Kamen Rider Fourze the Movie: Space, Here We Come! (2012)

I love Fourze the show, but so far I've really struggled with the movies.

Stuff I liked:
- Gen is adorable and the actor is trying really hard to carry the movie
- The parts that mostly focused on the club members were fun and cute! Loved Yuuki and Tomoko figuring out how to fight the bad guys together, Miu being randomly badass, and some of JK's little comedic moments. Kengo and Gen even get a brief spotlight of friendship toward the end, which was nice to see
- Ryuusei is really pretty, as usual
- Gen befriending an orbital weapons satellite is hilarious as a concept and works really well with the premise of the show
- Wizard! Loved the little interaction with Fourze and Meteor

Stuff I didn't like:
- This felt too short to properly get the setup it needed, so most of the movie-only characters were underdeveloped (or just not developed at all). Inga and Black Knight basically could have been completely removed with no detriment to the story, and the other two characters are really wtf due to the lazy setup for them
- The story is really rushed and messy (which tbf is typical of these films), especially in the context of the show. I'm willing to take a certain amount of continuity wackiness, but having the initial setup be that a bunch of teens need to go to space alone to set up explosives on a weapon satellite is...pretty out there, and doesn't really fit at all with the show. Honestly I think this entire movie would have made more sense if they had removed Inga's character entirely, and just had some mysterious "scientists" reach out from the orbital station asking the Rabbit Hatch for help.
- The ending tries to use built-up goodwill from the show to have all the previous characters Gen has befriended pitch in to help, but not only does this feel weird in terms of continuity, the lack of buildup time in the film makes this choice feel more like a lazy emotional manipulation.
- I know this is standard in KR movies of this era, but the attempt to squeeze in every single switch/move/power-up as fanservice in every movie is starting to get stale for me, especially when it just feels like the fight is rushing to get through as many gimmicks as possible


Finally, I just want to say I don't like Sakamoto's style. There, I said it. I think he wants to be making Fast and the Furious, and is instead stuck with Kamen Rider, and ends up forcing the movies to be the adult action version of themselves, so that they feel jarringly disconnected from the shows at a basic level. The camera tends to leer at female characters and his movies always seems to need at least one fanservice girl (in this one it was Inga with an uncomfortable-looking pushed-up bust). People seem to defend this with "but he's so good at action!" but is he? Multiple movies so far in Heisei 2 have been by him, but I've never been watching a TV episode of a Kamen Rider series directed by someone else and thought, wow the stunts are super lacking compared to the movies. The movies just up the amount of random explosions, guns, and female fanservice, none of which I feel like are things that have ever been a crucial feature of Kamen Rider.

Look, I don't hate action flicks. I enjoyed the heck out of "Shoot 'Em Up", which is pretty much as far as you can go into intentional B-movie action flick for action's sake. I just don't understand the need to mash so much adult action style into these Kamen Rider films, when the franchise is aimed at younger audiences and the TV series do not have this vibe.

I didn't hate this movie entirely, but...honestly I don't recommend this unless you really love Fourze and want to see all of the related content, or you actively like Sakamoto's style.

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