It occurred to me recently that despite seeing the 90s rider movies, I have never actually given my thoughts on them before. Now you may wonder why I'm covering them all in one post. Well the answer to that is simple: I don't have enough to say on them individually to warrant separate posts.
Shin Kamen Rider Prologue:
I'm rather indifferent to this movie despite how many negatives I'm gonna bring up in this section. The movie drags quite a bit in the beginning to the point where I got kind of bored. It felt like the movie wanted to be a monster/drama movie but delved too much into the drama for my tastes. I also find it laughable that Shin still thought he was a killer even after the obvious mad scientist character basically admitted to being behind it by giving him a lecture about insects having telepathy. The guy wasn't even being subtle about it. The creature effects and gore however were pretty good. Shin's design is rather intimidating and the cyborg looking thing he fights is downright disturbing to me. The most disturbing thing design-wise for me is that Shin's eyes and head never stop pulsing when it does a close-up on his face. I get that this thing was intended to have at least one sequel but there really isn't much pay-off to this movie imo. I dunno, it just felt like they assumed it was gonna do well so they just left too much open for a sequel that as we know never came to be.
Kamen Rider ZO:
The plot is essentially just ZO protecting the son of the scientist who created him from monsters that also resulted from his experiments. The monster's designs are neat and the effects are pretty good. The bat's design is nicely unnerving and creepy. The spider is an amazing piece of stop motion and was done so well that I couldn't tell if it was that or a puppet. Its nicely detailed and creepy like the bat monster. The fights with both the bat and the spider monsters are cool if a bit short but thats understandable due to the run-time of the movie. The Neo Life-form's monster form feels like they reused Shin's design quite a bit. That thing is a nice threat and at times it gave me Terminator vibes. It really felt like it was this unstoppable force of nature. ZO himself is alright, the movie doesn't give him much personality tho so the monsters stood out to me more than he did. The effects throughout the movie were pretty good. Overall, its an ok but fun movie but at the same time it probably would've benefited from being a series instead as I'd have liked to learn more about ZO himself.
Kamen Rider J:
The plot is basically J being given powers to rescue a little girl who is about to be sacrificed by a group of aliens in a ritual that will basically wake up a lot of monsters so they can conquer the planet on behalf of a being known as Fog Mother. The movie has a bit of an environmental message to it as the main reason the protagonist was chosen to become J is that he could "feel the pain of the planet". J also came to the mountains in the first place to document the effects of construction site and the pollution in the lakes resulting from it. The monster designs are cool though the crocodile-looking one is a bit janky in its movements. However, I do find the bee/fly lady a tad too humanoid, a more a slightly more insect-y look would've helped imo. Her fight is also a tad underwhelming compared to the brutality of J fighting the crocodile guy. The fight with Prince Gain is probably the best one in the movie. With that being said, there really isn't much personality to them. The giant battle at the end was cool and the model work was nice. The sets and the effects throughout the movie are pretty solid. Like ZO its an ok but fun movie. However, unlike ZO, I'm ok with this one just being a movie.
Well thats what I thought of the 90's Rider movies. I had fun with ZO and J, Shin I'm rather indifferent on so Shin is my least favorite of the three. I dunno, maybe I'd have been less indifferent about Shin if that sequel had happened and we got a conclusion. I actually rewatched ZO and J's movies after seeing Shin's specifically for this post. The effects in all three were top notch. I'm not sure which one was better between ZO and J. If you haven't seen the 90's rider movies yet, I'd say give them a shot, even Shin.
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