OOO and W Movie War Core

I have to preface this by saying that initially I hadn't watched Kamen Rider W (yes I say W rather than Double since the title is literally written with the letter W) when I watched the OOO and W Movie War Core.  Not to mention the only knowledge of Kamen Rider before this is watching Kamen Rider OOO.  So this is the first thing I watched that deviated a little bit from OOO.  That being said, since I didn't write this review directly after I saw the movie, I've watched all of W between then and now so I have a better understanding of the series.  Even so, there's enough issues with the story that even if I hadn't watched W, this review would make just as much sense.  The added knowledge of the series just adds to my ability to understand the series and characters better.

Getting right into the swing of things, this "movie" is spit into three segments: The W heavy segment that is set in the OOO universe but has very little to do with OOO (Skull: Message for W/Double), the OOO segment that completely forgets about the W part of this crossover (Nobunaga's Desire), and the actual crossover segment of the movie (Movie War Core).  Now with the title being advertised the way it is, I figured that it was going to be an actual crossover.  Considering I wasn't very familiar with how Kamen Rider crossovers are typically done (at this point I was only familiar with sentai crossovers), this wasn't what I was expecting.  But I have no qualms with this set up.  In fact if it's done well enough it can be decent.  A better example of a crossover is the W and Decade cross.  I'll get more into that in the future when I make a review for that, but I will say that crossover did a better job of intertwining the two separate stories so that when they met up in the third act, it didn't seem awkward or out of place.  Here, it does. 

Let's break down the three separate segments.  Starting with Skull: Message for W (or Double...just bare with me saying W instead.  I'm too used to it by now).  The premise for this section is that Akiko and Terui are to be wed, however a Pteradon Yummy is attacking the city.  Though for some reason, Akiko took Terui's Accel memory and driver so he can't transform.  He does however fight the Yummy alongside W as himself.  Of course Akiko shows up, distraught that they'd rather be fighting (AKA: protecting innocent people from a dangerous monster...that is their job after all) than show up on time for the wedding.  Though most of her anger stems from the fact that her father had made a promise to her that he would be there for her wedding.  While I understand that weddings are absolutely important events, there's a few things wrong with this premise already:

• Throughout the series, there's nothing hinting at the fact that Akiko dislikes Terui being a Kamen Rider.  There is nothing in previous movies that hint that she dislike the idea of Kamen Riders.  Where does her sudden discomfort with the idea of Kamen Riders come from?  She works with two of them and at no point does she have any disdain for them.  She's even marrying Terui knowing that he's a Kamen Rider and until he doesn't show up on time for her wedding (or rather until the beginning of this movie), there is nothing that shows us where her disdain for Kamen Riders is coming from.  This disdain that lead her to take Terui's Accel memory and driver.  What did she think that she would gain from doing this?  Knowing him the way that she does, wouldn't she realize that he would fight regardless?  And that if he fought these creatures without transforming he would be in even greater risk?  And she didn't hate that her father was a Kamen Rider either.  So where on earth is this hatred of her father being a Kamen Rider coming from?
• She knows her father is dead.  The previous crossover established this.  Her father died during the events of "Begins Night".  In fact, it's been implied...no proven in the series that he's dead.  We see him get shot in the back three times.  His death was the catalyst that lead Philip and Shoutarou to become W...Double...whatever you wanna call them.  "Daburu".  There.  Anyways, remember how she found out that he died because Philip couldn't keep his mouth shut about it?  Apparently we're supposed to forget that.  And had I written this post before I saw that movie (the Begins Night segment of the W and Decade Movie War), I wouldn't have picked up on this little plot hole.  She was rather accepting when she found out that he was no longer alive.  Sad of course, because she barely knew him and she wanted to.  But accepting.  She finally knew some bit of truth about her father and from my perspective she was okay with this.  But all of a sudden she's angry that her father can't attend her wedding but she desperately wants him too.  Well if he were alive, I could understand her feelings.  And to an extend I can understand them even if he is dead.  But I don't believe a dead person has a choice and Akiko is treating him like he had a choice in the matter.  Why are they treating the situation like he were still alive?  To my knowledge, there's no mention or recognition of his death from any of the characters in this movie and until I'd watched W, I assumed Sokichi was still alive.
• What is the purpose of this Yummy?  It's sole purpose is to 1) act as the catalyst in showing Akiko what kind of person her father was and 2) to bring in an element (the Memory memory) that is crucial to setting up the Movie War Core.  Had the Yummy been more useful in the movie itself, I wouldn't have a problem with it's presence.  But this "character" is treated more like a prop than anything.

 The segment ends off with Skull/Sokichi Narumi having to defeat his partner who had become a Spider Dopant and infected many people in the city with spider bombs (including Sokichi).  When they come in physical contact with the person they love the most, the spider bomb will transfer over to their loved one and explode.  All in all, is the back story for Skull necessary?  No.  It's essentially padding to make this movie over an hour long.  Well I suppose I can say that for most of this film.  But this is the most enjoyable segment.  While the story regarding Skull just barely connects to the overall plot, it is a wonderful story about this character.  For the most part, all we knew about him from the series is that he's dead, he's Akiko's father, and he was Shoutarou's mentor and boss.  We really get a look into how he thought and acted and why he fought.  Albeit his character could stand to be defined a bit more but for what it is, it's a good story.

Like a boss...

On to Nobunaga's Desire.  The one truly pointless part of this entire "movie" (I'm rather reluctant to call it that).  The whole premise of this part is that Kougami wants to revive Oda Nobunaga for some reason or another.  Because the script said so I guess.  So he creates a new body for Nobunaga using cell medals.  Meanwhile Eiji and Hina are off doing some part time work on a movie shoot, Eiji takes the money that he earns (and Hina's money as well) and gives it away to people he thinks are needs, and on his way back sees a samurai looking creature attacking a man, calling him a murderer.  Eiji of course transforms into OOO and fights the creature.  The samurai creature escapes and while chasing after it, Eiji comes across a young man who seems out of place and injured.  It turns out this man has amnesia but knows his name is Nobunaga.  

Obviously this is just my opinion but to put it bluntly, this section is worthless.  It's a story that has no connection or impact on the rest of the "film".  Not to mention that Nobunaga's character has no bearing in what happens in the last segment nor a connection to anything happening in the rest of the movie.  It's really nothing but a one shot story that's sole purpose is to set up the black cores for the third portion of the film.  But for this there's really two big complaints I have:

• The introduction of the black core medals.  We're all aware that each Greeed has a color and species/power or element type set of creatures attached to them.  And according to the series there are only 6 sets of medals, not counting the movie only medals/combos.  The difference though between the movie only medals and these black cores are that the other medals are explained or play some sort of actual importance in the movies.  While I haven't seen them yet, the descriptions of the films are enough to figure out that these other combos/medals are important to the plot and thus the logical conclusion is that there is going to be some form of explanation behind them.  Here Dr. Maki just has them, tosses them into Nobunaga, and that's it.  Where did Maki get those medals?  Where are they from?  At least when the Putotyra medals are introduced in the series, we're told that they were a set of medals that were created.  Why were they created?  Not completely sure.  But at least there was some way to explain their introduction.  I'll end up getting more into the issues I have with the black cores when going over the last section.
• Ankh's uselessness.  And I'm not just saying it because he's my favorite character and I wish he was in the movie more.  He was absolutely unnecessary in this movie and was treated more like a prop than an actual character.  He showed up sporadically only to provide nothing of substance to the actual story.  My question is why did he let Eiji keep all (except his obviously) the core medals?  There is a point where Ankh allows Eiji to use the TaToBa combo as he pleases but at no point does Ankh ever allow Eiji to keep all of the medals.  As well as playing the role of the wild card, antisocial antihero, he's the one who knows the most about the strengths and weaknesses of the other Greeeds (considering that he is one and he was around them the most) and often gives Eiji the proper medal combos to defeat their opponents.  Could they not write a better part for him?

Dear movie studio, I know I look like a prop, but don't treat me like one. 'Kay?  Thanks (just ignore that the picture above is actually a figure).

And on to the main portion of this movie...or rather what should be the main portion as the film is advertised as a crossover.  Unfortunately this has to be the shortest segment of the movie and a complete let down.  Nobunaga's Desire leaves off with Eiji defeating the Greeed Nobunaga, Nobunaga's body shattering into a pile of cell medals while the three cores that Maki tossed into him fly off somewhere.  Now if you remember from part one there's that Pterodon Yummy that has the Memory memory.  The black cores react to the Gaia Memory and combine with it, forming into a strange fiery creature that called itself a Kamen Rider.  Due to the memories retrieved by the Memory memory, this strange Greeed/Dopant hybrid ends up resembling (only loosely) a Kamen Rider.  Only it's body is completely engulfed in flames, it's giant, and some of it's limbs are missing and/or aren't connected to the rest of it's body.  So the Memory memory stored the memories and information of Kamen Rider Skull and the three medals were of the animals scorpion, crab, and shrimp.  This creature didn't resemble a cross between those things at all so that's failure number one.  But since I like the look of fire, the actual design of the creature doesn't bother me.  The missing and unconnected limbs are a bit awkward though.

Basically this entire section is just a battle.  W and OOO versus Core.  Birth and Accel versus the Pteradon Yummy.  And a little more of Akiko's whining about how it's all the fault of Kamen Riders existing that bad things happen in the world.  Until she realize that Terui's also fighting to protect her and she finds out the reason why her father "really can't be with her at her wedding" (other than the fact that he's you know...dead).  This is the section that I believe I have the most complaints about.  Crossovers can be amazing things.  And I love when studios create crossovers between their own products or with other studio's creations (granted they can get the okay to do so).  With good writing good crossovers aren't impossible.  The sentai crossovers, while imperfect, are a much better example of how crossovers should be done.  The characters meet and get to know one another.  Maybe they even have conflicts with the other heroes.  Here there's nothing.  Eiji saves Akiko and ends up encountering Philip and Shoutarou that way.  Then they just go fight.  You'd think there'd be some point where they all meet each other and get acquainted first but I guess not.  Apparently character interaction beyond fighting isn't very important.

There's one part of this segment that almost makes this entire movie worth it and it's the closest we ever come to "character interaction" (a character reacting to another character is a better way of putting it).  A really short scene when OOO and W have to go underground in order to destroy the source that Core draws his power from.  Ankh eventually shows up (seemingly out of nowhere).  Shoutarou ends up responding to what Ankh says without looking at him at first.  But mid-sentence he does end up turning around only to be greeted by a floating, moving, disembodied hand (who also turns to "look" at Shoutarou/Cyclone Joker Extreme).  And Shoutarou reacts like anyone would if they saw a floating, talking, moving, disembodied hand...freaking the heck out.  This crossover was missing more moments like this.  Not specifically silly moments like this one is.  But moments where the characters are reacting and playing off one another.  These two worlds haven't really collided before (unless we're counting the short appearance OOO had in the A to Z movie...which they technically do).  A crossover is a great opportunity to explore these characters and their relationships in a different way or to see how characters from one series would act around characters of another.  But I'm disappointed that opportunity wasn't taken.

As for the things that specifically annoyed me about this segment...:

• The destruction of the black cores.  Now my guess is that when they created this movie, they already had in mind the way the OOO story would go.  So along they way they knew that the only way the core medals could be destroyed was via the Putotyra combination.  Coming from a pre-production standpoint, your story is written out before you go into production.  Sure you might tweak minor details here and there but for the most part the major plot points of a series are carefully planned out beforehand.  So, most likely the concept of the destruction of the medals was a point that was previously planned out.  If that's the case, then how were the black cores able to be destroyed?  Had they just destroyed the Gaia Memory, they would've defeated Kamen Rider Core.  Its existence only comes about from the combination of the memory and the core medals.  Wouldn't it just be destroyed if the memory was destroyed?
• Again, Ankh's uselessness.  While the only amusing scene from this movie has him in it, the only thing he does is give Eiji his other two medals to create the TaJaDor combo and then he disappears.  Somehow.  Maybe they forgot him underground or something.
• The ending.  After the battle's over with and everyone's supposed to go back to their everyday lives.  How the deuce does Eiji end up in Brazil?  I know there's this whole suspension of disbelief thing and that works for the most part.  I'll suspend disbelief for the idea of Kamen Riders, evil creatures, an incomplete being possessing a human in order to survive, and a young girl with superhuman strength.  But I won't suspend it for Eiji ending up in Brazil because the trajectory of his attack wouldn't allow for him to end up there.  His Prominence Drop was angled upward.  Meaning if anything he would've just ended up above ground in he place that he already was.  I might believe is Shoutarou and Philip ended up elsewhere, but probably nowhere too far away.  It made no sense for him to end up randomly in Brazil.  Sure the scene is funny, but that doesn't mean it isn't incredibly stupid and unnecessary.
• The battle with Kamen Rider Core.  It was surprisingly disappointing and short.  I was expecting a bit more of a climax going into this and they defeated him rather easily.  Much easier than either of them have defeated other villains in their respective series.  And somehow much easier than the Pteradon Yummy was defeated.
• The reveal of why Sokichi couldn't see his daughter.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but usually the effects of a Dopant or any other sort of villainous creatures wears off when the creature is destroyed.  Unless the effect was death (highly doubt someone would be able to come back from that).  But for some reason when the Spider Dopant was defeated, the spider bombs it created remained.  Wouldn't this cause a lot of discord within the city for everyone affected by the bombs?  It seems like the only person who felt any effect from this was Sokichi because he could never come in contact with his family again.  The moment feels very warm and sweet.  You realize that the person that Sokichi loved more than anyone else was Akiko.  But once that moment sinks in and you look at the larger picture, this doesn't make any sense.  Not only because he's dead by this point, but because the death of the Dopant should've cured him of whatever effect the Dopant's spider bombs would've had on him or anyone else in the city.

Correct me if I'm wrong...but Brazil is nowhere near Japan right?

While each segment had its moments, those small moments don't fix the overall problems this "film" has.  It feels very disconnected.  I'll get into this later on, but the W and Decade cross uses this structure much better.  Here it's clearly three separate stories that tried to hard to create a connection and the connection felt very forced.  The characters are interesting enough on their own.  If they weren't I probably wouldn't have watched W and lucky for me I decided to.  It's a great series.  But it's not enough for me to claim that the "movie" is good or that I'd want to watch it again.  It's confusing, dull, and disjointed.  If I had to choose which part was the best of the three, I'd have to go with Skull: Message for W/Double.  That story was the best put together and the most interesting.  It has nothing to do with it's connection to the rest of the "movie".

All in all, I say ignore this movie.  Little is added to either series, nothing new is added to the characters, and it doesn't offer anything that's really worth seeing.  The only scene that's interesting enough is Shoutarou getting freaked out by a bad green screen effect (AKA: Ankh), but even that isn't really worth sitting through the rest of the movie for.