Movie Review: Kamen Rider The Next

Kamen Rider: The Next [2007]

Despite the slightly negative connotations of my review for The First, I legitimately still think it's a pretty solid, if dry, movie. I enjoyed myself watching it, despite its weaknesses. For Kamen Rider: The Next, though... it's a bit of a mess, and not the sort of enjoyable "why is this going on, this makes no sense, but I am along for this trainwreck" way that the crossover movies are a mess. 

The Next is an utterly weird movie that's sort of confused what it's trying to do. It's simultaneously an origin story for the next Showa Rider, V3, while also serving as a sequel (and conclusion?) to Takeshi and Ichimonji's stories from The First, and also there's this whole horror story angle thrown in for no real reason. It definitely feels like a sequel of The First, and definitely tries to give Takeshi and Ichimonji more moments to actually show who these characters are beyond just being dry, bland "look at this superhero he's so badass" caricatures. I say try, because I'm not particularly sure it's successful. Takeshi's a good teacher, and he's protective of his students and that's nice, but he still just genuinely comes off as a generic everyman hero. Ichimonji has an interesting plotline of him sort of enjoying himself in hedonistic ways because without the aid from Shocker's machinery, his time is running out... but the movie itself sort of doesn't explore this aspect of his character as much as it should.

The main plotline, so to speak, is a weird horror story that feels more at home at a Japanese horror B-movie, with some sort of Sadako shit going on where a ghost will show up and murder anyone who listens to a particularly popular pop star, Chiharu. Chiharu's best friend, Kotomi, turns out to be one of Takeshi's students, and their investigation turns up with the revelation that the "Chiharu" that's performing the songs is actually not Chiharu, but someone who has gotten plastic surgery to keep the idol alive, while the actual Chiharu is apparently killed (turned into a monster? The movie's not particularly great at communicating if she's a ghost or a kaijin) in an accident, and she's the real identity of the ghost killing anyone listening to her song. 

And... and I haven't really watched a whole ton of Showa riders, but I'm not sure if this is the tone set by V3 as a series. But all this bizarre and genuinely out-of-place horror investigation stuff ends up being interrupted by Shocker monsters! After some fight scenes, Takeshi and Kotomi ends up meeting Kazami Shiro, brother of Chiharu... who's a dick! And I actually like Kazami a fair bit. He's got a fair bit of personality... and he's a far more willing compatriot of Shocker, and is also a Shocker cyborg called V3. We get a pretty fun bike scene that's genuinely enjoyable as V3 face off against Takeshi, and later on against Takeshi and Ichimonji (who just seem to show up whenever the plot needs him). We get the flashback and revelation to a Shocker attack on Kazami's company, which is basically a Shocker experiment to see who's compatible with nanobots. 

And then while Kotomi ends up discovering Chiharu's fate in something that belongs more in a horror story instead of a Kamen Rider one, the three Kamen Riders face off against Shocker to stop one of its commanders, Scissors Jaguar, to stop spreading these nanobots across the nation. Apparently the nanobots are the ones that turn Chiharu into such a bizarrely powerful ghost, which honestly feels so out of place in the otherwise pretty grounded "cyborg humans with super strength" sci-fi of the three main Kamen Riders and all the other Shocker commanders. V3 mercy-kills his sister, the Shocker base is burnt down, and the threat is over. And then we get the epilogue. Ichimonji dies at the bar in bliss, Kazami goes off for himself, and Takeshi is forced to quit hisjob as a teacher. 

My big complaint is the sheer mismatch of tone that the movie has. It tries its best to be a murder mystery investigation, a buddy cop movie, the sort of nanobots/evil organization/cyborg sci-fi that the first movie was, and a horror movie. All of those blend together in a pretty unsatisfying mixture, and while I did have some parts that I enjoy about this movie... for the most part it just felt confusing. V3's motivations change on the drop of a hat, Ichimonji disappears and reappears into the plot without any real reason, Shocker's plans are hilariously generic and feel out of place for the otherwise more mature theme of the show... I dunno. Unlike The First, I don't think I can praise a lot of this movie other than the action scenes, and I am not surprised that this is the last of the "gritty reboot" series with future Showa-centric efforts just simply featuring them teaming up with whichever new Kamen Rider is the flavour of that year.