Kamen Rider Gaim: Great Soccer Battle! Golden Fruits Cup! (2014)

Not as bad as people say, though a farcry from Gaim's heights

*pulled from my LB review*

Gaim is my favourite Heisei series, but a few people I follow mentioned this movie was really awful, even for a more low bar for Kamen Rider movies, but I didn't see anything particularly terrible about it.

It's a farcry from Gaim's quality ofc, but this isn't written by 'The Butcher' anyway, so obviously it's just gonna be a little theatrical cash-in and not some exceptional film or anything. The writing is a bit passive and murky at times, not helped by kinda standard direction making it a lull at times, stuff about conflict and a very loose garden of eden story that lacks energy, but it has its moments like Sano showing off his (? pretty sure, unless it was a stunt double) gymnastic skills in that opening soccer game with those wild flips, Baron doing some wild stuff on the motorcycle, another horse riding battle, etc, but most importantly, a nice little scene that reaffirms Kouta's values - that despite so many people around him choosing to fight, seek power and be wicked, some as former friends, he continues to fight on their behalf, to not cave to a misanthropic futility and hold his optimism in trying to fix everything back in his world and all.

The ending feels a bit empty, but on the other hand, you could say it's a bittersweet one thinking about Kouta having to return to his own world after seeing brief glimpses of peace as a dream and all; not immediately effective, but a bit interesting in the larger context and the greater despair Kouta has to face in the series down the line.

Pretty lackluster relative to the Gaim series, but acceptable on its own terms.

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