Kamen Rider ZO.

Back to Kamen Rider, we go!
 Released in 1993, ZO is a joint production between Toei and Bandai. And what is it about? Honestly it's a very...Kamen Rider story while having barely any plot at all. There is a mad scientist, the goal of creating the perfect life form, grasshoppers, ascending humanity, fingerless gloves, a jacket with rolled sleeves and of course monsters to do battle with. Hell it even comes with one of those padding sequences where a corny song randomly plays over a load of stock footage for a few minutes before the film carries on.

Okay, I'm not being very fair here. ZO is more the human story of a father and his son, but played out over such an action heavy fifty minutes with a ridiculously melodramatic tone and played completely straight, any attempt at emotionally engaging the audience in the characters or the story is laughable. Kamen Rider has had many a great character, many a great story and not every Kamen Rider show is this sentimental while also being so utterly shallow. It's a bit pathetic really.

Honestly one of the most disappointing aspects of the movie though is the actual Rider, ZO. He looks absolutely awesome, the suit isn't quite as busy, or as detailed, as modern suits but the design is refined, sleek and expensive looking, like a sexy sports car. It's his powers where he falls down...or rather his complete lack of them, he doesn't even have a Rider Kick! ZO just feels like he's bumbling his way through every fight and he really is quite crap, spending the majority of the movie getting beaten around the set and in many senses, in the end it isn't even him who defeats the villain. He is just absolutely awful.

It's worse still because this insanely bland Rider is balanced with an absolutely awesome villain. The Neo Life Form doesn't have really...any characterisation, but he is so well designed and impressively put together that he is just so much fun to watch, with an ultimate form that is just AWESOME. His powers are awesome as well, he can even make more awesome monsters for ZO to fight in his place.

Sadly, the special effects don't quite do the fantastic suits justice. The bigger, movie scale, of the action sequences certainly gives our villain a much bigger sense of power and makes it feel perhaps closer to the superpower genre than the shows often do but some of the special effects work is really quite hideous, I've seen special effects better in the Kamen Rider TV shows that came out like ten years before this. Thankfully the heavy special effects seem to get toned down further and further as the movie progresses but sadly the sense of scale diminishes along with it, so really the action is best described overall as dull and that is probably the main reason you are here. There isn't even a true climactic battle really.

So do I recommend it? There is basically nothing to appreciate in this movie, other than the Neo Life Form, and as awesome a monster he is, he doesn't make this film worthwhile, not at all. Awful.

Think About It!

-Locke

What would you rate, 'Kamen Rider ZO'?