Movie Review: Kamen Rider Beyond Generations

Kamen Rider: Beyond Generations [2021]

You really do have to give these 'Generations' movies a huge leeway when you watch them. Most of the time it's just an excuse plot with some vague connection to the currently-running show's mythology, with handwaves to get cameos to show up and a relatively bland villain. It's usually the standalone movie that tends to introduce an interesting side-character (usually a movie-exclusive Rider) and tries to build up a more compelling story with a smaller cast.

Beyond Generations... isn't that at all. Admittedly, the showmakers have to face a daunting task of having to juggle FIFTEEN Kamen Riders from Saber and Revice, not to mention three additional guest-star riders. These aren't just a pointless voiceless cameo and a combined rider-kick that Decade or Zi-O facilitates for all the main riders either, because all of the Revice and Saber casts technically do have to fight and have their dialogue and catchphrases. And while it's not impossible to do so, the fact that we move through them so much means that barely anyone gets time to breathe. The only cast regular that arguably gets any sort of character arc is Vice being kind of forced to go through a "haha, I'm lying to hang out with demons in the future" to "oh no, lying is bad!" And... characters like Vice straddle a line of being obnoxious and funny, and with the rather forced script (Vice's VA works best when he has room to breathe and improv) Vice ends up falling squaerly into obnoxious and unnatural in this movie. Touma and Ikki are reduced to giving heroic speeches, and the movie itself kind of feels so rushed at moving all its pieces that even though nothing much realistically happened, the mess is still evident. 

And here's the thing -- this movie has three plots running through it. The Deadmans squad end up discovering Diablo, the cousin to Giff that we never heard of before, and Diablo ends up creating four minions (and turns Aguilera into his fifth) that rampage all over the globe to create a pentagram to power him up or some shit. There's also a bad future in 2071, where future George Karizaki sent back a young man called Ryunosuke Momose to 2021. Also, Ryunosuke has his individual plot where he's actually from 1971, and he's the Shocker scientist that worked on Takeshi Hongo, tying this mess to the original Kamen Rider series. 

Also also, young, time-traveling Ryunosuke has to meet his now elderly son Hideo, and for no real reason other than to build up drama (okay, George's mad science is reason enough), Ryunosuke needs to transform together with Hideo to form Kamen Rider Century, and only Century's power can defeat Diablo. 

This leads to some admittedly good acting on the parts of Ryunosuke, Hideo, Touma and Ikki, but... but it just kind of falls flat due to how rushed the exposition is and how one-note the characters of Ryunosuke and Hideo are -- they just go through the expected character arc of having a conflict with each other and then making up because of the power of family and love and dreams and somesuch. It's probably the strongest part of this movie, but we've... we've seen this exact plot so many times in anime and tokusatsu movies, and they're usually done much better. It's hard to fault the cast for this one, though, because, again, the movie just tries to do so damn much. 

Oh yeah, there's also some nonsense time travel, too, while Diablo is sending his minions to multiple locations all over the world to create a reverse pentagram that will blow up Mt. Fuji. On paper, this sounds like a fun excuse for a 'trip across the world', but all that this leads to is some poorly-disguised shooting locations (or CGI, in the case of the one snowy mountains or the Easter Islands) while the gigantic side-cast of Saber fight and fail against the four personality-less goons. 

There's also a small group that gets sent to 2071 for probably the most pointless fanservice ever -- 2071 is overrun by evil 'demon riders', ostensibly demons like Diablo/Giff/Vice that have became Riders. It's nice because we get to see some old suits like Ouja, Sorceror, Duke, #4, Eternal and Barlxkckxsks show up. But beyond the ha-ha-funny joke of having an elderly George Karizaki be a mad scientist in the future, all this whole plot point ends up being is just to put five characters (Touma, Rintaro, Vice, Sakura, Daiji and Yuri) into random Kamen Riders of the past and... and it's kind of... pointless and confusing since we don't really get to see anyone transform into anyone. It's hilarious to see Vice's voice come out of the normally stoic Black RX, I guess, but while it's neat to watch, it's also kind of a mess. 

And, well... Diablo himself has absolutely no personality so beyond being a generic world-ending threat, there really isn't much to drive the movie forwards beyond the Ryunosuke/Momose plot. And I suppose Ryunosuke being a former Shocker member that ended up being inspired by Kamen Rider #1 is nice, and that newly-shot-with-modern-technology Kamen Rider #1 scenes are nice fanservice for the anniversary aspect of this movie, but... but again, it's all so muddied up that I really would feel that if they wanted something relating to Kamen Rider #1, a plot more akin to Kamen Rider 1 (starring the cast of Ghost!) would've definitely worked much, much better. The time travel stuff is really just too much, especially since we're cutting from one fight to the next and there are like eight or nine different fights with multiple characters happening at the same time. There are ways to do this that isn't confusing, but Beyond Generations certainly isn't it. Everyone does their finishers at one point, you get to hear some old transformation or attack sounds from Saber, whoop-de-doo, I'd rather watch an episode of Saber instead, y'know?

Oh, and while Kamen Rider Century himself is certainly a new suit, we do get a brand-new form for Kamen Rider Revice... in the form of the Zero-One based Neo-Batta Vistamp. Zero-One, who doesn't have anything to do with this movie's plot at all, beyond a short cameo as one of the Clone Riders. Wouldn't it be better for them to make a Saber-based form or a Ichigo-based form? The remix grasshopper CGI is also probably one of the more atrocious ones, and I already loathe Revice's CGI remix forms. 

Anyway, it's... it's just literally passes the line of being 'serviceable', but there are Kamen Rider movies that actually function as compelling standalone movies and there are Kamen Rider movies that wholeheartedly embrace the crossover nonsense and have the plot work in the service of it. This isn't either of those, and there are some cool shots here and there, but ultimately the movie isn't something I'll ever bother revisiting.

Random Notes:

• Kamen Rider #1 is played in this movie by really, the only person who no one would complain if he took over the role of Hongo Takeshi - by Fujioka Maito, the son of Fujioka Hiroshi, Kamen Rider's original actor. 
• Continuity-wise, in Saber this movie takes place after the finale but before Trio of Deep Sin; in Revice this takes place around episodes 13-14 and the Neo-Batta Vistamp would make an appearance in episode 22. 
• Damn okay, Saber's base suit looks pretty damn good. It's a shame we don't really stick with that. 
• The Northern Base set is noticeably CGI'd in, probably because the set has already been dismantled after the shooting of the final Saber specials.
• The 'legend riders' or 'clone riders' or whatever the hell method that Future!Karizaki used to give the five time-travelers the powers and forms of previous riders doesn't really follow too much of a logic (beyond Sakura turning only into lady riders), but there are some interesting parallels -- like Daiji turning into Knight and Ryugen since they are all heroes that spent a chunk of their show becoming antagonists (particularly Micchy and Daiji); 'main rider' Touma turning into Kamen Rider Ichigo; Rintaro turning into Blade because... he's Blades.
• The full list of the Clone Riders are: Ichigo, Super-1, Black RX, ZO, Kuuga, Agito, Knight, Blade, Accel, Fourze, Meteor, Nadeshiko, Ryugen, Muteki Ex-Aid, Poppy, Woz, Zero-One and Valkyrie. 
• It's so bizarre to me that one of the Clone Riders is Ichigo, and despite so much of the plot already revolving around Ichigo, they don't even mention it. 
• Diablo's four goons are the "Crispers", and they're based on Himiko, Edison, Khufu and Leonidas. 
• Interestingly, among these four, Himiko and Edison were both members of the 'luminaries' that became part of Kamen Rider Ghost's core arsenal. 
• Additionally, Himiko is voiced by Rica Matsumoto, the singer for Ryuki's opening -Alive a Life-. 
• I know I don't regard Saber particularly highly, but damn, it 10000% slipped my mind that Sophia is able to transform into Kamen Rider Calibur and I went 'wait what?' when she showed up for her cameo during the montage in the final arc. 
• Poor, poor, Hiromi. His tenure as Kamen Rider Demons is really marked by him embodying the 'Worf Effect', isn't it? That whole plot of Fenix trying to arrest the Century duo really ends up being utterly pointless.
• Okay, I did get a bit giddy when I heard 'ETERNAL! Maximum Drive!' and 'Lemon Squash!'
• Right, right, Touma is retired and they had to have an excuse of Rintaro bringing Kaenken Rekka to him. At least it's not as convoluted as having Gaim or Drive show up, with later movies just shrugging and deciding not to have alien fruit god come from his planet every year for the crossover, or to have Belt-san and the Tridoron burst out from the basement every time. 
• I had to look back at the past couple of movies to confirm this, but I was about to make a comment about how Saber doesn't get a fancy new form... but sometimes the 'senpai' rider in these crossover movies don't get brand-new forms. That's news to me! 
• In a neat little foreshadowing, George gets super interested in Ren's sword, Hayate, because it can split apart. It's probably a sneaky hint at him making a similar transformation device that splits apart, namely the Giffard Rex Vistamp. 
• The credits show all the Kamen Riders from Ichigo all the way to Revice... and it's kind of bizarre that some of them are in their super-forms for no real reason. I guess it's just whatever suit they have at the moment? Gaim is in his Kacihdoki Arms form, for example. Is that why Muteki Ex-Aid was the one showed in the movie itself, and it's the only Clone Rider that isn't in his base form?