It's movie time! This 29 minute film was one half of a double feature along with Kamen Rider Build: Be The One. Continuity wise, this film takes place before episode 26. Also, historically, these half hour films from double features have not been great stand alone films. Will this movie continue that bad tradition? Click "read more" and let's find out.
Analysis
The movie begins with the famous English detective Herlock Sholmes arriving in Japan while being escorted by the Patrangers from a mob of media and fans. That really the name they're going with?
Herlock is in Japan to assist the Global Police with the Gangler/Lupinrangers case and instantly proves his crediability by pointing out a Gangler is disguise among the media.
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| There was more to it but the gist is, Mr. Sholmes is the only one with common sense |
After Herlock makes this claim, the Lupinrangers appear and prove him right by destroying the Ganglers human disguise.
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| His name is Wilson |
This new Gangler summons Pordermen and the two Sentai teams engage. Not bad, getting right to the action. The movie title card and theme song occur during this conflict and the fight itself is a nice throwback to the 3 way struggles the earlier episodes were known for. Camera work, choreography, and special effects are higher in quality to a typical episode. This is honestly a nice start to the film.
However, this fight is interrupted by the appearance of a second Gangler. Plot twist?
This scary looking monster shoots blue fire all over the battlefield which damages everyone and allows Wilson to capture the two Red Rangers, Keiichiro and Kairi. After this, the two of them find themselves in the Gangler world.
Once in the Ganlger world, Wilson, Destra, and Gouche are there waiting for them, forcing the two Reds to fight 3 on 2 with their arms tied up.
Back in the human world, the second Gangler tries another attack on the unmorphed Sakuya and Tsukasa, but is interrupted by Noël Takao. He henshins into Patran X and goes one on one with the blue fire Gangler. Noël Takao nearly defeats him and switches to Lupin X to get the collection piece, however this collection piece is revealed to be Meteor Drop which, as the same suggests, causes meteors to drop from the sky plummeting Noël Takao off the building they were fighting on. These half hour movies have an annoying habit of giving the 6th or extra ranger only one fight scene. Please don't do the same thing with this.
Meanwhile, the two Reds are on the loosing end of their fight and are ultimately blasted off a cliff to which the 3 Ganglers assume they died from. However, both end up hanging on by literal thread just escaping death.
Tsukasa and Sakuya are trying to with no luck to reach Keiichiro. At last, Herlock gets an idea; use himself as bait for Wilson so the Patrangers can capture him and make him open the gate to the Gangler World. Oh yeah, Herlock Sholmes was in this this too. Tooma and Umika see the news report about Herlocks appearance and figure out the Patrangers plan, so they decide to do the same to save Kairi. Really living up to the thief title.
Cutting back to the Gangler world, Kairi and Keiichiro have the old cliche of forming a truce at a campfire after some heart to heart. It is at this point that they meet an interesting creature.
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| A red goodstriker? |
It's Jackpot Striker! Catchy name... He escaped the Ganglers Mansion wants to go to the human world. With 3 reds now wanting to go to the human world, they decide to use the same Wilson strategy by sneaking into the Gangler mansion and confronting him. There are a lot of fast moving camera shots here. It is actually really well put together.
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| Moment of truth |
SPOILER ALERT! (Highlight to read)
Having located Wilson, the two reds end up eavesdropping on the main villain who reveals that the other 4 Rangers are in trouble since Herlock Sholmes is the blue fire Gangler from before. Dun dun dun!!!
Now the cat is out of the bag just as Keiichiro and Kairi get caught eavesdropping by Destra. Wilson returns to the human world and the 2 Reds fail to follow. So, the two are stuck fighting for their lives.
Back on the other side, Wilson arrives only to be surrounded by all 4 remaining Rangers has they have called a temporary truce. That was kind of predictable.
It is at this point that the blue fire Gangler reappears and catches the rangers off guard. Now, in both worlds, the Rangers are in a struggling battle.
Inside the Gangler world, Kairi and Keiichiro are stuck in a shootout, but with a little team work they manage to open Gouche's safe and replace her collection piece with Jackpot Striker. Thanks to that, Jackpot Striker is able to take control of Gouche and force her to open the gate to the human world. That felt a little morbid.
The Reds make it back in time to save the other rangers. Now, with all 6 present, they finally henshin up for the final battle. Why did they wait this long to morph? Also, why doesn't anyone care about Noël Takao? They did it again!
Now, the Patrangers and Lupinrangers are in full team up mode so the two Ganglers follow the old tradition of loosing their ability to fight back near the end. Both Lupin Collection Pieces are gathered at the same time.
Looks like, Jupiter and the Ginga Brace.
The two Strikers arrive at this point. Good Striker lets the Patrangers fuse. Kairi attempts to use Jackpot Striker to multiply like he would with Good Striker, but he causes them to also fuse to the horror of the Lupinrangers. But, didn't Kairi initially try to fuse with Good striker?
Okay, now I see why they only had the Patrangers fuse in the series. This is UGLY!!
The two fusions destroy the two Ganglers, then they grow giant. Naturally. Now, thanks to having two strikers, both teams are able to combine and fight. PatKaiser, and the new LupinRex. Of course, the Lupinrangers get the new movie exclusive Megazord.
Sadly, with only 3 minutes left in the film, there isn't enough time for any real battle. The two Ganglers pretty much just stand still taking hit after hit. This new LupinRex form is more powerful than LupinKaiser, it can fly and has fancy sword Technics. They finish off the two Ganglers with the classic finisher from PatKaiser, and a new one from LupinRex.
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| Skeith!!!! |
Monsters go boom, all conflicts resolved.
The movie does not have much of an epilogue. Although, Noël Takao makes one more cameo just to basically say he did nothing and "oh well".
With everything wrapped up, the last thing we see are they two teams congratulating themselves on a job well done. Fin.
Final Verdict
This movie was better than I thought it would be and easily a grade above a standard episode. The fight scenes were very well done, (minus the final battle) and this would have easily been a fun popcorn movie. That being said, it was far from flawless. Noël Takao got shafted like many extra rangers before him and I never understood why these shorter films felt the need to keep focus off of them. Also, the Herlock Sholmes story was poorly utilized and since he was used so much in advertising, you'd think they'd want to put that in the spotlight a little more. Lastly, this film is technically canon, but could end up never mention again so Jackpot Striker disappearing might never be explained. Overall, I'd give this flick a pass. I'm sure seeing it alongside its Kamen Rider counterpart film would have been a fun time. 3.5/5
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