Brian Camp
RESSHA SENTAI TOQGER THE MOVIE: GALAXY LINE S.O.S. (2014) is a 30-minute movie spin-off of the 2014 super sentai season, "Ressha Sentai Toqger," about a group of young fighters in superhero costumes who travel in trains on the mystical Rainbow Line taking on intergalactic villains from the Shadow Line. (For some reason, this season was never adapted for the U.S. Power Rangers franchise, even though the seasons before and after it were.) The movie is a fast-paced, entertaining mélange of action, color, special effects, Tokyo locations and attractive young performers. The plot has to do with Lady (Haruka Fukuhara), the female conductor of the Galaxy Line, making a once-every-25-years stop on Earth and getting stranded, requiring help from the Toqger team, despite efforts by Shadow Line villains Count Nile and Hound Shadow to stop them. The centerpiece of the short film is a lovely sequence that begins with Lady walking with the Toqgers, out of costume, through a Tokyo park and lamenting the lack of imagination in the populace, noting how everyone is looking down at their phones and not looking up to the sky. However, the team's Red Ranger, aka Right (Jun Shison), comes up with a plan to use the nearby Tokyo Skytree as part of a ramp to propel the Galaxy Line and points to all the children in the park willing to help with the power of their imagination, a requirement for the train to be able to leave Earth. He uses the Rainbow Line train to push the Galaxy Line's "Lion Train" up the tracks stretching above the skyline and the Tokyo Skytree, a broadcasting and observation tower located across the Sumida River opposite metropolitan Tokyo and, reportedly, the second tallest structure in the world. As the children rush to the edge of the park to watch, their imaginations are harnessed to complete the mission. It's all very beautiful and touching.In return for their help, Lady gives the Toqgers a set of Galaxy Line weapons to help in their continuing battles, on Tokyo locations, with Count Nile, Hound Shadow and their army of black-clad minions. The weapons include a few surprises and, in the spectacular zord battle finale, even involves the two trains from the Galaxy and Rainbow lines. The whole thing plays like a more polished, bigger-budgeted episode of the TV series. I enjoyed it a great deal and I don't see how sentai fans can go wrong with this. (If you need further convincing, check out the images I've submitted to IMDb's Photo Gallery for this film.) This film originally played on a double bill in Japanese theaters with that season's Kamen Rider movie spin-off, KAMEN RIDER GAIM. I am submitting this review on the third anniversary of the premiere of that double bill. For the record, Toqger is pronounced "Toe-KYU-jer."
