This is a movie that I got the chance to see when my brother-in-law Pete invited me. He won tickets to the Gateway Film Center. What is funny is that he had no idea what this was. I had never seen an episode or any of the iterations of this hero. I did at least have an idea of who Ultraman was and bit of what we would get. This kicked off with an introduction from I believe the director, Shinji Higuchi. That set the stage.
We get a crash course of the world that this takes place in. It is ours, but Japan is being attacked by 'S-Class Species'. We would know them as kaiju. A defense force is created to deal with these. This includes different types of scientists as they help to identify and catalogue. One day, things take a turn. A giant man in a silver suit appears. He is referred to as Ultraman. He defeats a kaiju with ease. This makes Earth a target by extraterrestrials. Ultraman will need to decide to stay and fight or leave to protect humanity.
So, even though I had an idea of what I was getting here, it didn't fully prepare me. This felt to me like they took three or four episodes of the television show. One would end and the next problem would begin. This moves at such a fast pace that it was hard to follow in the beginning. I did settle in though. It seems like I'm just slamming this. I don't want that to be what you think. Seeing Ultraman fight the kaiju in the beginning was fun. If anything, I wanted them to slow that down to do more of. This is more of Ultraman dealing with other aliens. That also plays into commentary.
That is where I'll go. This feels a lot like Shin Godzilla, just toned down a bit. We see that there are government organizations that don't necessarily work well together. Each one wants the glory. There are also sediments of the United States with a negative light. As an American, I get it. We do step in and take things. We also do what we can to ensure no one gets more powerful than us. It feels like this movie is pushing to have Japan rise back to being a world power. I don't think there's anything wrong with this either.
Other than that, I'd say that the acting is good. They go a bit over the top at times, but I think that is in line with previous iterations. Takumi Saitoh was good as Shinji Kaminaga. Masami Nagasawa was quite attractive. I liked her as Hiroko Asami. I like the rest of their team as well. The effects here rely quite a bit on CGI. That's fine. I preferred doing things with suits, but I acknowledge that is more expensive. The effects here aren't bad though. This is well-made. I will give them that. With the almost two-hour runtime, this flies by.
All then I'll say to end this out is that this wasn't for me. I don't hate it. I wonder if I went back and watched the original stuff and then came into this if it would work better for me. That might be something I do one day.
My Rating: 6.5 out of 10.
We get a crash course of the world that this takes place in. It is ours, but Japan is being attacked by 'S-Class Species'. We would know them as kaiju. A defense force is created to deal with these. This includes different types of scientists as they help to identify and catalogue. One day, things take a turn. A giant man in a silver suit appears. He is referred to as Ultraman. He defeats a kaiju with ease. This makes Earth a target by extraterrestrials. Ultraman will need to decide to stay and fight or leave to protect humanity.
So, even though I had an idea of what I was getting here, it didn't fully prepare me. This felt to me like they took three or four episodes of the television show. One would end and the next problem would begin. This moves at such a fast pace that it was hard to follow in the beginning. I did settle in though. It seems like I'm just slamming this. I don't want that to be what you think. Seeing Ultraman fight the kaiju in the beginning was fun. If anything, I wanted them to slow that down to do more of. This is more of Ultraman dealing with other aliens. That also plays into commentary.
That is where I'll go. This feels a lot like Shin Godzilla, just toned down a bit. We see that there are government organizations that don't necessarily work well together. Each one wants the glory. There are also sediments of the United States with a negative light. As an American, I get it. We do step in and take things. We also do what we can to ensure no one gets more powerful than us. It feels like this movie is pushing to have Japan rise back to being a world power. I don't think there's anything wrong with this either.
Other than that, I'd say that the acting is good. They go a bit over the top at times, but I think that is in line with previous iterations. Takumi Saitoh was good as Shinji Kaminaga. Masami Nagasawa was quite attractive. I liked her as Hiroko Asami. I like the rest of their team as well. The effects here rely quite a bit on CGI. That's fine. I preferred doing things with suits, but I acknowledge that is more expensive. The effects here aren't bad though. This is well-made. I will give them that. With the almost two-hour runtime, this flies by.
All then I'll say to end this out is that this wasn't for me. I don't hate it. I wonder if I went back and watched the original stuff and then came into this if it would work better for me. That might be something I do one day.
My Rating: 6.5 out of 10.