resources is visiting his old mentor known only as the Director (played by Anjelica Huston) where we get a visual idea of John's training as a child and how he became the unstoppable beast that he is, thankfully not through longwinded flashbacks or anything like that but from what little we see of the theater the audience can piece it together themselves. Another unexpected surprise is Sophie (played by Halle Berry) I won't give away all the details but I will say that she's off the hook for Catwoman. Also for the first time in these movies we have a killer on par with Wick who actually gave our protagonist a reasonable challenge. That being Zero (played by Mark Dacascos), yep Master Eubulon/ Kung Lao is after John Wick's head, awesome!
While the movie is definitely worth your time, in fact I should just tell you to stop reading and go see all three of these movies you whale farts I will admit there are some problems. Most of which is the second act when John punches his ticket and gets to Casablanca where we spend maybe too much down time with Sophie and the whole conversation with Berrada might drag on a bit too long for some people. Also the Adjudicator (played by Asia Kate Dillon) while very intimidating through their actions the character is nothing more than a cypher for the High Table. Which yes is the point but does leave the Adjudicator as a non entity, everything the Adjudicator does is on the High Tables order, all I'm saying is that this "role" could have been filled by calling people on Skype or something and just wearing a mask, they're basically Watari and the High Table is L.
Another concern I have is for the overall John Wick series. Once we see the ending we know what's going to happen next. Without spoilers I'll say that the storytelling engine is starting to run out of steam. If I was being generous I'd say that there is enough storytelling potential for at least one, maybe two more movies considering how Chapter 3 ends. Also I've heard rumors of a spin-off tv series focusing on the Continental.
While I do think that could be interesting it also runs the risk of getting over complicated or explaining too much of how the High Table and this whole organized crime world works. To be honest while I do find the Continental intriguing it's mostly because I don't know everything about it. Its like a comedy or a magic show, the more time you hear the same jokes/ see the same tricks the less entertaining it gets. So all I'll say for the filmmakers is to tread lightly. In any case like I said when I reviewed part 2, go see this movie, its fight choreography is downright textbook and the physical action of Keanu Reeves gives John the prefect blend of super human and physical exhaustion that sells this type of movie.
John Wick Chapter 3 is owned by Lionsgate, 87Eleven Productions, Thunder Road Productions and Summit Entertainment.
