The film's friendly, good-natured and all those nice PreCure things, but it's also dead. Don't watch it. It's one of the worst PreCure team-up movies. (Toei stopped making PreCure All Stars movies for a few years after this, with the next being All Stars F in September 2023 for approximately the 20th anniversary.)
Oh, and the theme song's been given to someone who can't sing. It's like having garden implements stuck in your ear.
As is normal these days, it stars the last three PreCure teams, which here means Hugtto!, Star Twinkle and Healin' Good. (The best thing about this film is that at last we've ditched Kirakira a la Mode.) The plot doesn't really matter, so we might as well discuss the girls.
HEALIN' GOOD = they're fine. They haven't been reduced to caricatures of themselves. Cure Earth isn't in the main film, because as usual this film was made to be released after the show had only been airing for a few weeks. That said, though, COVID-19 pushed back its release from March to October, so she says hello to the audience before the film starts.
STAR TWINKLE = I'd forgotten how many annoying things were associated with Star Twinkle. PP Abraham. Hikaru saying, "Kirayabaa!" (This is worse than Hana saying "mechokku" because from Hana the daft compound word is a shocked reaction to something, where's Hikaru's just being a twat.) On the upside, though, Blue Cat is hardly noticeable.
HUGTTO! = made me happy. It's nice to see them again. That said, though, Ruru's "something per cent chance" dialogue is overdone and a bit eye-rolling.
CAMEOS = my favourite was a throwaway nod to Urara from Yes! PreCure 5, but there's also Hibiki's mother from Suite and a few background schoolgirls from Mahoutsukai and KiraKira.
As for that plot, it's a time-twister. There's a Spirit of Tomorrow who's being hunted by a Spirit of Yesterday for reasons that, uh, um, because. We're not supposed to think about that. There's a cool bit halfway through where the film reboots itself and Nodoka realises that she's reliving this morning all over again. Yup, it's a low-rent Groundhog Day. (Apparently pointless beats like dad burning the toast are repeated, which is good for audience recognition but could have been improved by being funny or meaningful in the first place. I did, though, like the bit where Nodoka has to run off in a hurry because she's remembers that she's got a little boy to save again.)
There's a scene of fairies trying to save another fairy by shouting and waving their miracle lights, when they could have just strolled over and tapped him on the shoulder in less time. That scene's monsters are conveniently deaf and stupid.
And that's it. I've now described all the content of this film. We have to sit through all the transformation sequences, posing, stock speeches, etc. For some reason (cough protagonist cough), the Healin' Good girls are the only ones who can sense time reboots, even though Hugtto! was all about time travel and Star Twinkle had aliens and spaceships. I did, though, wake up for the cool music at 64 min for the fight climax. The good PreCure films manage to have an emotional core and a heartfelt bit at the end, but this one doesn't even have that. It doesn't have any meaningful non-superpowered characters at all. It really is just PreCures, fairies and spirits that the script's not interested in exploring.
Have Toei given up on PreCure? Did someone get out a rubber stamp saying "cash cow" and ban anything interesting in the franchise? Let's hope things will have changed again in another five years...