Verdict
Summary
What we really want is the fights, and with the Ultraman character being a silent werido fighter, the movie has an off-kilter center, but I think I can understand the appeal of this series and franchise … it’s geared for kids, but with all the boring talk I would imagine that kids would get bored when the plot and nonstop dialogue takes precedence over the action.
Plot:
A monolithic superhero shows up just when it’s needed to battle otherworldly behemoth monsters.
Review:
Japan’s S-Class Species Suppression Protocol unit (SSSP) has its hands full when huge, destructive monsters suddenly appear all over the place, decimating towns, landmarks, and power grids. One such creature feeds on electricity, and the only solution, it would seem, would be to shut down the power grid, but just in the nick of time a huge sleek and silver glowing humanoid man shows up and dukes it out with the creature and eliminates it with apparent ease. Who – what – is this man? It’s Ultraman! When it concludes its battle, Ultraman flies off and disappears, and the SSSP – and all of Japan and presumably the world – are indebted to him (it). Soon, an alien with a strange formless shape shows up and declares that earth is basically on its menu and that it intends on devouring humanity for its own purposes, but it is perplexed by this Ultraman creature that seems to protect humanity. A man named Shinji (Takumi Saitoh) who is a do-gooder and has a penchant for saving people, reveals himself to be the human incarnation of the extraterrestrial Ultraman, and it’s up to him and the SSSP to come up with a plan to stop the evil alien and its emissary (who looks human but can shape shift into a huge humanoid threat like Ultraman) from destroying earth and enslaving the human race. Expect some interesting and complicated looking battles to ensue.
With only the most basic knowledge of the Ultraman franchise, having seen the original film in a theater many years ago (in 35mm!), I went into Shin Ultraman with virtually a clean slate, and it was … about what I was expecting. There’s some fun smashing action between the weird chop-sockie metallic hero versus monsters, but there’s also a lot of talking heads, just like in Shin Godzilla, which was directed by this film’s director Shinji Higuchi. What we really want is the fights, and with the Ultraman character being a silent werido fighter, the movie has an off-kilter center, but I think I can understand the appeal of this series and franchise … it’s geared for kids, but with all the boring talk I would imagine that kids would get bored when the plot and nonstop dialogue takes precedence over the action. My 9 year-old watched the first 20 minutes of the movie with me, and then left. Enough said.
The new Blu-ray for Shin Ultraman comes with the trailer, a slide show, an English language track, plus the original Japanese version, with subtitles.
