Review of Kamen Rider: THE NEXT (2007) by Dzulkarnaen B — 16 Jun 2008

After seeing the first one I was really hyped up for this second one, especially when they are showcasing my childhood favourite - Kamen Rider V3! Well, was I dissapointed or what after seeing it!

People complained about the love story in the first one but I thought it was alright and did not destroy the flow of the movie. It serves the purpose well, as it helped draw the casual movie crowd in to the theatre and made the movie more popular and reasonable.

Well in this one, they tried to inject Japanese style horror into the movie to appease to the non-rider crowd. In my opinion, the movie looked flawed after this horror treatment and it doesn't really fit! In my opinion, the screen time taken to stage this horror side story could have been used more wisely explaining the characters background. The horror element was so out of place. When seeing the movie at different times can make someone think that they are seeing a different movie totally! The only relation between the story line and the atrocious side story is that the victim is Kazami's (V3) sister. Beside that, it has nothing to do with Shocker's operation whatsoever. I know it was Shocker who made her that way, but this fact has nothing to do with Shocker wanting to create bio-soldiers to take over the world!!! The main story line has been downplayed BIGTIME by the sister's sidestory. It really makes the audience wonder which is one is the main conflict...

None of the characters have any significant screen time in order for any of them to be the lead of the movie...that's fine. But since we have a movie about V3 (THE NEXT), shouldn't more screen time be spent on V3???!!! In this movie, V3 looked more like a sidekick than anything! The original TV series story is about V3 avenging the death of his sister and family caused by Destron (It is still Shocker in this movie). It is a simple story and could potentially be boring when migrated to the big screen but at least we can feel V3's vengence and cheer for him throughout the movie. With this one, we can't feel emotionally attached to Kazami at all because his misfortune was never really apparent until the very end when he meets up with his sister...

The action scenes were so so, I like the first one better because it was more stylish than this one. Some of the scenes are so cheesy it doesn't even feel like it belongs in the big screen - It feels cheap...The first one wasn't like that!

The main villian is intimidating, but then again wasn't given much chance to showcase his cold blooded Persona to make the audience hate and fear him. What a waste...

A simple story doesn't mean a failure. Why do they have to try so hard to make this movie different when all that is needed is a simple straight forward revenge flick formula???