*pulled from my LB review*

Whew, this movie is…a lot. Way too many characters, concepts, side threads, tonalities, just the whole works, I don’t know where to begin; such a mess, worst Den-O movie so far, but still fine in its own right I guess.

The story starts out with this slower, more earnest and serious story about a boy named Yu mulling about how he hates living in the country after moving to the city, the reasons for which are touched on passively and in few fleeting details instead of drawing on more of the affecting potential it could have. Yu starts out kind of annoying with his shallow complaints at first (which, would seem less so if they better foregrounded his backstory which makes his angst a lot more warranted) and kind of unhelpful for a bit, taking his time before coming around to helping the Den-Liner crew, but he does come around and the heroes start to assemble and roll forward a bit more.

Part of the problem though is that this movie never really settles into a clear defining motivation and progression enacted by some clear “main character” hero with real presence and/or a more urgent conflict to captivate you to it. Yu is just a civilian along for the ride, not-Ryotaro (more casting conflicts explained with further time shenanigans a la Hana & Kohana) doesn’t have Takeru Satoh’s charm or older age & “star power” look on top of playing a passive part in the story still, Kotaro is still kinda subservient to Ryotaro and the others, Tsukasa and the other Decade characters only have a few minutes to drop in and out, and the Taros feel like they are along for the ride. It feels like some weird, flimsy, overly bloated collective just kinda steering the plot into getting everywhere it needs to go.

And even the plot isn’t that interesting, it’s a lot of just drawn out setup simply to assemble the team before they stop the villains who are these lame demon brothers who wound up being separated by time and are trying to reunite so they can make some battleship and control all of time with some magatama object or some shit? Idk, they’re pretty worthless, and Den-O isn’t known for often having convincing villains, but it especially sucks when you’re looking for SOMETHING to stand out in the film and they feel just as lousy on top of everything else.

What else…the fight scenes all feel so slapped on and boring, made worse by using these goofy slapstick jazz tracks during scenes meant to be more suspenseful as the drama mounts, said drama is undermined by weird pivots into heavy comedy suddenly despite being fairly tame on its comedy beforehand (that fakeout switch plan was just really awkward in timing and all), the Decade stuff is almost totally arbitrary (the movie could’ve maybe used Tsukasa as a proper driving lead but he only makes a few brief interjections too, and while less of the paired series was a mercy with Kiva for Climax Deka, here, it is probably needed) but of course Daiki has to show up for all of like, virtually a minute total screen time and prove why he’s one of the worst Rider characters by throwing a wrench in things for no reason to draw out the final battle more, the subplot with Toki (tying in with Yu’s stuff) doesn’t feel as prominent as it should be and gets relegated to the background until the end really (but that storyline providing one of the few bright spots to the film ultimately), it’s just…too much.

If it weren’t for some of the stuff with Yu and Toki (the twist involving that as well is kinda cute and the film I think is able to hide it from being more obvious by bogging the rest of it down in so much other crap) I would rate this lower, definitely one of the weakest KR movies I’ve seen, but that part on paper is still well-meaning and tender enough that I can respect it. Hoping the more lasting impact, stripped back and focused Super Den-O trilogy movies can fare better, but this was a bit rough, only charming enough.